Meta Threatens To Pull News From Facebook If Congress Passes Media Bill (cnet.com) 161
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: Facebook parent company Meta on Monday threatened to remove news from its social media platform in the US if Congress approves a bill that would allow news organizations to collectively bargain with tech companies for compensation. Andy Stone, Meta's head of policy communications, wrote on Twitter that Facebook would "be forced to consider removing news" if the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act becomes law. He added that the proposal fails to recognize that publishers and broadcasters put their content on Facebook "because it benefits their bottom line -- not the other way around."
The bill, which was proposed in March 2021, is reportedly being considered by lawmakers for inclusion with a must-pass annual defense bill. The News Media Alliance, a trade group representing newspaper publishers that supports the bill, called Facebook's threat "undemocratic and unbecoming," adding that "as the tech platforms compensate news publishers around the world, it demonstrates there is a demand and economic value for news." More than 20 organizations, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge and the Computer & Communications Industry Association, have urged lawmakers to reconsider support for the "problematic" bill, warning (PDF) that it would "create an ill-advised antitrust exemption for publishers and broadcasters." A similar law in Australia giving the government power to make internet giants Meta and Alphabet's Google negotiate content supply deals with media outlets has largely worked, a government report said last week. But the bill did result in a brief shutdown of Facebook news feeds in the country.
The bill, which was proposed in March 2021, is reportedly being considered by lawmakers for inclusion with a must-pass annual defense bill. The News Media Alliance, a trade group representing newspaper publishers that supports the bill, called Facebook's threat "undemocratic and unbecoming," adding that "as the tech platforms compensate news publishers around the world, it demonstrates there is a demand and economic value for news." More than 20 organizations, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge and the Computer & Communications Industry Association, have urged lawmakers to reconsider support for the "problematic" bill, warning (PDF) that it would "create an ill-advised antitrust exemption for publishers and broadcasters." A similar law in Australia giving the government power to make internet giants Meta and Alphabet's Google negotiate content supply deals with media outlets has largely worked, a government report said last week. But the bill did result in a brief shutdown of Facebook news feeds in the country.
May they Both (Score:4, Insightful)
die a horrible death
Re: May they Both (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah this bill seems like a terrible idea, but so is Meta...
Re: May they Both (Score:5, Informative)
Isn't Google paying for news printed in search results? At least in Europe due to legal rulings there.
Facebook said that they would "consider" removing news. To me, that just means that they'll continue and work with whoever as long as it's profitable. So it's just an empty threat since it'll probably continue to be profitable.
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What exactly in the Facebook 'news' feed does Facebook actually consider news? Most of what I see is ads for stuff that stalk me based on once having visited some ecommerce site. Most of the rest appears to be paid fake news clickbait stories or cutesy memes that link to sites full of miracle cures and ED medications. What remains consists of paid political ads and a few things posted or linked to by my actual friends.
So what is actually on the potential chopping block here - because all I really want to
Re: May they Both (Score:2)
This bill will probably guarantee payment for clickbait content, in addition to expanding the existing copyright cartel.
Re:May they Both (Score:4)
I wouldn't really notice if Facebook/Meta would disappear tomorrow.
Re: May they Both (Score:2)
I would'nt really notice if the New York Times and Washington Post disappeared tomorrow.
Re: May they Both (Score:4, Insightful)
I wouldn't notice if all the major news organizations shut down at the same time. They are all owned by the same small handful of partisan companies, and not one of them can be trusted. Fox, CBS, NBC, ABC (did I some some?), and many faux-local stations are all cancers on society, and all are pushing agendas rather than reporting the news.
The same is true of social media sites propagating false stories.
Re:May they Both (Score:5, Insightful)
Am I the only person who would be thrilled to see this actually happen? I'd love for ALL the "news" to be removed since a good portion of it is fake news at this point and I'd rather people have to go hunt it out rather than having it force fed to them. Of course someone would share something from an "independent website" but those could be added to the ban list as necessary.
