Australia to make Facebook, Google pay for news - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-media-regulator/australia-to-make-facebook-google-pay-for-news-in-world-first-idUSKCN24V3UP <comment><USER2> People in this thread seem to believe that this is only relevant to Google News. This is actually for _all_ of Google, including Search. According to [https://www.afr.com/companies/media-and- marketing/facebook-a...](https://www.afr.com/companies/media-and- marketing/facebook-and-google-face-10m-for-media-code- breaches-20200731-p55h6p)

> Mr Sims said if Google took a similar approach to its actions in Spain when > it was asked to pay for news on its Google News tab, it would be irrelevant > because the code covered news content in Google's primary function, search.

So it seems like the ultimatum is: pay Australia media companies ~$1b or don't list any news media (including international news) on Google Search for Australian users. Interesting dilemma.

<comment><USER3> Well, this is easy: remove the news. Also deals with all accusations of bias at the same time.

> pay Australia media companies ~$1b

This is Rupert Murdoch, isn't it.

<comment><USER4> Murdoch is the Australian Bezos - except he has way more political clout in a larger area of the world, and has been running his empire for 30+ years. Bezos is building those relationships with his expansions, and he's obviously got more cash to fund them - but Murdoch's empire shouldn't be underestimated.

<comment><USER5> His organization also has significant clout in the US and UK where he owns big media corporations. He's long influenced British politics, and through Fox US politics. This bill looks to be sponsored, and crafted by Murdoch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thank you to the several people who have posted a link to the bill itself. I'll add to the pile to make it easier to see: [https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Exposure%20Draft%20EM%2...](https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Exposure%20Draft%20EM%20-%20NEWS%20MEDIA%20AND%20DIGITAL%20PLATFORMS%20MANDATORY%20BARGAINING%20CODE%20BILL%202020.pdf)

There's something interesting in there that nobody in this discussion has yet mentioned, nor does the original news article, section 52S:

        Subsection (2) applies if the registered news
        business corporation for the registered news
        business makes a request, in writing, to the
        responsible digital platform corporation for
        the digital platform service to do any of the
        following:

         (a) ensure that the registered news business
             corporation is provided with flexible
             content moderation tools that allow
             the registered news business corporation
             to remove or filter comments on the registered
             news business' covered news content that:
          (i) are made using the digital platform service; and
          (ii) are made on a part of the digital platform
               service that is set up and able to be edited
               by the registered news business;

         (b) ensure that the registered news business
             corporation can disable the making of such
             comments;

         (c) ensure that the registered news business
             corporation can block the making of such comments:
          (i) by particular persons; or
          (ii) in particular circumstances.

If I am reading this correctly (a big if!), this gives the news corporations the right to exert complete control over all "comments" on their news articles on these "digital platform services", meaning that, for instance, Hacker News or Reddit, if covered by this law, would no longer be independent sites to discuss news, but would be forcibly placed under the control of the news site. (Not sure those sites _would_ be covered, just using that as an example.)

So if the newspaper leans X, they can shut down all the comments from people who lean the other way, or people who disagree with the article, or anything they like (possibly subject to other laws, but certainly no restrictions are placed here).

That's... full of implications, to say the least.

<comment><USER7> Unless I'm misreading, "and are made on a part of the digital platform service that is set up and able to be edited by the registered news business" suggests this only applies to the news agency's own social media pages. I.E. they wouldn't be able to censor comments on links to their content posted by third parties.

<comment><USER8> > suggests this only applies to the news agency's own social media pages

1.88 seems to indicate that pretty clearly, providing this example:

"In the case of a social media service such as Facebook, this rule deals with the situation where the news business has posted its covered news content on the news business' own social media page. Comments on the news business' articles posted by somebody else on another Facebook page are not covered by this law "

<comment><USER6> (For context, I'm not trying to be alarmist, merely observe something interesting that I acknowledge I may not fully understand that nobody else was talking about.)

Even that is pretty amazing on its own terms, essentially carving out the new's site on those platforms. Interestingly, I don't see it _taking away_ control from the host, either, so either of them ought to be able to censor. It would be interesting to see a vigorously anti-Facebook article get posted on Facebook, with Facebook nuking everyone supportive of the article and the news site nuking everyone arguing against it. (And both of the nuking the "where are all the comments?" comments.)

Is there someone knowledgeable about Australian law that can explain how the "clarification" stands in relation to the actual law? In the US system, where AFAIK such clarifications would have low priority vs. the actual text of the law, I'd be nervous as a "digital platform provider" relying on the clarification to save me from the text of the law, which to my eyes do not contain that carveout, but under a different system these may be given higher priority.

(& with all due respect to the many fine Internet Lawyers (TM) on HN, International Internet Lawyers (TM) even, I am asking for people who actually _know_. I can provide myself with all the knowledge-free speculation I need already.)

<comment><USER9> It's worthwhile noting that the courts have been holding media companies responsible for the comments on their pages which I imagine at least some part of the motivation for this.

[https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/media-companies- liable-f...](https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/media-companies-liable-for- facebook-comments-made-by-others-court-finds-20190624-p520rf.html)

<comment><USER10> Social media content isn't hosted on _their_ property. If they can't comply with such laws they should delete these accounts rather than claim digital squatter's rights.

<comment><USER11> Isn't Facebook arguing that they have become a public square though? If we accept that argument, then they can't have it both ways - a merchant who has set up a booth on the public common is not a squatter. While subject to the rules of the common, they still retain full control over their booth and wares.

<comment><USER12> Yes they are, but it's not entirely up to them. The other side is arguing that they are just a publisher.

It remains to be seen where they end up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I really hope they just block all the news sites from their platforms. Let's see how they like it when thier traffic dries up. From other reporting I've read the law does say they have to treat domestic and international news the same so it could cause an issue with that approach.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, honestly, that's what I hope they do. The amount of entitlement and this holier than thou attitude among the media is pretty annoying. Figure out how to make money like any other business. And if you can't, we'll then I guess you don't matter that much.

This decision is crony capitalism at its worst.

<comment><USER15> I would 100% support this mindset if tech giants paid taxes where they make their money. I don't know what the situation is like in Australia but in Europe it's pretty insane. You can't abuse the system on one side and then argue the "efficient market hypothesis" on the other.

Google&friends are not making money and competing "like any other business".

<comment><USER16> > Google&friends are not making money and competing "like any other business".

I don't understand this. Can you explain, please?

<comment><USER17> Several big-enough companies use tax loopholes to avoid paying taxes or lobby the government themselves.

This is not specific to big tech though, it's a single point of failure of having a centralised government that is easily corrupted by rich corporations.

<comment><USER16> sorry, again, I'm not following you. How does the ineffectiveness of tax regimes mean that Google and friends aren't competing like a normal business?

<comment><USER18> This reads like sealioning. You really can't see why an entity A that gives 1% in taxes is at an advantage in competing with an entity that gives say 20% in taxes?

<comment><USER16> but this behaviour (as said above) is not unique to tech. All sufficiently large, sufficiently multinational businesses effectively stop paying the full rate of tax

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Typical mainstream coverage of a tech story that glosses over all the detail, leaving everyone in this thread to speculate about all the details, such as which results it applies to and how will they distribute the revenue.

My 2p guess is it's all about snippets and any other displayed information which would stop the user proceeding to an external result. Some % of total revenue distributed to owners of the snippet content, though it would be hard to determine the breakdown even for a single result page.

