Anyone who knows me knows I have a special hatred for broadcast television & particularly mainstream news. I stopped watching entirely right around the time the Lockout Law debate was stoking a furious anger in me that I had to disconnect from. So as a result my only exposure to this heinous cronenberg of corporate greed masquerading as the shield of democracy was when people on social media shared videos; or on occasion dip my toe in to see what the other half was consuming. For the most part I found that the internet had way better information, way quicker & without the obnoxious, past their peak botox laiden hacks that presented it. Here is an interesting juxtaposition of what I mean.
So when Youtube gave me a notification about the new proposed laws being presented at parliament, how they were going to change the way Youtube works in Australia & restrict my freedoms. My initial reaction was a kind of dull frustration, that fell away to a conflict. Because I am also not a fan of the big tech platforms. They (although not solely) have created the dopamine trap that a lot of people including myself are stuck in. Running away from uncomfortable realities with a constant barrage of content. Modern tech from hardware to software is designed to give you the illusion of action — particularly political — without actually having done anything in reality. But I would love nothing more than the collapse of the Murdoch propaganda machine & frankly all of the free to air channels. I don’t need them, you don’t need them, just give your grandparents VCR reruns of taped free to air & they won’t even notice the fucking difference.
The first thing I did was read the draft legislation. It’s very boring, as all legal documents are. But through the specific yet oddly vague document. A couple of things can be gleaned.
i) New Corps, & subsequently everyone involved in writing this legislation, do not understand how tech companies algorithms work. It even explicitly says in the document that these tech companies must explain it to them.
ii) There is a clear demand for News Corps to have priority in search engine rankings. Essentially asking tech platforms to game their algorithm to gerrymander results to favour Australian News Corps.
The second thing I did was google the legislation to see what said News Corps take on Youtubes notification was. I shouldn’t have been surprised, although I was. It was a barrage of articles declaring the notice inaccurate, followed by a cringy grandstand about how journalists are underpaid for the valuable service they provide in defending the rights of free speech, democracy & the West itself. You have to ask yourself where democracy would be without Buzzfeed’s Top Ten articles, or the camera man & field journalist covering a car crash in Greenacre. Subtly attempting to tie it to gangs, drugs, or youth delinquency to stoke the fears of your dear grandmother.
I must admit it’s a confusing reality to deal with, when you realise that we actually don’t really need the news as it currently exists at all. You want the weather? There’s an app for that. Stock prices? App. What’s happening in Yemen? Liveleak, Youtube, & Google have got you covered. But there is a real problem here. Those tech platforms mentioned above are held up by their content creators & actual journalists to facilitate their dispersion of information & keep viewers engaged. The good side of this relationship is that content creators & real journalists are not beholden to editors & propaganda sooth sayers that chop their work into pieces to fit into the Gated Institutional Narrative. The negative side is that creators are beholden to the dreaded algorithm, which tech platforms admit they themselves have limited control over, which can be gamed by IP holders to smash opinions they don’t like or censor just as easily as the News Corps can.
There is a solution though, without needing to bolster the powers of an oligarchy in the form of mainstream broadcast media through vague & disruptive legislation. This video explains the solution much better than I would. But basically if you take the idea of that video, being MID’s (Mediator of Individual Data) & apply it to the content creators & independent journalists, you can solve the monetization problem & now all of a sudden there is no real need for Nine News or any other media monopoly to hire journalists, filter information as a business & ultimately control the public opinion.
But ultimately, this legislation, & the existing corporate news structure are victims of their own incompetence & lack of innovation. The reality is, the News Corps — like a lot of us — did not adapt to the internet well, & stubbornly persisted with old models that are & will continue to be out competed by the internet & the new decentralised information network we live in. It’s no coincidence that Australian’s don’t own any tech platforms, search engines, or even make their own hardware. It’s because we were asleep as a culture. Making easy money through real estate, construction & mining instead of innovating intelligently. At this point in history, I wonder whether Australia should drop the charade, & declare themselves the 51st state of America. That way we could stop the change the date debate & celebrate the fourth of July.
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