Re:May they Both (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think you're the only one who feels this way. If all social media sites banned news completely then actual journalists at the network TV news stations would be able to afford to start operating with basic integrity again.
Re:May they Both (Score:5, Insightful)
Removing "news" from Facebook would be a major step forward for the entire planet. In my world, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, etc... should NOT be able to carry news.
The way these services show "news" completely distorts the entire point of most news stories. In an ideal world, news would be delivered with as little bias and opinion as feasibly possible. There was a time we lived in this world not long ago. The internet has completely bastardized information.
About the only "Social Media" company I'd be even sort of OK with carrying news, would be search results returned by search engines linked directly to a news outlet. Even this I'd be willing to have removed for the sake of clarity.
--
The brains of humans contain a mechanism that is designed to give priority to bad news. - Daniel Kahneman
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There was a time we lived in this world not long ago.
We have never lived in that world. News has always been disseminated with an angle. Before social media, the narrative behind the angle was controlled by even fewer people than it is now. It has always sucked, but the past was narrated by those more experienced in plausible deceit.
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There was a time we lived in this world not long ago.
We have never lived in that world. News has always been disseminated with an angle. Before social media, the narrative behind the angle was controlled by even fewer people than it is now. It has always sucked, but the past was narrated by those more experienced in plausible deceit.
It's been not-great but it's never been nearly as sensationalist and partisan that it is now.
Go read some local newspaper clips from ~40 years ago. I have the paper from the day i was born and i've flipped through it. The approach to reporting is vastly different than today.
Oh look... (Score:3)
This shit again. Unfortunately Facebook has shown clearly that they a) played dirty by not just pulling their news service but also blocking all government and news agencies even those who are posting on their own volition, and b) that they capitulate when called out on it.
Is Facebook auditioning for the role of Macbeth? "It is a tail, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing."
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It may even be a tale but hey it's been 30 years since I studied Shakespeare, how should I remember how he spelt the word.
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You probably didn't study the original spelling. Most works that old predate standardized spellings, but most people only see the normalized spelling passed through modern dictionaries. Here is the original:
https://internetshakespeare.uv... [internetsh...re.uvic.ca]
Re: (Score:2)
You probably didn't study the original spelling.
I probably did but was too young and immature to take note of it. I bet I even had a chuckle at the word ideot before getting in trouble by the teacher for disrupting the class.
Re:Oh look... (Score:5, Insightful)
Australia, along with a few other countries, is also known for having the spine & social conscience to pass laws that effectively restrict the possession & use of firearms after they had a mass-shooting too many. US congress has effectively done nothing & mass-shootings have become an every day feature of life in the USA.
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So Australia doesn't have effective equivalents of US 1st and 2nd amendments.
Neither does Iran.
Not something worth bringing about.
Nearly every country doesn't have the equivalents of the US 1st and 2nd amendment. No need to point to Iran specifically. You can chose many successful wealthy western nations too.
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Fuck me I'm on a roll with spelling mistakes today.
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Australia also set up and routed people into essentially "covid concentration camps" by force.
Did you get that from Fox News? Why don't you find out what Australia's public health policies actually were before making a fool of yourself?
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Yeah they did the same shit here in Australia.
And they gave in. Because people stopped using facebook.
Which tells me that Congress would do VERY WELL to call Facebooks bluff on this one.
Because Facebook is frankly pretty harmful, and I think thats something both sides of politics can agree on.
Re: Oh look... (Score:2, Troll)
Re:Oh look... (Score:5, Interesting)
In all Honesty, as much as I dislike Facebook, the outcome I'd expect from such laws is that Facebook bans all the news organizations, and all official links to their news feeds unless they negotiate to pay Facebook to carry them. Get it in writing that Facebook will "permit" X news organization if they pay Facebook $1. It doesn't have to be any specific amount, but it does have to be a contract that says "News agency pays us to carry their news. Period."
This nonsense also has gone on in Australia and Canada, and while I can see Facebook maybe giving the middle finger to Australia and Canada, that's something that will ultimately hurt them in the long run as long as Google isn't playing by the same rules.