<comment><USER20> Yeah, can anyone explain to me how FB/G are actually accused of giving paid content away for free? All the Murdoch content is behind paywalls in Aus. Is it literally just headlines and the free 3 sentences or whatever a scraper/aggregator would display?

<comment><USER21> This is the best way to do it: just paywall your articles.

The internet made people believe everything is free. But free news is either propaganda or a disguised ad.

<comment><USER22> The problem is that they all have their own account management. I'd be ok with paying a subscription service that gave access to several sites and took care of distributing revenue per usage, but managing dozens of subscriptions is a hassle.

<comment><USER23> Pressreader offers something a bit like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Didn't Spain try to do the same thing with Google News, which just ended up with them shutting down the product in Spain?

[https://support.google.com/news/publisher- center/answer/9609...](https://support.google.com/news/publisher- center/answer/9609687?hl=en)

<comment><USER25> The article says that European countries "tried and failed" to rein in the tech giants. Although I'm not sure if shutting down Google News is actually "tried and failed" so much as "tried and succeeded, but not according to first preference".

I mean, if you can't go to google news to get your news, maybe you do go directly to the website of some major news company (and get a monoculture).

<comment><USER26> While it's not the selling point politically, I think those lobbying for things like this are very much happy with any monoculture that results.

With services like Google News, people can get exposed to news from various media outlets, but by killing it through lobbying for absurd regulatory burdens on aggregators the well known larger outlets can choke out access to their competition. This of course is hampered to some extent by the reality that many will just rely on other users posting on social media for news updates, and if that too is choked out through regulation on platforms, many will probably just skip the news or reduce their consumption in favor of other things like entertainment.

<comment><USER27> I used to use Google News to find different articles from different companies whenever a news story interested me. It was good to get often very different points of view.

I now just spend a little time on Apple News+ to skim what is happening. While I am locking myself more into a mono culture just looking at US news, I decided that I needed to greatly decrease the amount of time I spent on the news every day.

The world situation is what it is. I try to accept the world as-is, invest as little time as possible understanding the world and concentrate on my own productivity, fellowship with friends and family, and generally appreciating culture and nature.

News watching is an addiction that too many of my friends have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> _I 'm confused about who the news belongs to. I always have it in my head that if your name's in the news, then the news should be paying you. Because it's your news and they're taking it and selling it as their product. But then they always say that they're helping you, and that's true too, but still, if people didn't give the news their news, and if everybody kept their news to themselves, the news wouldn't have any news. So I guess you should pay each other. But I haven't figured it out fully yet._

\-- Andy Warhol

<comment><USER29> Says the guy who took other people's images and sold them...

<comment><USER30> every artist does that. he just did it in a straight, sorryless way. hence the concept in his conceptual art.

<comment><USER31> > every artist does that.

Um, no.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Lots of the comments here are criticising this decision on the basis of News Corporation's very clear political involvement. While I share their sentiment regarding News Corporation and their blatant partisanship, I would like to highlight that Facebook is not an apolitical entity. My view is that anyone concerned about the blatant partisan politics of the Australian news media should be equally concerned about the political overreach of big tech. The latter being far more equipped for the propagation of information benefiting their own agenda.

<comment><USER33> The two aren't comparable. News Corporation is political in the sense that they effectively decide who wins the next election in countries like Australia and the UK and all the political parties have to seek out their favour and pursue policies that meet with their approval to win. Facebook is political in the sense that they refused to use their power to tilt the last US presidential election towards the candidate the mainstream media wanted. That the media considers the latter to be the threat to democracy says a lot about who they think should actually control the country.

<comment><USER34> > That the media considers the latter to be the threat to democracy says a lot > about who they think should actually control the country.

A man who, when asked about whether or not he will accept the next election's result, responds with 'We'll see', is _objectively_ a pretty serious threat to democracy.

Simply voicing that opinion (and never following through on it) makes him a threat to, at minimum the public perception of the legitimacy of democracy - since democracy is one of those things that only works when people believe in it.

<comment><USER35> He knows how to play the media that's for certain. For a grand total of $0 he was able to have his face on television and plant a seed of doubt against his opponents integrity. So much so that all some people can talk about is Trump. Meanwhile Bloomberg spent record amounts on campaigning and all I remember was that he was the stop and frisk guy

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Isn't this something the publishers can just stop with a robots.txt? Or do they want Google to continue to link to them and just charge them for it? I hope Google just drops them from the index.

<comment><USER37> I hope Google and Facebook recognize the value they get from news publishers and understand the value society gets from journalism and they do more to support that journalism that benefits everybody.

<comment><USER38> I recognize the value I get from news publishers and try to support them. It would never in a million years occur to me that, when I tell someone "here's this neat article I read about new studies on the minimum wage", _I_ owe the _newspaper_ for being allowed to do that.

<comment><USER37> Sure. If telling people about the news is making you money, why not share some of the profit from doing that with the newspaper? If you don't do that, aren't you in effect killing the golden goose?

<comment><USER39> Do you give money to the construction workers who built the road every time you drive to work? Even if it is taken for granted as a common good doesn't make the monetization model wise or justified.

A taxation model by "lottery" which randomly takes everything from an unlucky N people a year would work terrible in so many ways. Wanting a funding model that isn't terrible doesn't mean they don't want a functioning government.

<comment><USER37> > Do you give money to the construction workers who built the road every time > you drive to work?

In a way, yes. There are lots of usage taxes around driving that help fund road construction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Is this about copyright? Aka "If you copy more then X words, your violate the authors copyright" so that one has to negotiate with the author about copying more then X words?

Or do they _force_ Google and Facebook to publish those snippets and pay for them? Making media kind of state controlled? If so, who decides which news have to be included?

Or what is this about?

<comment><USER40> Reading Google's point of view on what happened in Spain they had yet another model over there:

"Legislation in Spain requires every Spanish publication to charge services like Google News for showing even the smallest snippet from their publications, whether they want to or not."

[https://support.google.com/news/publisher- center/answer/9609...](https://support.google.com/news/publisher- center/answer/9609687)

Maybe it is similar to that? I wonder who defines what "news" are? If part of this text I am writing ends up quoted on a website owned by someone in Spain, I would be forced by law to send them an invoice?

<comment><USER41> No, copyright union will send the invoice on behalf of you, just as in music royalties. They will have to pay the copyright union, even if you choose not to receive it yourself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I have an issue with that people consume news from these sites through recommendations algorithms. Recommendations algorithms just suggest news that you might be interested in, so you miss reading the rest. Ie you consume news through filter bubbles. A filter bubble is where you see the world through your personal curated filter glasses. I would argue that such filtering creates polarized world views where you get less accommodating for views which does not match your own filtered world view. In summary these platforms may in some sense undermine democracy where we respect other with different view points than our own. Plus it's essential for democracy that we pay for local news journalists which dig and investigate local politicians decisions. Local news feed national news networks which in turn feed international news.

Filter bubble article mentioning news filtering [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble)

Article that social media may cause polarized views [https://scholar.harvard.edu/sounman_hong/political- polarizat...](https://scholar.harvard.edu/sounman_hong/political-polarization- twitter-social-media-may-contribute-online-extremism)

Local journalism [https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jul/28/local- journali...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jul/28/local-journalism- democracy-us-newspapers)

</comment><comment><USER43> > For every A$100 spent on online advertising in Australia, excluding > classifieds, nearly a third goes to Google and Facebook, according to > Frydenberg.

