The fallacies of the arm-wrestling between the press and digital platforms
(Based on a Portuguese text with the help of Google Translator and Grammarly)
The political and commercial battle between traditional journalistic conglomerates and digital platforms on the Internet puzzles public opinion because both sides are using wrong arguments to hide what really matters. But first of all, we need to make it clear that journalism and the press are not synonymous in the same way that digital platforms and social networks are not the same thing.
Journalism is the function of investigating, editing and publishing data, facts and events considered relevant to society. The press is the generic name for companies that sell news produced by journalists. Digital platforms are companies such as Facebook, Google and Twitter that provide the technological infrastructure for Internet users to create interpersonal communication networks.
Thus, what we are witnessing today is a dispute between press bodies and platforms. It is not a confrontation between journalists and users of virtual social networks, since both provide the contents that make the press and the digital platforms socially and financially viable. In this confrontation, what is at stake are business and financial interests to which both journalism professionals and us network users do not have access.
The traditional press is in financial decline and demands regulation of social networks to prolong the survival of newspapers, magazines and radio and TV stations, using as an argument the fact that digital platforms refuse to accept the legal rules created by large conglomerates of media. The press alleges that the platforms profit from fake news and hate speech despite having benefited from these same crimes throughout their history.
The platforms, on the other hand, based on the privileged situation created by the billionaire fortunes accumulated with the migration of advertising to the internet, claim that they will not submit to the current rules because they are not press organizations, ignoring the fact that they depend on the flow of conversations between their users. They claim that they do not produce content, but do not mention the fact that the flow of messages is managed by algorithms programmed to give more visibility to content that is more likely to attract paid advertising. Thus they interfere in the way people access the news in the same way that newspapers determine which news deserves to be in the headlines of the front page.
Basically, both the press and the platforms use content (news and conversations) to attract people’s attention as a way of giving visibility to paid advertising. In this, they use the same resource, except that the formula used by the press no longer yields the profits it used to, while the platforms swim in money from advertisers. Then we have a problem of a segment that does not want to continue losing money while another only thinks about continuing to earn high.
Platforms under heavy pressure
In the midst of all this are journalists and people who have adopted the habit of communicating via the Internet. As both the press and the platforms make money based on published content, capitalist logic indicates that both journalists and Internet users should be remunerated for providing the information material that attracted paid advertisements. The controversy becomes complicated when discussing how a new financial allocation of the advertising pie would be. Print media claim that they already pay the salaries of their reporters, photographers, editors and technical staff, while platforms say they only refer Internet users to the websites of press bodies.
Canada and Australia created laws forcing platforms to pay for the use of news, reports, interviews and videos produced by traditional journalistic companies. The experience still needs to be updated for the results to be imitated. But from what is already known, the producers of content published on the internet, whether professionals or amateurs have minimal participation in revenue sharing.
The traditional press intends to frame the platforms in regulation with the force of law to force them to slow down their economic and political growth. It’s a thorny struggle for both parties. Platforms refuse to be regulated out of arrogance and arrogance. They don’t lose money if they are subjected to rules about fake news and hate speech. At most, they fail to earn a few thousand dollars, but the bulk of advertising revenue will remain and may even increase.
The problem is that the press wants to regulate the platforms, but does not allow the same principle to be applied to them, as shown by the historic diatribes against any attempt, even mild, to expand the set of laws that discipline the functioning of newspapers, magazines and TV news. It is a well-known fact that President Lula’s opponents, every now and then, make a lot of noise around supposed governmental plans to regulate the Brazilian press.
What both the mainstream press and the platforms ignore, or pretend to ignore, is the fact that the core issue in arm wrestling runs deeper than the rant over money or concerns about fake news and hate speech. We are facing a radical change in the field of social communication. News is no longer something scarce and expensive. Millions of people around the world are now able to voice their opinions to millions of other individuals. The flow of information has become almost instantaneous. Digitization has enabled the datification, and transformation into digital numbers, of everything that surrounds us. Intellectual property is being replaced by permanent innovation. We live immersed in information.
These are processes and phenomena that are changing our way of existing and, therefore, need to be taken into account when resolving disputes between the press and platforms. It is irrational to want to submit the social networks, which give life to the platforms, to the same editorial, financial and managerial regime adopted by the conventional press. But it is also undeniable that one cannot simply erase the entire information culture developed over just over 200 years of professional journalism.