When I want to know about news, I type "news.google.com" into the address bar. I don't care who tells me the news. But when I see pay wall after paywall, I just stop going to those sites entirely.
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Yeah - what is Facebook even paying for by linking to a paywall, anyway? Shouldn't that not even count?
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It's a cake and eat it too situation. We have a supreme court case that is literally about a company that designs websites and if they need to carry messages they find objectionable. The right supports their right to not carry those messages while at the same time wanting to force another company to carry those messages.
The difference they will say is 'religious freedom', but that's the same 1st amendment either way.
Then we get to move from there into "web design is art and art is speech and an artist shoul
Re: (Score:3)
It gets slippery and sloapy from there.
Indeed that is the intersection between freedom of speech and public accommodation. Can a business open to the public refuse to serve Jews? How about black people? You may indeed think yes, yes they should be able to exclude anyone for anything because freedom. I'm not convinced that making your country more like 1950s Mississippi or 1930s Germany will make it better here in the 21st century. I think it is good those things are now just history to hopefully be learned from.
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But how does some website refusal to carry a message restricts freedom of speech? Internet is open to everyone; setting up your own website and posting whatever message you want is all but free, in both freedom and money sense.
I must have missed something (Score:3, Informative)
The News organizations are prohibited to bargain collectively?
The US is not the land of the free anymore. Its the land of special interest laws.
Re:I must have missed something (Score:5, Interesting)
The US is not the land of the free anymore.
Never was, never will be. If there's lawlessness, there's no absolute "freedom from". It's might makes right, and you're never mightiest.
If there's lawfulness, there's no absolute "freedom to". Stop using this logic bomb of a word.
Re: I must have missed something (Score:3)
There is never freedom from, because that implies a government absolutism on behalf of one party. Freedom to is restricted by laws, hence why laws should be minimized or not exist.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
There is never freedom from, because that implies a government absolutism on behalf of one party. Freedom to is restricted by laws, hence why laws should be minimized or not exist.
Go live in Somalia for a while and if you survive let us know how much you enjoy living without laws.
Re: (Score:3)
There is law there, it's called Sharia. They have too many governments there all claiming the same land.
Re: I must have missed something (Score:3)
No, they are allowed, but Facebook and the like donâ(TM)t have to take their agreement. This would basically regulate Facebook so they have to take the agreements.
As in Australia this will result in highly filtered news feeds basically turning news articles into a payola system, FB/Google basically tell the companies they have to go through their curation and the biggest news organizations will have the money to bid on publishing rights to get their news published while the small ones donâ(TM)t.
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When people who sell something conspire in constraint of trade, for example to set a minimum price for their goods, they typically violate anti-trust laws to do so.
It's why sports leagues and unions get special exceptions from those laws.
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Price fixing, bid rigging, and other forms of collusion are illegal and are subject to criminal prosecution by the Antitrust Division of the United States.
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The News organizations are prohibited to bargain collectively?
The US is not the land of the free anymore. Its the land of special interest laws.
Yes, we have these draconian anti-trust laws that prevent companies from colluding on pricing. It's horrible. This bill will fix it, for one industry and for a limited time:
This bill creates a four-year safe harbor from antitrust laws for print, broadcast, or digital news companies to collectively negotiate with online content distributors (e.g., social media companies) regarding the terms on which the news companies' content may be distributed by online content distributors.
Re: (Score:2)
yes, you are missing the definition of a cartel. A cartel is usually illegal.
Imagine if gas station colluded in a city to raise prices, it is exactly what news organizations wants to do here.
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yes, they basically want to be allowed to form a cartel to negotiate with Facebook. Without this law (which can be called special interest), it would be illegal to do so.
Re: (Score:3)
That sounds like Union talk. Unions are evil and must be destroyed at all cost! Long live the corporate monopolies!
I didn't know corporations could join unions. Guess we really take that "companies are people" thing seriously around here.