This from the Treasurer of Australia.

I hope he understands that the same holds true for every A$1000 spent, too.

But the local Murdoch outpost's eagerness for this to happen certainly explains the motivation here.

</comment><comment><USER44> FYI for those interested this is the announcement of the policy on the site of the organisation that wrote the policy [https://www.accc.gov.au/focus- areas/digital-platforms/news-m...](https://www.accc.gov.au/focus- areas/digital-platforms/news-media-bargaining-code/draft-legislation)

</comment><comment><USER45> This seems absurd. Companies typically pay Google to drive traffic through ads, but in this case they are legislating that Google pay them for driving traffic? This sounds like the store paying the customer to take its product. Wouldn't the obvious solution be for Google to just stop listing these news sites? Am I missing something here?

<comment><USER46> You can make a case that Google wouldn't make any money if they didn't have content. They have trained the market into believing we need them and to pay them unholy amounts of money to be on top of all search results. But without content and search results, no one uses Google.

<comment><USER47> Google has also started to show generated answers/summaries in the search to make the user not visit the external site.

Answers and image search should be opt in for copright holder.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Business idea: Get GPT-3 to churn out newsy-sounding stories for next to nothing and host them in Australia where the government forces other companies to pay you for them. Free money.

</comment><comment><USER49> Google will probably eliminate Google News for Australians. Why exactly would Google pay money for a service which earns nothing?

<comment><USER50> Doesn't the news you choose to read tell Google a lot about you?

Google is very good about shuttering projects that doesn't make them money. I'm sure if they're still running the service. It's making them money some how.

<comment><USER51> Nowhere near as much as shopping searches. It's kind of hard to monetize an interest in (say) Singaporean politics or space rockets.

<comment><USER52> It's not that hard to monetize interest in damn near _anything_ (as long as it is not clearly illegal, I guess). For the two examples you've posted, maybe advertise flights/vacations to Singapore if you show a persistent interest in Singapore, and market model rockets, space flight simulator toys, really all sorts of consumer-grade commodity products adjacent to the space industry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Google search is basically all "news" now for way too many keywords, due to their high rankings for "fresh content". I really wouldn't mind if that disappeared entirely. The product would be better.

Facebook would also be much more pleasant.

<comment><USER54> The recency bias is painful. If you read a recent article and want more information on some background from the story, the results are mostly a flood of more articles on the recent story, with no new info. Your best bet is to find one of the new articles that actually cited and linked to some older work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Large technology companies are creating large market failures, one of which is the erosion of the print media business model. With Facebook and Google favouring trending content over high value content state intervention is probably necessary to save the industry.

</comment><comment><USER56> I wonder how the quoted "royalty-style system" would work. If it's anything like reverse ads where Google and Facebook pay per click/impression, what's to stop them from simply boycotting Australian news sites?

<comment><USER13> Apparently they'll have to boycott all news sites. I hope they are able to challenge this law in the courts.

> "They can't discriminate between international and Australian news. So they > can't turn off Australian news and just use international news. That's > discrimination. This is a mandatory code, the platforms must participate. > They could stop showing news media on their platforms completely – that is, > no local or international media – but short of that, they are compelled."

[https://www.afr.com/companies/media-and- marketing/facebook-a...](https://www.afr.com/companies/media-and- marketing/facebook-and-google-face-10m-for-media-code- breaches-20200731-p55h6p)

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I remember back when the music business thought that pirated music would ruin them and forced governments to put an extra tax on blank cassettes and CDs.

Seems like it's based on the same concept. Newspapers are loosing readers and they are blaming google and facebook.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy)

<comment><USER58> And of course if the legal system was slightly fair, if the levy is being applied then private copying should have been made instantly legal. Not to mention you're just charging everybody, regardless of the use they will make of the media

But of course the lobbying is strong

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Don't be fooled. This is merely a ploy from a conservative government to keep Rupert relevant. He owns 70% of the print journalism here.

<comment><USER60> Your suggestion aside, I find it odd that people call the Australian Liberal Party conservative.

They banned firearms, introduced the GST and made same-sex marriage legal. They've now introduced the largest welfare package in Australian history.

In comparison to most governments in the world, they're probably considered center-left at worst.

<comment><USER61> Let's not pretend the liberal party is some bastion of LGBT rights, gay marriage was only passed after the politicians in Australia dragged each other through the mud for so long that the question was eventually put to a non binding plebiscite that they followed through on.

<comment><USER62> Well at least they finally did it, each labor prime minister has been against it until they left office and miraculously started supporting it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Some of the most interesting part is not even about paying. For example, they must notify the news providers of algorithmic changes 28 days in advance before making them, and enable the news organisation to "filter or remove" comments on their content.

It is oddly self-contradictory as it both states that a digital platform may _not_ discrimminate b/w a "registered news organisation" and non-registered news org, but also mandates a whole raft of areas where it _must_ discrimminate and give special consideration to a "registered news organisastion". This almost seems like a legal trap so they are in violation no matter what they do.

Interestingly, when all else fails, the arbitration panel must make a decision that is "in the public interest" \- which seems to open a loophole where Google / Facebook could argue that the value of free / open information is more in the public interest than supporting proprietary news organisation to paywall their content. It would be hilarious if it backfired, though I am sure the arbitration panel will be carefully constructed to ensure it is not sympathetic to tech companies.

See: [https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Exposure%20Draft%20Bill...](https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Exposure%20Draft%20Bill%20-%20TREASURY%20LAWS%20AMENDENT%20%28NEWS%20MEDIA%20AND%20DIGITAL%20PLATFORMS%20MANDATORY%20BARGAINING%20CODE%29%20BILL%202020.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER64> I've long been a proponent—as both a user _and_ an advocate of these companies' interests—of paid premium (ad-free, tracker-free, priority support) tiers for the "Internet essentials," i.e., Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. There is, I believe, a surprisingly sizable (and rapidly growing) contingent of these platforms' respective user bases willing to pay for privacy and user experience, and by insisting so stubbornly on maintaining a uniformly ad- subsidized model, without so much as even experimenting with subscription tier offerings, these companies are leaving billions of dollars a year in additional revenue on the table.

Perhaps the increasing cost of supply-side content will finally spur a rethinking of these platforms' fundamental business models. Here's hoping…

<comment><USER65> > _paid premium (ad-free, tracker-free, priority support) tiers_

Does that risk making privacy only available for those with the means to pay for it?

<comment><USER66> That's the wrong way to frame it.

A product has to be paid for _somehow_. You could just as easily think of "paid premium" as the default, similar to the way you pay for a physical newspaper, magazine, etc.

Or you can pay by giving up your privacy instead. It's your choice.

Why shouldn't people who _want_ to give up their privacy in exchange for personalized ads be allowed to?

<comment><USER67> > A product has to be paid for somehow.

Yes, but maybe businesses like Facebook shouldn't exist in their current shape given the amount of data required to make them profitable? Is the return worth the cost?

> Why shouldn't people who want to give up their privacy in exchange for > personalized ads be allowed to?

Of course, but how many people are educated on what it actually means? How many people know that Google is an advertising business, not "just a search engine"?

We all know that the incentives of companies like this are not compatible with consent. Stronger regulatory actions and waaaay more emphasis on education is prob. the best we have at the moment.

<comment><USER66> > Is the return worth the cost?

That's for consumers to decide.

> how many people are educated on what [privacy] actually means?

