Facebook snubs Australia This morning Facebook promised/threatened to stop Australian users from sharing news articles on the platform if the government passes a code of conduct forcing tech giants to pay news publishers. And, perhaps fittingly, Australia media outlets were the last to get the story.
Instead, The New York Times got the drop, while NBC got a sit-down interview with Campbell Brown, Facebook’s vice president of global news partnerships. Brown also spoke to Bloomberg.
Australia, on the other hand, got the news through a blog post. No local journalists seem to have been briefed, and Facebook has reportedly said it will not be doing any interviews with Australian outlets.
So while the shakedown may be targeted at the Australian government, their media strategy suggests they’re thinking a lot bigger.
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Lifters and leaners Just weeks before JobKeeper payments are set to fall, Labor MP Andrew Leigh has hit out at big firms who are using the scheme while giving CEOs huge bonuses.
In a fiery speech in the House of Representatives, Leigh named and shamed some of the worst offenders.
Footwear retailer Accent Group got $13 million in JobKeeper subsidies and paid CEO Daniel Agostinelli a $1.2 million bonus.
IDP Education boss Andrew Barkla, Australia’s highest paid CEO last year, got a $600,000 bonus while his firm raked in $4 million in JobKeeper.
Star Casino got a whopping $64 million, and duly gave CEO Matt Bekier an $800,000 equity bonus.
Clinton Feuerherdt of SeaLink got $500,000, as the company received $8 million.
Nick Scali furniture got $4 million, and will give out $2 million in dividends to the Scali family.
Shoppies knocked off their perch Tantex, one of McDonalds’ biggest franchisees, will be forced to pay compensation after threatening employees for taking bathroom breaks. But what’s interesting is Tantex’s case was taken up by the Retail and Fast Food Workers’ Union (RAFFWU), and not the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA), who’ve traditionally represented workers in the sector.
The RAFFWU has only been around four years, and emerged out of dissatisfaction with the SDA, who critics said were too busy cosying up to employers like McDonalds and prosecuting conservative moral crusades than fighting for workers, who were being sold out by bad deals. And if the Tantex case is anything to go by, the RAFFWU is really picking up the slack.
Dear Leader Even by The Australian’s usually sycophantic standards, this is pretty cringe:
Cain tweets from beyond the grave On July 30, Herman Cain, a one-time Republican presidential candidate, died of COVID-related complications. Two weeks later, his ghost started tweeting.
Since then, the account, which now calls itself “The Cain Gang” (only marginally less spooky) has been tweeting out a storm of pro-Trump content. It’s also safe to say that Cain’s missives from the great beyond have taken on a dark kind of irony.
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Scott Morrison visionary, decisive leader????? And my name is Pol Pot.
Jesus!
Indeed. The Australian being more embarrassingly bad than usual.
Looks like Crikey is going the same way as Insiders…I know, how juvenile of me!
Thought it would be obvious that the viewing public had changed significantly at the Insiders…all those RWNJs following one of their Sky News favourites in David Speers. Not to mention that his ‘guests’ are almost entirely from putrid Murdoch sources, with an occasional ABC of the same ilk thrown in.
So…here at Crikey, we are suffering the same fate it seems…former editors of the Murdoch variety now in charge! Is that the reason why Andrew Leigh gets a few lines well hidden in a mish-mash article, when we have obvious corruption going on with Jobkeeper? Where is the outrage, the attacks on this useless government who couldn’t run a raffle successfully?
Crikey…a shadow of your former self…taken over by the RWNJs!!
VALE!!!!!!
I tend to agree CML. From Crikey’s arrogant attitude to its subscribers over the absolute debacle of the new commenters format rollout to its silence over the ‘No Comment’ articles, usually regarding the clergy or ‘sensitive’ political cases, I’m getting royally pissed off!
Hurray, I just noticed the link is back on email notifications. Would it have killed you, Peter Fray, to tell us in your preamble that you were even looking at the problem? Communication with your subscribers used to be a thing…
But it’s still not as functional as 5 years ago, prior to the last rejigging when the emailed links went only to the article, not the new comment.
Even now, better but not good, the link only goes to one’s own comment IF there has been a response.
We do not have notification that the thread has been added to which is surely the point of a thread.
After several emails to ‘support’ (sic! there’s a misnomer) there was finally an, apparently surprised, acknowledgement of a problem “I have shared your observation with the Crikey IT team who will look into this further.”
I am only a subscriber because of the insightful comments.
Agree. Used to look forward to my daily Crikey but now skimming it to see if anything interesting. John Menadue much more informative. Crikey losing the plot.
Thank you for pointing me in the direction of John Menadue’s blog. it gives me the deep insightful comments and historical background that i have been seeking for some time. Is John Menadue the former head of the Public Service Board that prevented politicians from bulling its servants into supporting political bias in their reports? A board so foolishly abolished by the Hawke regime? My Regards ‘the Old Bush Chalkie’
No, Australia is not being “snubbed” – farcebuch calling out the grovelling toadies in government which, alas, includes “Labor”, is a much needed curb of the subservient yet overweening arrogance.