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Isn't it called a cartel when corporations form unions?
It's not a bug, it's a feature. (Score:5, Interesting)
In all honesty, this is not a threat. This is an upcoming feature announcement. By removing news, the platform will become more what it should be in the first place - a social media platform rather than a news outlet.
Re: (Score:3)
Forget it, because Meta pulling the news is an empty threat. The whole point is to keep people on their page and pulling the news would mean that eyeballs would move off to other sites. VERBOTEN!
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How is Meta showing news any different than seeing a tv in a public establishment?
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For one, they're supposed to be a social site first, not a TV channel.
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Well, it sure has no shortage of people who broadcast their opinions. And that's pretty much what the news have descended into, so...
Good (Score:5, Interesting)
Good. News (and conspiracy-theory minded fake news) is part of what ruins Facebook. It should be a place to keep in touch with old high school friends you don't really want to see in real life, but are willing to tolerate electronic contact. News and politics turn Facebook into a cesspool.
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Exactly; I would say "news agencies" should get punative rates set from any "social media" company reposting or linking to their content. Of course, any agency that remains can be the go-to source for mis-information among the varioius echo chambers, but hey.
I like to think of myself as wishing the best for everyone. Meta is not in that realm though.
Re: (Score:2)
This law will remove actual news but do nothing to stop fake news. It will have the opposite affect to what you want.
Re: (Score:2)
But it'd make Facebook's moderation easier. If it looks like "news", it gets taken down, and there are no free speech issues because all news and "news" gets removed.
Re: Good (Score:2)
I don't think this bill is trying to stop fake news. It is trying to protect the revenue of news agencies.
Re: (Score:2)
This bill makes it such that FB has to pay for the former type but not the latter. Although not universally true, the former tends to make an attempt at accuracy where the latter often intends to be false.
What this will really do i
Preserve the Buggy Whip! (Score:5, Insightful)
A dying product is seeking special support by the government. There is no free market, move along, move along.
Do it, Do it, Do it (Score:2)
NO ! What next ? Shut down the metaverse ? (Score:5, Funny)
What will we poor, simple people do without it ?!
We must all immediately apologize to Zuck, and send him our addresses and SS numbers by way of apology !
Nobody cares about you (Score:2)
This isn't a threat to you it's a threat to news outlets. News outlets need that traffic because without it nobody bothers going to their sites. When was the last time you went to a random news site? How often do the people hear just go to HuffPo or the AP or even a local news site in and of itself? During an election season may
Re: (Score:2)
"Facebook drives about 69% (nice)" of "internet traffic" ?
I call bullshit.
Re: Nobody cares about you (Score:2)
Iâ(TM)m not so sure FB can live without news. When FB tried the same thing in Australia people stopped using FB. This is likely to happen in the US if they stop carrying news.
Re: (Score:2)
Why was that modded funny?
Disclaimer needed? My identity on Facebook was just murdered and I am not going to present my papers to recover it. If Facebook had demanded each new member present "papers" in advance, this entire Facebook problem would have died before birth.
(I did download "my" data. At least the parts Facebook would admit to having. Could not find any explanation for the death penalty, but slight (timing-based) evidence points at a dormant group. So my current theory is a bushwhacking via some
Who is collecting and distributing the payout? (Score:2)
I hope they keep the fake news (Score:2)
Only that made Facebook somewhat interesting.
I don't understand... (Score:5, Insightful)
If someone posts a New York Times or Washington Post or L.A. Times article, it's paywalled so you can't read it. So Facebook isn't sharing that content for free. (Yeah, yeah, yeah I know there are hacks and this and that, but Joe Average can't read it.)
If the link is to a non-paywalled news site like CNN or PBS Newshour or Fox then the Facebook link is driving traffic to their sites, which is what they want.
What am I not getting?
Re:I don't understand... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think that the argument the news sites are pushing is that the social sites are not just "linking" to the news sites: They are pulling content from the media sites and displaying it. The user then reads the content on the social site and never actually goes to the media site where the media site can monetize the presence of the user through advertising.