Are 99% of consumers suffering any actual harm? They see better personalized ads, and yes, people are mostly aware of how internet ads "follow" you because we've all shopped for something and then seen a billion ads for it.

There are absolutely scary areas of privacy. Worries that your info will be used to determine insurance rates is addressed by legislation, so not a problem. And if you have real reasons for anonymity (civil rights, protests, politics, corporate, etc.) then you're already presumably educated on that and taking anti-tracking measures already.

But for the vast majority of people, their educated decision is to use free services in exchange for personalized ads. They see it as a deal or else they wouldn't be doing it.

<comment><USER67> > That's for consumers to decide.

> But for the vast majority of people, their educated decision is to use free > services in exchange for personalized ads. They see it as a deal or else > they wouldn't be doing it.

Again, these decisions need to be based on knowledge which they don't have.

> Are 99% of consumers suffering any actual harm? They see better personalized > ads, and yes, people are mostly aware of how internet ads "follow" you > because we've all shopped for something and then seen a billion ads for it.

Yes, Cambridge Analytica or Brexit are perfect examples of that.

Adtech, incl. programmatic advertising not only enables but incentivises sensationalist, emotion-driven and biased content.

This is due to the systemic issues within the industry and in itself is a wicked problem: different actors in the pipeline are motivated by different incentives. Think of the sales teams in adtech companies, publishers, publisher sales teams, brands, users... What motivates them how are they rewarded for their work?

Sales people talk in terms of budgets ("We just closed $X.000000!"). What do brands care about? How do you translate the budget into campaign effectiveness? There's so much lost in the process, which is not a secret.

Now, publishers don't like advertising but rely on it as a revenue stream. Different ways of monetising publishing content are possible but this would render the sales people working for publishers redundant and those people not only have mortgages to pay, kids to send to school, but generally are fairly influential within their orgs.

Finally we have the users who have... their lives to live. We have the elderly people falling into scams fueled by retargeting (if we're looking for extreme cases). How well informed/educated are they?

I don't need to understand the every single part of my car to drive it. I trust that it won't randomly explode when I start it. Why?

The points I'm trying to convey (poorly) are products of the conversations with people ranging from entry to CXO level at ad networks, publishers, non- profits, then readers/consumers. I worked on several sides of the problem (publishing, ad tech, privacy).

My opinion is that you grossly underestimate the impact of advertising on our society. We've grown used to it and learned to accept the current situation as a norm. Bear in mind that advertising in its modern form has its root in behaviourism and that's for a reason.

[https://twitter.com/HKingaby](https://twitter.com/HKingaby) [https://twitter.com/ka_iwanska](https://twitter.com/ka_iwanska) [https://twitter.com/DrRESmith](https://twitter.com/DrRESmith) explains how complex networks of actors, including the algorithmic ones (i.e. social media), can be used to increase polarisation. [https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/](https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Why doesn't this incentivize Facebook/Google to create their own news service, with reporters and all? That would certainly be a bleak outcome.

</comment><comment><USER69> This looks a lot like what France Press did in 2007: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_News#EU_copyright_and_d...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_News#EU_copyright_and_database_right)

</comment><comment><USER70> I'm wondering if this will cause a further reduction in traffic to certain Murdoch publications. The only profitable parts of their newspaper divisions seem to be centered around gambling.

</comment><comment><USER71> They should comply and just delist all News Corp content.

<comment><USER72> Exactly what happened for google news in Spain.

I suppose this includes the search engine. So if these people don't want their thing to turn up in text results, why not update the robots.txt and close shop the next month?

I have no sympathy for Google and even less for Facebook. But that's a shitty argument to make. It makes me want to create a client side google news clone, but that actually steal all the article content and remove all ads. Try blocking that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> Another flailing grasp at new media as Rupert Murdoch's tabloid empire loses its grip on the future.

I am only disappointed that our government would be complicit.

Make no mistake, I am no new media fan boy. In fact I hope this has the side effect of cleaning up the misinformation that spins around Facebook et al. But it is still sad to see such an obvious manipulation of our government.

<comment><USER74> The Australian media landscape is a highly unethical duopoly that undermines democracy. And the alternative seems to be people getting their "news" from wellness gurus and radio shock jocks.

On the one hand News Corporation and Fairfax Media can rot in hell, but I'm almost as afraid of what would happen to the national discourse in the resulting power vacuum.

<comment><USER75> > On the one hand News Corporation and Fairfax Media can rot in hell, but I'm > almost as afraid of what would happen to the national discourse in the > resulting power vacuum.

Someone's gonna fill in, and most probably it will be Russian or Chinese propaganda.

<comment><USER74> Can we convince the Betoota Advocate to pivot?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> To be clear, this is about snippets that are displayed and lets users consume the content without ever clicking the link to visit the page?

How is Google normally handling the fact that what they display in excerpts is copyrighted material? Do they just assume their snippet is short enough to be fair use everywhere?

And couldn't these sites just detect the crawlers and display article bodies that are a smaller, (0-10 words body)?

<comment><USER77> You can choose whether Google can use snippets or how big they are.

<comment><USER76> What does that mean for the regulation in question? That it's unnecessary because there is a technical solution? Or that it's not written in good faith because they know it's possible to solve technically but want funding from Google rather than actually solve it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> HN: Google isn't entitled to it's current business model.

Also HN: Decade old, failing Murdoch empire should be funded by Big Tech under the law.

<comment><USER79> That's definitely not what I'm seeing in these comments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> Not sure how this is "world first" when Spain already did this (and Google withdrew the News service as a result).

</comment><comment><USER81> So before anyone goes off half-cocked, the proposed legislation applies to:

1\. News businesses that are registered with ACMA and comply with the codes for print/TV/radio regarding content, eg press council etc and publish predominantly Australian content for Australian audiences

2\. Have revenue over $150K/year

3\. Digital platforms (as determined by the Treasurer)

It requires both sides to:

a) provide each other with information,

b) negotiate in good faith,

c) submit to formal arbitration if they can't agree.

The platforms are required (as a minimum) to not discriminate between news sources, what they collect about users that click on the news sources (where that is different to what they normally collect), and how they make that information available to the news source.

They're required to explain how they display paywalled contant, how they display non-paywall content, how they display advertising, and, if they change that, how the change will affect the news sources. It also requires the platform to, if they allow user comments (eg a FB page), allow the news source to control/disable/moderate those comments.

The news sources are allowed to co-operate in the negotiations.

It's not a long bill and it's in plain(-ish) English.

[https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Exposure%20Draft%20Bill...](https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Exposure%20Draft%20Bill%20-%20TREASURY%20LAWS%20AMENDENT%20%28NEWS%20MEDIA%20AND%20DIGITAL%20PLATFORMS%20MANDATORY%20BARGAINING%20CODE%29%20BILL%202020.pdf)

<comment><USER82> > b) negotiate in good faith,

That's part of the problem, though -- it doesn't define what they're to negotiate in good faith _over_.

Ordinary negotiations involve some kind of proprietary, property, or contract right. I negotiate with my employer to provide my services in exchange for a salary, because absent an agreement neither party is compelled to do anything. I can also negotiate with my neighbour over compensation to my fence when he damages it, because that damage was contrary to law -- an action was taken without legal right.

I _can 't_ force my neighbour into negotiations when he throws a party and doesn't invite me (because of the stick up my ass about the fence, see above), because he had no obligation to do so in the first place.

