Facebook has decided to do the unthinkable and stop Australians – and people overseas posting news from Down Under – sharing their favourite media stories. This move comes just a day after it was announced that Google and a few Australian news organisations had reached agreements on profit sharing.
This move by the tech giant pushes people over to Twitter, but it might have an unintended effect as people, driven by who they are – sharing embodies intrinsic parts of our personalities – start to write their own posts with perhaps the occasional quote from a news outlet. Or even with no quotes – Facebook might block such use of its interface – and, rather, paraphrased extracts of news stories.
We’ll have to see what happens. Twitter, meanwhile will take more territory from its competitor. The government hasn’t asked Twitter to share any profits from its use of news, so as far as things stand currently – the day this article you’re reading was posted – there’s no reason to fear that it’ll become completely impossible for people to engage with other around the news campfire.
Whatever happens, the Facebook shift will increase the importance of literacy. People now – eager to connect with friends and family, and denied a basic freedom by Facebook’s greed – will learn to craft sentences that have the same pith and rigour as your average news story. Short, sharp, to-the-point.
News is where we live. We’re swimming in stories like fish in the sea. Without stories we die. Solitary confinement can be fatal as it changes the way our brains work, so being connected with others in a news environment is critical to the health of the polis. Without this outlet we feel frustration and will resort to other measures in order to release the pent-up emotions we harbour as a result of dealing with the fear and loathing of daily life. News liberates as it consoles.
It can also terrify and anger. But whatever happens, with Facebook’s decision comes a moment when Australians – and, indeed, the world – must find other ways to message, to shine a light on the hill, to let fly the billows of signal smoke across the valleys of the oceans.
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