6. Australia's media is acting like they're playing Runescape and a TikTok trick
“ok, cool, I bet Australian media learns nothing from this.”
Hello fellow internet explorers,
It’s been a pretty heavy week. I trust that you are all taking care of yourself and I hope this can take your mind off it for a few minutes.
Love,
Cam
P.S. If you like this newsletter, the best way to help me is to share! tyvm
AUSTRALIA’S FACEBOOK BAN SHOULD BE A WAKEUP CALL
I couldn’t sleep last Friday morning, so I was awake when ABC sent out a push notification saying Australia’s news Facebook Pages were back.
This was Facebook’s big move in their fight with the Federal Government over the news media bargaining code (something that has been written about to death so I’m not going to litigate it here any further).
My first reaction to the news was “ok, cool, I bet Australian media learns nothing from this.”
Facebook posts from Australian media publishers picked up as soon as they could. In a list of 49 Australian media publisher Facebook Pages assembled by social media analytics company CrowdTangle, the number of posts on the first day back jumped to more than 50% of what they were pre-ban.
Since then, they’ve just about reached what they were before.
In the midst of a pandemic, Facebook pulled the rug out from under Australian media as a negotiating tactic. And as soon as they begrudgingly rolled the rug back out, Australian media crawled back in on their hands and knees — knowing that this could happen again at any time.
Publishers came back because Facebook is like a get-rich-quick scheme for media: if you write the ‘right’ article, with the ‘perfect’ headline, paired with a ‘great’ thumbnail and social copy, the algorithm might reward you with lots of website traffic by showing your article to some portion of 17 million Australians on Facebook. Views = good, in many (most!) newsrooms.
But what publishers are actually doing is battling each other for attention in the News Feed like we used to sell in markets on Runescape.
Everyone wants attention. Everyone’s trying different things to stand out. It’s a zero-sum game, though, and every attempt to get attention just drowns other pleas out.
Factor in that you’re not just competing against other news either. You’re competing against a post from Cool Dog Group, a friend from high school’s engagement photo, your uncle sharing some racist boomer memes.
So what can publishers do, if not post to Facebook?
My friend Alex wrote a newsletter about the Facebook news ban, striking an optimistic note about what happened after.
The ABC news app took off. 7Plus and 9Now, two other news apps in the country, experienced smaller spikes as such action loomed. And Swan’s own publisher at The Australian sent a note to staff remarking that direct visits increased after the ban.
I heard from someone who works for a commercial network who said their television show’s website saw a 20-30% increase in the audience during the break.
While I agree with Alex’s overall point — this could be a good opportunity for publishers — I reckon he painted too rosy a picture of what it’s like breaking up with Facebook.
We’ll never know what would have happened after a month or more without Facebook. I suspect some users would have sought out news in other ways, but many of the 40% of people who get news through Facebook wouldn’t have.
Australians downloading apps and visiting the websites was probably a short-term response to a big news event and not a long-term habit.
Case in point: The ABC’s app slid to #15 on the iOS App Store after 5 days of the news ban, replaced by ‘Poop map - Pin and Track’ and far behind apps from Facebook and Google.
During the ban, I saw almost every Australian media company suddenly launch new distribution methods or dust off old ones (even though Facebook had been threatening this for 5 months)
These included websites, apps, newsletters, notifications, Reddit, Discord, Twitter, Telegram, Facebook ads (lol).
Other distribution methods tend to be more costly, time-consuming and slower. But media organizations should be making these direct connections with their audience because they are the ones that last and the ones they can control.
Media companies must be making the case that what they do is important, listening to what an audience wants and delivering that consistently.
That’s how you convince someone to support a media organisation, not by trying to execute a plan that’s roughly ‘1. go viral 2. ??? 3. $$$.’
I fear the news media bargaining code will leave Australian media in a worse position for the future.
The news ban could have been a wakeup call, forcing news media companies to really consider how they’re reaching their audiences.
The sugar hit of Facebook referrals combined with the tens of millions of dollars flowing into publications will mean 8 days without Facebook will soon fade from memory. It’s easy to forget when the going is good.
I’m not saying Australian media should ditch it completely — but clearly it’s a mistake to in fact become even more reliant on a company that:
doesn’t give a shit about news (other than its value keeping people on their websites, and the minimum required amount of news so that they don’t get further regulated).
gives the same prominence to a Louise Milligan scoop that’s been years in the making as they do to those ‘playing mean pranks on my girlfriend wearing a low-cut top’ videos.
slots your content in between the hate and misinformation that they’ve allowed to prosper.
make their money from surveilling everything you do, creating enormous records on everyone, all so they can sell you weird ingrown toenail correctors on Wish.
Australian media needed a wakeup call. We got it. Will we listen?
SOMETHING FROM THE INTERNET REPORTER’S BAG OF TRICKS
I set a goal for making a TikTok video each day last week (shoutout to the Discord where we set out weekly goals).
I haven’t been crazy successful, so I’m not going to give any growth hacks yet.
One downside of the algorithmic engine of the app is that there’s no way to see what is performing really well on the platform other than the companies’ curated options for what they think you want to see.
I have been using TikTok Metrics, a pretty dodgy website that only works half the time.
When it does work, it shows the top videos and users all time and in the past 24 hours. It even breaks it down by country, so you can see what’s popping specifically in Australia.
Here’s a few other good links you might have missed this week:
Here’s one that has earned me the ire of one of the Australian internet’s most aggressive fan bases: FriendlyJordies Has Set Up A Network Of Local Facebook Groups To Covertly Share Pro-Labor Memes (Gizmodo).
Sky News has continued growing by publishing fringe and conspiracy content (Guardian).
I love a good Facebook political ads story: this one about mystery Facebook ads in WA’s goldfields (ABC News).
Smart angle on a bigger story: influencers are flocking back to Crown despite the controversy surrounding it (ABC News).
Tom Tanuki’s vids on the attention-seeking Neo-Nazi weirdo who bashed some poor security guard are good, too (YouTube).
Find it hard to believe that the TGA was telling doctors they couldn’t argue the benefits of vaccines on social media but glad to see they backflipped (The Australian).
Don’t sleep on this great thread about Raindrop Twitter bullshit by my friend Kevin Nguyen who I reckon might be the best OSINT journalist in Australia.
Victoria Police said what we already knew: far right are radicalising wellness folk during lockdown (Guardian).
I’ve been paying pretty close attention to the proposed Online Safety Act which will drastically increase the powers of the eSafety Commissioner. The current person in the role, Julie Inman Grant, says that people don’t have to worry about her using the powers she has, though 🤔🤔🤔 (SMH).
If you’re interested in seeing what else I’m up to or getting in touch, here’s everything I do online.
xo,
@cameronwilson
P.S. I am ALWAYS looking for tips for weird / interesting / important internet stuff. Please email or DM me if you see anything I might be interested in. Nothing is too niche!
P.P.S. You’ll be glad to know that Sky News Australia’s YouTube account passed ABC News in subscriber numbers, making it the most followed single account for any Australian news media channel (although it was pointed out to me that the account for the show 60 Minutes is still significantly bigger).