So, how does this apply to Foogle? The negotiations in the bill appear to be related to news content 'made available' by the platform, but that term does not appear to be defined. In particular, it does _not_ appear to be restricted to actions that would be covered by property-like copyright rights.

Instead, this bill appears to be taking a stance based on anticompetitive/monopolistic behaviours. There is a reasonable basis for this argument, but in my opinion any action would require much more groundwork to set out just what behaviours are allegedly harmful. This legislation seems to sidestep that entirely, and in particular the list of "must-consider" items for an arbitrator (52ZP) is entirely to the benefit of news corporations over Foogle.

> It also requires the platform to, if they allow user comments (eg a FB > page),

To be scrupulously fair here, this doesn't seem to require that Foogle allow moderation of _all_ user comments on a news story, only those on stories submitted by the news agency itself (52S.1(a)(ii)). So News Corp gets to moderate its own Facebook page, but it can't moderate comments on users' walls when they just discuss a News Corp article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> Seems like a great opportunity to entrench Google's and Facebook's power. A corollary of free market principles, whoever pays for the news decides which news outlet flourishes and which one fades into nonexistence, or, what the news outlet reports. News outlets have always been sensitive to advertisers and moneyed patrons because they make next to nothing from the readership.

All of this is to say that as Google and Facebook become a bigger share of the revenue of news outlets, the more sway they'll have over what those news outlets publish, whether they stand or fall, etc.

</comment><comment><USER84> Sounds like failing legacy businesses trying to use the government to ensure profits while facing inability to compete. That's going to work so well for them. Why does Australian public allow such laws to pass?

</comment><comment><USER85> Seems like massive legislative over-reach.

1.100 Discrimination in this context will be considered to occur if the news content of a registered news business is disadvantaged incomparison to other news content in terms of the crawling, indexing,ranking, display, presentation or other process undertaken by the digital platform on any service provided by the digital platform, on the basis ofthe registered news business' participation in the code.

IANAL, but my simple reading of this seems to imply it will be illegal for Google to NOT crawl and index News Corps content.

</comment><comment><USER86> Just another point of interest for our international friends and because 'Ctrl-F' for 'Costello' hasn't brought up anything either:

Peter Costello was, until 2007, the deputy leader and treasurer of the federal government, consisting then of the same parties that are pushing for this legislation.

Peter Costello, the same, is also since 2016 chairman of Nine Entertainment Co., the media company that would get the second highest amount of money under this legislation, right after Murdoch's own.

Yeah, Australia's kind of screwed up like that.

</comment><comment><USER87> We need to figure out how to do this correctly.

We don't want Google subsidizing trash like the Sun, we would rather it subsidize high quality information sites like Quanta.

I wonder if Google could create some metric where they would be more than happy to never show results from the Sun, but show results from some places and pay those entities.

Sounds like a win-win-win.

Google wins because it's search results are higher quality, the high quality news sites win because they can have better journalists, and the public wins because they have better information.

<comment><USER88> So we let google build an algorithm that tells us which news sources are trusted? No thanks

<comment><USER87> It's not about trust, it's about quality and who should get funds to make higher quality information.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER89> Yeah, I've heard this before. Ask anyone in Spanish journalism how well their laws asking for the same thing worked out for them. Spoiler: It's a complete fail.

</comment><comment><USER90> What does this mean for RSS feeds and feed readers? I guess a case can be made for non-cloud readers to be excempt from this logic, but readers like Feedly or our feeder.co?

<comment><USER91> The code would only apply to Google and Facebook, but may be applied to other digital platforms in the future "where fundamental bargaining power imbalances with Australian news businesses emerge."

</comment></comment><comment><USER92> What chance to Facebook and Google have when even the laws of mathematics must bow to Australian law [0].

Be careful what you wish for though. As an Australian, I fear that Australian news media needs Facebook and Google far more than the other way around.

0: [https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-laws-of-australia-will- tru...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-laws-of-australia-will-trump-the- laws-of-mathematics-turnbull/)

<comment><USER93> At the end of the day, you still need a reporter on the ground at location. That's the origination of any reputable news source.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> My first instinct was this is a bad move. But given how Google is so quick to kill projects that don't make them money. (And they're still running the service... for now at least) Paired with how I personally detest how they pushed AMP giving them more control and more user data. I can't say I'm convinced they didn't do this to themselves. Nor am I convinced this isn't somehow better.

I'm sure at the very least the results will be interesting.

</comment><comment><USER94> These news organisations should pay twitter every time they source a story from there.

Hopefully it would stop journos from writting such gripping stories as "According to some blowhard on twitter...", "These is my opinions, and to back it up here are three people on twitter who agree with me,...", "Twitter was OUTRAGED by... (several posts with five likes and one reshare)" etc, etc, etc

</comment><comment><USER95> Honestly I don't get it. Media made a lot of money publishing dead bodies, but they don't pay a dime to victim's family.

</comment><comment><USER96> Sooner or later Google will just "AI-parse" the same news story from many sources and generate a new headline plus snippet.

</comment><comment><USER97> I wonder why there aren't better news search engine than google? A google search doesnt bring up any substantial project, and google news itself is pretty basic and biased and limited. I find myself often wondering "where could i read about <thing>", and feeling underwhelmed with google searches.

<comment><USER98> There are actually quite a few news search engines. I've tried to include the best and most comprehensive ones on [https://www.faganfinder.com/](https://www.faganfinder.com/) , although I have since found some more that I haven't reviewed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER99> Is that a world first? I thought they enacted the same thing in France before? [https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/france-and-australia- to...](https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/france-and-australia-to-google- and-facebook-pay-for-news/)

</comment><comment><USER100> Aren't a lot of these newspaper sites funded with AdSense as opposed to direct buys/other ad networks?

So this would end up Google paying the publisher to send traffic to their site, so the publisher (potentially) earns money from Google for visitor Google has just paid for? Or something like that?!

</comment><comment><USER101> Google and Facebook will just stop showing results from participating news outlets.

Frankly they have enough user generated content already they don't need these companies. If it bans snippets and allows headlines for free then they'll do that, but honestly they have no need to pay a cent.

</comment><comment><USER102> The plus side to this is that it'll kill (some) off-platform link sharing, which kills the "drive traffic to make money" strategy, which may reduce the amount of outrage porn circulating in the English-speaking world.

Best of luck to the Aussies, and maybe we'll catch up sooner or later.

</comment><comment><USER103> So Facebook has a choice between complying with the spirit of this law, or just appending some Australian news domains to their block list. Facebook has not shown a genuine interest in promoting the spread of truth over lies. What an incredibly stupid move.

</comment><comment><USER104> Notably this _doesn 't_ apply to news from non-Australian operating companies or to the publicly funded broadcasters.

If I was Google or FB I know what I'd be thinking about doing now.

</comment><comment><USER105> A year or two from now: Australia doesn't have mainstream news anymore after Google and Facebook ban links to them from its properties to avoid paying "for news".

<comment><USER91> It's now been a year or two since various HN commenters proclaimed that Australia had "nuked its tech industry from orbit" when the new encryption laws came in, but that doesn't seem to have come true. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18616303](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18616303)

<comment><USER105> That's because the tech industry doesn't really care about their users' privacy. It does care very much about profits, however.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER106> Does Australia really have either the purchasing power and/or political clout to make sweeping statements like these and still have people actually care?

<comment><USER107> $25million people? Probably not

</comment></comment><comment><USER108> I think it is wrong that these platforms promote certain content and even pay for the articles. This is how you get an unhealthy, nepotistic media landscape.

