I learned something today. There is no constitutional amendment mandating that a news outlet be credible. Truth. It is not against the
First Amendment to
suck at your job--even if you claim to be a news outlet.
It's been well-documented that the advent of
social media and advancement of all forms of other
technology have driven a vast change in the way
people get their information. How do you filter out the
commentary from the
news? Frighteningly, most people don't.
Shocking as it may be, at the center of this controversy is
Fox conservative propaganda passed off as factual News, which is attempting to block Google from using "news" content from its companies. While part of me is inclined to argue, "Who cares? They're not credible anyway," the fact of the matter is that we all should.
Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a leftist-leaning, First Amendment as a shield and a sword journalism guy. I love the free exchange of information afforded me by the Constitution. Per the (then) groundbreaking decision in
Near v. Minnesota, it is in violation of said First Amendment to stop people from saying something before they've said it. This is known as
prior restraint. It's a no no. Has been since 1931.
What am I missing? How does this business about Murdoch trying to block Google spiders from picking up information and disseminating through the same channels as...oh I dunno...everything else on the Internet not violate this Supreme Court decision?
Furthermore, in what context is this even smart? Google has kind of become the ubiquitous search engine, and when people want to find something, it's where they go. Microsoft and Yahoo couldn't compete, so they combined to produce Bing...and got to about
26% market share. (They're still separated out in the graphic as the rollout is still in process, but I combined the numbers.)
As I reread the article, I suppose it never does specify that this is taking place in the US, but it's the Internet. It's ubiquitous and omnipresent. I just fail to see how this works or in what context this is a good idea. Sell ads like everyone else on the Internet. You have a ready-made market segment just by virtue of your content.
Oh, and since you're in Australia, if you get an iPhone and
jailbreak it, you may end up with
wallpaper that's
never gonna give you up and never gonna let you down.
