Do you get your news from Facebook?

janeainsworth

Pippa Did you really hear "a politician" say this janeainsworth? I am not saying you didn't but I can't find it anywhere
Sorry only just seen this.
But yes I did. I think it was a recording of proceedings in the Australian parliament on one of the U.K. tv channels, probably Channel 4.

Thanks for getting back to me. Silly person. There is a human rights aspect but I don't think it is that. I suppose all countries have to have their share of politicians who open their mouths before engaging their brains

Thanks nanna8.
I think the trouble with using language like ‘human rights’ in respect of not being able to get your news from Facebook actually demeans those who are fighting for what should be human rights.
Other sources of news are readily available.

I heard that, too. I think was the treasurer but I might be wrong. Josh Frydenberg I think.

Pippa Did you really hear "a politician" say this janeainsworth? I am not saying you didn't but I can't find it anywhere
Sorry only just seen this.
But yes I did. I think it was a recording of proceedings in the Australian parliament on one of the U.K. tv channels, probably Channel 4.

FB is social media for old people. I DO follow links to the Guardian from it. And I like the fact that my leftie friends provide links OR report stuff personally that doesn't get into the media, of the truth about protests etc.

But I don't rely on FB for the links. I read a variety of news sites.

No I don't. I use the BBC website, or ask Alexa. On my echo show I can see news from different sources.

For local news, yes. I watch Sky News every couple of hours for the latest National and international news.

I didn't even realise that FB was a source used by many for news.

I expect a lot of the argument is that mainstream media have lost readers and then they lose the ability to attract advertising which brings revenue.

I would quite like to see FB and Google reined in and paying their fair share of taxes in all the countries where they are received.

About 30 years ago or more we didn't have FB and - amazingly - we survived. Google is more tricky. It is hard to imagine life without its search engine as other search engines are not well established yet.

I hope that if Australia stick to their guns other countries will follow.

Local group for local news-yes. It’s useful to know things like when the motorway is closed so town will be chocker on the way home from work or information about local occurrences.
On FB, all the other news links I get from friends and family let me read 4-5 lines then ask for a subscription. That includes newspapers and media e.g Sky. I presume those subscriptions would go to the company concerned, not FB.

I was a late comer to fb perhaps 12 years or so ago, great to keep in touch with family and friends near and far, especially at the moment, and you can keep it as private as you like.

Some of my friends have left Facebook and gone to Mewe but the trouble with that is it isn’t as big as Facebook so many don’t use it . Also I have heard a lot of right wing extremists use it, may or may not be true. I haven’t looked at it yet.

No never. And never will.

Yes pippa you are right about the scrutiny that other news media are under and the rules they have to comply with.

Doodledog this isn’t about exchanging news and views with friends.

That should have read 'to see if [the cats'] are chipped'! Oh for an edit button.

It depends what people mean by 'news'. Like others, I get national and international news from the papers - well, their web versions - but I also get further information from social media. As an example, when the Hong Kong riots were ongoing, I could see messages from friends in HK which gave more information than the papers, and more immediately.

Obviously we can't rely on getting all news from personal contacts unless we have friends all over the world, but I do think that if all the news we get comes from broadcast media we are going to get a very partial account. Social media can give us a far broader viewpoint.

Local news, as others have said, is much faster and more immediate online. Whether it's the unfortunate cats that people keep kidnapping and taking to the vet to get chipped, objections to something being built, found keys or a local event being cancelled, Facebook is the place to find out what's happening locally. Yes, it can get nasty (particularly when the self-appointed lockdown police get going), but if you ignore the nonsense it is very useful.

I hardly use FB any more. Only joined in the first place because dd said she’d be posting pics of first Gdc there. But she soon transferred most of it to WhatsApp.

I keep in touch with distant friends largely via phone/email though one or two via WhatsApp.

I certainly wouldn’t use FB for news. For that it’s the Times, and BBC R4/TV/website, and Channel 4.

Never used it and have no intention of doing so...

PamelaJ1

This isn’t about local news though is it.
Facebook get their news from other sources and just put it on their platform.
So the other sources, be it The Times, the Sun ITV, Sky and all the other news media around the world pay taxes and have costs in finding, collating and putting out their news.
Why should Facebook get a free ride.
The end game will be when we stop paying for our news. If the trend is to access it from “free” sites then the traditional news gatherers will stop gathering and we will be left with a vacuum. Like our high streets. Is that what we want?

I think it isn't only about having to pay - although that is large in the argument - but that they will eventually come under the same laws as publishers and this is a step in that direction.

That cannot come too soon in my opinion as it's time to limit the baseless "opinion" and get back to fact based publishing on line just as a newspaper has to be prepared to prove what it has said was true.

For community news yes. Not for any other news. For me it’s to keep in touch with family and friends. I use Twitter mainly for news although I’ve become aware of how I only see one side of things. I find it very hard to find really good, unbiased, truthful, transparent news. Any tips welcome.

janeainsworth

I agree about local news on Facebook Bluebelle but I think it’s more the Rupert Murdoch sort of news they’re arguing it.
I heard one Australian politician saying people had a ‘human right’ to get their news from Facebook.
Protesting too much springs to mind!

Did you really hear "a politician" say this janeainsworth? I am not saying you didn't but I can't find it anywhere. It looks as if the Australian Human Rights Commission have commented about the freeflow of information but that's all I can find.

A quote I have from my Australian family It seems weird they went so hard [facebook] in the week Google announced media deals to pay for premium content. A misstep I think.

My son has deleted his account and there seems to be a move to do this after FB "unfriended" Australia. It does seem that the company has decided it can work like a state - not a good move when the "state" then acts like it's run by Attila the Hun.

What will be left, if they are not careful, is just the people of our ages. Many younger people had already stopped using it and younger still have never used it. I would miss it because I belong to a lot of embroidery machine and dressmaking groups and our local Grape Vine and Grumbler groups which gives me very local news I couldn't, currently, get elsewhere.

This isn’t about local news though is it.
Facebook get their news from other sources and just put it on their platform.
So the other sources, be it The Times, the Sun ITV, Sky and all the other news media around the world pay taxes and have costs in finding, collating and putting out their news.
Why should Facebook get a free ride.
The end game will be when we stop paying for our news. If the trend is to access it from “free” sites then the traditional news gatherers will stop gathering and we will be left with a vacuum. Like our high streets. Is that what we want?

Never been on Facebook, thought about joining at beginning of first lockdown but haven’t really felt the need

I use FB to keep in touch with family but my privacy settings are the highest they can be. I use it for very local news like many others but I wouldn't trust it an inch for any other news. So much is touted as news on FB is fake news.

There are other more reliable sources.

But I am concerned about what's happening in Australia. We do allow this type of app to infiltrate our daily lives and to see the power they can wield by cutting service makes you think how easily they could hold countries to ransom ( until the next best thing comes long of course).

Lots of useful local news and groups in my FB feed I also get notifications via OWL which is like a local neighbourhood watch with police crime updates. I have plenty of other avenues for international news stories.

I went back to it to get news of a friend who lives abroad, I didn't have a phone number for her. I ignore it otherwise.