If the social site only had a link to the media site page and a link label like "read about interesting news here!" then it would be a positive thing for the media site, BUT it would mean that the user is clicking AWAY from the social site, which the social site does not want since then they don't get to monetize the user anymore.
So, the social site pulls enough content from the media site to satisfy the curiosity of the user and the user never clicks away from the social site. The media site has done the work to collect the news and put it on their site, but the social site lures the user into reading the information only on the social site and the media site doesn't make money off the user.
The social site plays a game where they take just enough of the information from the news site to satisfy the user's curiosity, but not enough to get called out for plagiarism or copyright infringement.
So the argument from the news sites (and their many lobbyists) is that if the social sites take their content without allowing the media sites to profit from it, they need to compensate the media sites for their work.
IMNSHO: I really don't care if the social sites carry news or not: I get my news from reputable sources. Anyone who gets news from social sites is risking being really badly informed because of the social sites using algorithms to manipulate the users and what they get to see.
Re: (Score:3)
They are pulling content from the media sites and displaying it
Fair use under Copyright law. Especially since they're only indexing the paywalled version. But also disingenuous if the news organization itself populates Open Graph tags specifically to control the presentation and tell Facebook what text to include.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So, the social site pulls enough content from the media site to satisfy the curiosity of the user and the user never clicks away from the social site. The media site has done the work to collect the news and put it on their site, but the social site lures the user into reading the information only on the social site and the media site doesn't make money off the user.
Wait until you find out that Slashdot might have to start paying royalties as a "social" site.
Re: (Score:2)
If you are the New York Post, you might accept $0.01 for every 100 reads of the story, WaPo might want $0.05 and some outlets might have to accept a lower number. Hence why some full articles are available and others a
Re: (Score:3)
I think that the argument the news sites are pushing is that the social sites are not just "linking" to the news sites: They are pulling content from the media sites and displaying it. The user then reads the content on the social site and never actually goes to the media site where the media site can monetize the presence of the user through advertising.
That's not what happens though... which anyone who has ever actually posted a link to an external article in Facebook would already know. If you post that link to your feed or in a comment or wherever, Facebook fetches and displays the headline, one picture, maybe the first sentence or two from the article, and that's it. If someone wants to... you know... actually read the article so as to know and understand what it's about and be able to comment intelligently, they still have to click through and goto
Re: (Score:2)
Copyright rules allow FB to make lots of money, without breaking the rules.
However the only reason they can make any money is that they have readers. They have a monopoly on eyeballs, which they rent out to publishers.
That used to be against the rules: less so these days (:-()
Re: (Score:3)
Let me ask you something, this being Slashdot. Did you click on the article or just read the summary? I know the answer for most of us. They can easily claim that just creating a headline and a summary is "valuable content" and that the whole rest of the article doesn't even matter.
Re: (Score:2)
Actual summaries aren't covered by copyright, and shouldn't be. Excerpts are, and you can't claim fair use if the except is presented wholly for purposes of profit, which is clearly the case. Only by not collecting revenues related to the activity could Google or Facebook or whoever change that, which obviously isn't going to happen. If all they were showing was a summary of the article then the news orgs wouldn't have a leg to stand on, but they are in fact showing excerpts.
One technology-based way to hand
Re: (Score:2)
Actual summaries aren't covered by copyright, and shouldn't be.
To be precise, summaries aren't considered derived works of the original. If I write an article and you summarize it, I have no ownership of your summary. You own the copyright in your summary. If anyone else wants to publish copies of your summary (including me!), they need your permission.
Note that this is only true if your summary is a true "summary", meaning a very brief description of the content. A longer and more detailed exposition could well be called an abridgement or a condensation, even if it
Threatens? Please, do! (Score:2)
Slashdot collective response... (Score:2)
News? You keep using this word (Score:2)
I do not think it means what you think it means.
Don't threaten me with saving democracy! (Score:2)
Facebook remove news from facebook. World breathes sigh of relief.