</comment><comment><USER109> And with GPT-3 or any similar technology coming journalism will be even more under pressure of displacement. I guess the future will be data collectors

<comment><USER110> wonder if you could use GPT-3 to rephrase snippets or whole articles and avoid the new fee...

<comment><USER111> > wonder if you could use GPT-3 to rephrase snippets or whole articles and > avoid the new fee...

That'd be just wonderful once someone builds an adversarial model to trick the GPT-3 summarizer to output disinformation or other garbage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER112> Time for FG to invest in local reporters and hire them for original content ie original news reporting and also get some royalty out of it :)

</comment><comment><USER113> If only they could encrypt the links! Austria had them beat though, they outlawed it before this one two punch! Google is over!

</comment><comment><USER114> What implications will this have elsewhere. Where is the line drawn?

I don't disagree with this but it feels like this will open a hornets nest.

<comment><USER115> It depends on if others follow. Australia and New Zealand are outliers when it comes to freedom of speech/expression anyway. They officially censor the media through a censorship office. I believe this doesn't affect the news directly, but movies and video games (I don't know about books) can't be published without government approval. That hasn't really had much of an effect for the rest of the world other than people making fun of Australia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER116> Will this create a new copyright license?

Will I be able to pay a license fee and reprint news stories? That could be really cool.

</comment><comment><USER117> Now what would be great is to see Google pay websites it's stealing content from to populate its snippet blocks

</comment><comment><USER118> Are Google and Facebook also going to charge news organisations per click for the traffic they send their way?

</comment><comment><USER119> "In 2019, Google stopped showing news snippets from European publishers on search results for its French users, while Germany's biggest news publisher, Axel Springer, allowed the search engine to run snippets of its articles after traffic to its sites to plunged." This is the sad reality, this is why these companies can do whatever they want. There is always someone who sells out and forces everyone to give in.

<comment><USER14> Making money for investors isn't 'selling out'. It's like how, you know, a business should be operating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER120> It's more likely FB/G are operating their news aggregation services at a loss rather than a profit.

</comment><comment><USER121> So, Google would index the social media pages of those corporations.

With even declining revenue

</comment><comment><USER122> Sounds rational since somebody has to pay the 'source' of news

</comment><comment><USER123> Pay who?.. Facebook should pay the users as well.

</comment><comment><USER124> Why such corporate lobbying isn't illegal?

</comment><comment><USER125> Spain tried this in 2014. Google simply removed "Google News" and cut off the healthy supply of clicks they send to the news outlets.

From memory, news outlets soon relented because they needed Google more than Google needed them.

When France followed Spain, they stopped Google from removing "Google News" by insisting that it was an abuse of market position to do so. Never mind the fact that it seems like an abuse of power to compel a company to do business in your region on terms it doesn't like, and to prevent it from backing out of the market.

Ben Thompson from Stratechery has some good summaries of this behind his paywall.

</comment><comment><USER126> So much stockholm syndrome here on HN.

</comment><comment><USER127> I hope other countries follow suit.

</comment><comment><USER128> How exactly is this going to work?

</comment><comment><USER129> nice move! Australia

</comment><comment><USER130> socialism at work

</comment><comment><USER131> Unfortunately this will just cause more misinformation and conspiracy theories to circulate.

Fake news is free. Real news is behind paywalls.

<comment><USER86> The main benefactor would be News Corp Australia. Apart from some snippets of tolerable local coverage it's all a big pile of shit that stinks from Uncle Rupert's ugly head down.

Misinformation and conspiracy theories are what they peddle. This single company controls 70% of the newspaper market and lies, misleading and cheating are part of their DNA. I hope they don't see a single red cent out of this and if it takes the shutdown of Google News then so be it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER132> a brilliant piece of legislation too by the looks of it, commendable job.

</comment><comment><USER133> It's very disturbing that Silicon Valley controls so much of public discourse. Hate Trump as much as you like but having all discourse controlled by faceless billionaires is not good to anyone. It would be the same if Bernie Sanders was the president and he did something that would affect them. It's not moral, it's just money for billionaires.</comment>


Apple Hints China Behind 'Billion Device iPhone Hack' That Google Reported - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2019/09/06/apple-hints-china-behind-billion-device-iphone-hack-that-google-reported/#2295d5f812c9 <comment><USER2> So it only takes a couple million dollars to finance an exploit that circumvents all security from a billion iphones? Holy Heck, this must just be the tip of an iceberg.

<comment><USER3> "Only" a couple million dollars?

<comment><USER2> Apple could afford to spend a couple million dollars to find those same security problems and then fix them before everyone's phones became compromised, but apparently they weren't as interested.

<comment><USER4> Apple can (and does) spend lots of millions of dollars to find security vulnerabilities in their products, but it probably won't be the same ones that some malicious actor finds. All our devices are riddled with (hard to find) holes and that's not going to change anytime soon.

<comment><USER5> From looks of it many of the vulnerabilies could have have actually been found at the time of coding if some security best practices were followed

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does anyone know when one travels to China, is the iCloud data entirely compromised by Chinese access? For example is it all synched?

<comment><USER7> Apple has already publicly said in court filings, and under threat of perjury, that they don't make any exceptions for China.

From Apple's filing [1]:

>Finally, the government attempts to disclaim the obvious international implications of its demand, asserting that any pressure to hand over the same software to foreign agents "flows from [Apple's] decision to do business in foreign countries . . . ." Opp. 26. Contrary to the government's misleading statistics (Opp. 26), which had to do with lawful process and did not compel the creation of software that undermines the security of its users, Apple has never built a back door of any kind into iOS, or otherwise made data stored on the iPhone or in iCloud more technically accessible to any country's government. See Dkt. 16-28 [Apple Inc., Privacy, Gov't Info. Requests]; Federighi Decl. ¶¶ 6–7. The government is wrong in asserting that Apple made "special accommodations" for China (Opp. 26), as Apple uses the same security protocols everywhere in the world and follows the same standards for responding to law enforcement requests. See Federighi Decl. ¶ 5.

and a declaration from Craig Federighi personally [2]:

>Apple uses the same security protocols everywhere in the world.

>Apple has never made user data, whether stored on the iPhone or in iCloud, more technologically accessible to any country's government. We believe any such access is too dangerous to allow. Apple has also not provided any government with its proprietary iOS source code. While governmental agencies in various countries, including the United States, perform regulatory reviews of new iPhone releases, all that Apple provides in those circumstances is an unmodified iPhone device.

>It is my understanding that Apple has never worked with any government agency from any country to create a "backdoor" in any of our products and services.

>I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America that the foregoing is true and correct.

When China wants something from iCloud they do it the same way that law enforcement does it everywhere in the world, which is through Apple.

I've seen a number of bad faith claims about this over the years, especially from Alex Stamos on Twitter.