UFOs (Score:2)
The UAP Report to Congress is criminally six weeks late waiting on new immunity grants in the new NDAA.
There are people who are stuck with an NDA and everybody who can release them is dead but people who can prosecute them just left JAG school.
And Facebook is holding up disclosure. I don't think Zuck is an alien but it's a bad look.
I'm taking my ball, (Score:2)
and I'm going home.
Although I'm sure this is an empty threat, I'd sincerely love to see FB actually do it. For one, a significant stimulus to doomscrolling would disappear overnight. For another, deleting news items might make the echo chambers a bit smaller. Third, it would probably hasten Facebook's demise and allow room for a site / service that is what FB might have been in the absence of Zuck's greed and megalomania.
We have a saying for a statement like this.... (Score:2)
Stop. Don't. (Score:2)
Come back.
Sounds like a win-win! (Score:2)
Seems like (Score:2)
Pirate Bay threatens to remove movies from site... (Score:2)
In related news: The Pirate Bay threatens to remove movies from site unless the MPAA stops going after them for compensation.
Who cares? (Score:2)
I never ... (Score:2)
... met a threat I didn't like.
Meta isn't basically Facebook?! (Score:2)
Sophists: always say something true and misleading (Score:2)
Andy Stone "added that the proposal fails to recognize that publishers and broadcasters put their content on Facebook "because it benefits their bottom line -- not the other way around."
That's trivially true, but doesn't speak to the argument of whether Facebook should pay publishers. FB is better at making money than the publisher, from the publisher's work. Publishers (such as myself: I have a blog) post on FB because that's the only way to get any readers at all. FB gets me readers, and for the privile
No....please....don't (Score:2)
That would be just terrible.
Sounds great (Score:2)
Or just let me filter all shared content from my feed. If the person I am friends with did not create it directly, I don't want to see it.
I can dream...
Undemocratic and unbecoming (Score:2)
Undemocratic?
What happened to "But muh private company!"
Oh. RIGHT! "It's okay when WE do it!"
Unbecoming?
So it makes them look bad to a bunch of bureaucrats and grifters looking to stick them up for money at a moment's notice.
Boo-fuckin-hoo!
Translation (Score:2)
Yes, that's the point.
Translation: You need to make us happy more than you need to make this special-interest cartel that we're 'stealing' content from, happy.
"Removing the news", shouldn't you first, have the news?
It's not a threat if it's the most likely outcome (Score:2)
Collective bargaining only works if the collective has something to bargain with.
Facebook could almost instantly block posting links to news articles and it would probably improve their service.
So threatening to block them or refusing to negotiate with the collective after it passes is basically the same thing.
I think news articles underestimate their importance to facebook.
Google news is a different story but it probably actually hurts facebook because links to news sites takes eyeballs away from facebook.
Go ahead (Score:2)
The News is biased enough as it is without adding Facebook's spin on it.
If I need to know something, the LAST place I'm going to go look for it is on Facebook. :|
In fact, if the only place a thing CAN be found is on Facebook, I simply forgo finding said thing.
( assuming I was desperate enough to make a FB account in the first place )
What's the catch? (Score:5, Insightful)
If news is removed from Facebook...
1) people will stop getting their news from goddamn Facebook, which is roughly the equivalent of getting your news from the Tonight Show monologue;
2) Facebook will be used less often for political debate, and used more often for stupid cat videos, which is the content it is best suited for;
3) actual news sites get their traffic back.
I don't see any downside to this (except that Facebook will lose some traffic to other sites). Remove away.
Re:"inclusion with a must-pass annual defense bill (Score:4, Insightful)
Bills should have to include a statement of the bill's *specific* context, and anything not in that context may not - by law - be included in that bill.
Re: (Score:2)
Facebook is mostly used on devices that have no keyboard.
Far too much of the traffic is just people linking to something they saw somewhere else, not writing their own messages.
To keep people from leaving the site, Facebook converts those links into a picture and summary.