[1] [https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2762131/C-D- Cal-1...](https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2762131/C-D- Cal-16-Cm-00010-Dckt-000177-000-Filed-2016.pdf)

[2] [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2762118-Federighi- De...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2762118-Federighi-Decl- Executed.html#document/p1)

<comment><USER8> Why are you posting statements from 2016 when Apple handed over its iCloud encryption keys to a Chinese company in 2018? That's dangerously misleading and puts users at risk. [https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/02/5-things- you-...](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/02/5-things-you-need-to- know-about-apple-in-china/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> After reading Apple press release again, It seems it was actually directed against China but in very subtle way. Even Google Project zero skipped mention of Uighur community targeting to not get involved in Geo politics of this attack. But Apple is now in a big dilemma as it is in very vulnerable to retaliation by Chinese government hence it also had to draft press release in such a way that it would seem that they are angry at Google. Apple do not want to go Google way and lose access to Chinese market. [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612601/how-google-took- on...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612601/how-google-took-on-china-and- lost/)

<comment><USER8> Especially after they already bent over backwards to give the Chinese government unfettered access to Chinese users' iCloud data. Apple's MO is to play down any bad thing that China does, so customers can still feel good about their purchases. [https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/03/apple- privacy...](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/03/apple-privacy- betrayal-for-chinese-icloud-users/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> China's methods worked on Tibet; I expect the Uighur culture to be dramatically changed in a generation, especially since recording devices are being put in the homes of these people to prevent passage of oral culture/history to the young.

After the Uighur culture is gone, will China keep the surveillance technology in place, e.g. the face scans required to enter the strip-malls, etc.?

<comment><USER11> > recording devices are being put in the homes of these people to prevent > passage of oral culture/history to the young

This is the first time I hear of this, but I haven't been paying close attention - can you tell me more about it?

<comment><USER12> [https://www.shahit.biz/eng/](https://www.shahit.biz/eng/) Here is a database of over 5000 video testimonials by people who have had family members disappeared into Chinese "re-education camps". You can spit the database file out as a .xls and text search it. I found four accounts of forced abortions for women held in the camps.

<comment><USER11> I meant specifically the recording devices in homes. I'm otherwise aware of China's general anti-Uyghur policy.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A complete history of the rise and fall of '90s chatroom (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/10/30/a-complete-history-of-the-rise-and-fall-and-reincarnation-of-the-beloved-90s-chatroom/ <comment><USER2> ctrl-f irc, ah, typical...</comment>


Super Mario AI Competition - <AUTHOR> http://julian.togelius.com/mariocompetition2009/

<comment><USER2> AI contests like this and the DARPA Grand Challenge Race encourage solutions in a single domain. AFAIK in the DARPA Challenge there was overfitting and I doubt the generalization capability of the systems involved. We need more contests in the spirit of "General Game Playing" contests where the problem domain is unknown to the programmers. <http://games.stanford.edu/>. You only get a formal description before the game and a small amount of "thinking" time which the system has to use understand the game and formulate a strategy.

<comment><USER3> There is a vast difference between AI for games (which are purely theoretical exercises) and AI for working in the real world. The fundamental characteristic of the real world is that there is uncertainty and ambiguity in every measurement and even your actions (did my car actually move when I pressed the accelerator?).

The kinds of systems you build to tackle these latter types of problems are _very different_ from the kinds you need for the first type. Both have their place, of course, although IMHO, the latter type is more interesting, as it's a much messier area to work in.

<comment><USER2> Well, messiness is just one part of the problem. I usually see AI as a layered system that solves a general problem. The layers are broadly: lower level sensory systems(vision, speech recognition) and higher level symbolic reasoning systems. Recently, there has a been a lot of success in the lower layers due to Machine Learning and probabilistic systems. The messiness comes in the lower layers. When dealing with the higher layers you face much harder problems. Hard in the sense of Turing uncomputable. The only formal solution proposed for general AI is uncomputable <http://www.hutter1.net/ai/uaibook.htm>.

Also there is nothing which restricts real world problem solvers to a single domain. Most messy problems have a formal solution. The engineering part is what remains (but the engineering part is nevertheless hard!). Some non "messy" problems have no computable solution e.g. deciding whether an arbitrary argument in first order logic is true. They challenge the bounds on human thinking.

Also "General Game Playing" is not only about games. (Like Game Theory is not only about games).

<comment><USER3> I don't agree that the higher level symbolic reasoning is necessarily harder, nor that the lower level is simply engineering. The problems at the low-level are still very tough, and require scientific (and not just hacky- or engineering-) approaches.

As for the "single domain" issue, this was a big red herring in old-style AI (before the so-called AI winter) -- basically, it turns out that the different branches of what used to be called AI (e.g., vision, machine learning, NLP, speech, etc.) have to use quite different techniques.

"General" AI systems such as logic, game players (and yes, I know it's not just about games), etc., can be used in various domains, but in general they're not very applicable to most real-world problems in the different domains.

For example, I work in computer vision, and while we certainly use a lot of probabilistic analysis that can be broadly applicable to other domains, a lot of the progress in recent years has been using techniques that aren't really transferable (e.g., SIFT or SLAM).

<comment><USER2> General AI is not applicable in real life yet. Probabilistic reasoning can be subsumed into a logic system. For example, a human(David Lowe) has originated SIFT. A reasoning system should in principle be able to derive SIFT. We are not there yet but that should be the goal.

The problem with singe domain systems is none are even capable of robust inductive transfer (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_transfer>). Some reasoning problems are mathematically hard problems (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_undecidable_problems>). There is no algorithm which even in principle can solve them. Among other things, you need infinite processing speed to do so. No amount of science can help here as it is in the logical domain.

<comment><USER3> Your statement about inductive transfer is false. There are many vision systems, for example, that use transfer learning (as it is known in our community) to use knowledge gained from one task in another. Moreover, many of these approaches are specific to vision -- they can't easily be applied in other domains.

The rest of your comments about reasoning systems are either part of theoretical computer science (e.g., most of that list of undecidable problems), or in the realm of philosophy/metaphysics/80s-style AI. The former is an interesting area, but much closer to math than most other areas of CS. I call the latter philosophy/metaphysics because these are often questions that are interesting from a purely academic viewpoint, but are utterly useless for trying to make progress on real tasks. This was the big problem with 80s style AI: people hoped that they could build general systems which could "reason" about how to derive algorithms to do particular tasks. Knowledge bases were supposed to be steps in this direction.

What the community learned is that this is not a valid approach, in part because it doesn't take into account the enormous amount of data people have access to from birth to adulthood (not to mention the fact that we can interact with our environment and see the results of our actions). There doesn't seem to be a good way to provide a computer system this kind of information.

There are also strong biological arguments against this idea. For example, a large fraction of human brain cells are exclusively devoted to processing visual information. This is in addition to the significant amount of visual processing done by our eyes and the optic nerve. There are similar systems in the brain devoted to speech processing and language, etc.

All of this suggests that a general reasoning system _cannot_ hope to solve the challenging problems in these different domains.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Oy, such a short timeline for a task like this! Submissions are due by August 14th or September 3.

</comment><comment><USER5> Programming video game AI is fun. I took a class at UPenn where we had to build a pacman playing agent with reenforcement learning. The gameplay was't standard pacman, but with just a few, general features and correct training it was easy to get pretty decent results. And it's not that hard to implement. Not sure how it'd work on Mario though. Anyone have any thoughts?

</comment><comment><USER6> On a related note, one of the more interesting lightning talks at YAPC this year was about the Tactical Amulet Extraction Bot, a framework for programmatically playing nethack. Here's a blog about it: <http://taeb- blog.sartak.org/>

And the code: <http://search.cpan.org/~sartak/TAEB-0.03/lib/TAEB.pm>

I think it's been discussed here at HN once or twice, as well.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've long wondered why the DARPA challenge for automated cars is necessary when the code could be tested using video games for orders of magnitude less money.

<comment><USER8> In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, however...

<comment><USER7> crude simulations don't invalidate theories. i hate anti-scientific quips like that.

<comment><USER9> In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is.

I'm quite sure that if there is one set of people that know this by heart then it is the military. Real world experience will bring out the trouble much faster than any amount of simulation.

Use simulations to help you design, validate your design in the real world. Then update your simulation to reflect the lessons you learned during your real world tests and iterate.

Have a look at armadillo aerospace, John Carmack is as versed as anybody in that field with simulations and STILL they find out almost every trial they do that the real world is not as clean as the simulated one.

<comment><USER10> Indeed. Just take a look at Murphy's laws of combat: <http://www.murphys- laws.com/murphy/murphy-war.html>

<comment><USER11> Those are great, thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I like how a hefty fraction of the algorithms use neural networks so that they get better as they watch humans play.

The reason for this, of course, is that the developers just want a reason to play Mario :-)

<comment><USER13> Fine, yes; but you don't have to use neural networks to get that behavior.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Put "gifs.com/save/" in front of an Instagram video - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Awesome... eager to try out the gifs.com API

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> or a vine, fb/twitter video (under 30seconds).

or even a gif if you want that HTML5 optimized video.

Up next is captioning.

-from the guys who brought you gifyoutube

Hope you enjoy <3.</comment>


New HTML Web Font technology - <AUTHOR> http://dev.fontself.com/

<comment><USER2> I'm curious how this classifies as "new html technology." Its letters being replaced by an images of letters in a different font. Text selection doesn't even work precisely due to the this archaic methodology. What am I missing?</comment>


You've been answering 'how are you?' wrong – here's what to say - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/answering-wrong-should-say/ <comment><USER2> Long time ago I've decided to be utterly honest with people.

The friends are now not many, but all true and for a lifetime.</comment>


Computational Philosophy - <AUTHOR> https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computational-philosophy/ <comment><AUTHOR> I noticed the Philosophy of Computer Science article from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy was on the front page. That article is pretty old; this one here is hot off the presses and may be of interest. Sort of the converse of the other one on the front page.

edit: here's a quick summary of the topic from the intro: "Computational philosophy is not philosophy of computers or computational techniques; it is rather philosophy using computers and computational techniques."</comment>


Terrestrial Sonar - <AUTHOR> http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2015/04/terrestrial-sonar.html

<comment><USER2> Reminds me of the "talking" drums used in West Africa[1]. Low frequency sound can travel distances measured in miles.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talking_drum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talking_drum)

</comment><comment><USER3> Much as I like a good story.

I call BS.

I tend to think to much energy would be needed to go the distance then reform in another drum.

[edit] So if all the energy is transferred it'll be the same loudness, but one would assume it's at least a square root of loss.

An ear on a train line is linearish with neither depth or sideways loss and still needs a lot of amplification i.e. ear directly on the line. (So it seems to me from movies.)</comment>


Rails 4 startup template - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/dennybritz/rails_startup_template

<comment><USER2> Rather than Haml, at this point, I'd use Slim. Slim is cleaner (I'd say nicer) and faster than haml.

[http://slim-lang.com/](http://slim-lang.com/)

<comment><USER3> Do you have any side-by-side benchmark comparisons of haml and slim? Not saying you're mistaken, but I'd be interested in those metrics.

<comment><USER2> There are a bunch out there, but here's one:

[https://github.com/klaustopher/hamlerbslim](https://github.com/klaustopher/hamlerbslim)

Also on a different note, Slim supports http streaming while Haml does not.

<comment><USER3> Nice, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great! Also see Thoughtbot Suspenders, [https://github.com/thoughtbot/suspenders](https://github.com/thoughtbot/suspenders)

It also uses Bourbon, HAML, RSpec, etc. as well as many more gems. Overall I like and recommend what Thoughtbot creates.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool, thanks. I hadn't heard of suspenders. I'll check it out (and maybe steal some of their stuff... ;))

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've added this to the list of application templates I track at [http://railsapps.github.io/rails-application- templates.html](http://railsapps.github.io/rails-application-templates.html).

There's also a list of starter apps at [http://railsapps.github.io/rails- examples-tutorials.html](http://railsapps.github.io/rails-examples- tutorials.html).

Most starter app projects end up as abandonware as Rails changes so it's good to see a new app template offered for Rails 4.0. Starter apps always produce a great discussion about must-have gems.

</comment><comment><USER6> For development I have become cracked out on these for all of my apps

        group :development do
          gem 'better_errors' #literally what it says
          gem 'binding_of_caller' #adds REPL to better_errors
          gem 'quiet_assets' #prevent asset pipeline log doesnt go to console
          gem 'guard-livereload' #adds live reload
          gem 'rack-livereload'
          gem 'meta_request' #chrome rails panel extension
        end

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, I like better_errors as well. I will probably add that! I think quiet_assets is no longer necessary, you can just change that in the config file.

I don't know the other, but will take a look at them! Thanks!

<comment><USER2> I wrote a gem, exception_details, that captures variable values at exception time. It gets you some pry-ish type detail, but you can use it on background jobs, etc. Might be useful for your toolbox...

[https://github.com/ericbeland/exception_details](https://github.com/ericbeland/exception_details)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have a starter app based on Ruby 2.0, Rails 4.0, PostgreSQL, Bootstrap and OmniAuth. Deployable on Heroku.

Here is what it looks like running live: [http://frozen- savannah-6000.herokuapp.com/](http://frozen-savannah-6000.herokuapp.com/)

<comment><USER8> Care to link back to the github repository?

<comment><USER9> I googled it: [https://github.com/nileshtrivedi/rails-starter- app](https://github.com/nileshtrivedi/rails-starter-app)

<comment><USER7> Oops, don't know how I missed that. Thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Remove the require_tree directives from the sass and JS files. It's better > design to import or require things manually.

I'm sorry, what?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, personal choice, but I've had a lot of problems with rails "require_tree" in the past. Some gems add files to your code that shouldn't be required. ActiveAdmin is an example of that (though I think they've fixed that lately). To clarify, this is not about the "require" directives, only the "require_tree"

<comment><USER10> That sounds like an issue with the gems and not using require_tree

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, but IMHO it's a lot cleaner if you actually know what's included instead of having 30 files in a kind of random order in there.

<comment><USER10> You can view the files in the html script includes while in development mode. It just feels wrong to me to do this manually. I have written the infrastructure code to handle javascript minification and compression. Not having to manage a script order file is one of the best parts of the asset pipeline.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, maybe I should give the asset pipeline another try. I started the habit of including files manually when it was first launched and was quite buggy. Ryan Bates from Railscasts also seems to prefer including his assets manually, he mentioned that in some of his screencasts. I kinda stole the habit from him.

I'll give the asset pipeline another try the next time...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nice template, looks like an opinionated one . I see you have used ".env" file. I read somewhere when opensourcing apps its better to have all the env variables in .env, instead of using gem like [https://github.com/laserlemon/figaro](https://github.com/laserlemon/figaro).

Also there is rails_composer [https://github.com/RailsApps/rails- composer/](https://github.com/RailsApps/rails-composer/) with many options to select css framework, servers, testing tools.

</comment><comment><USER12> I just love GitHub. Followed the link, noticed that certain links were highlighted as links but not working. Went to the README, edited the broken links, sent a pull request [1], and now it works as expected. Everything done without having to leave "browsing mode", i.e. no cloning, no terminal, no editor.

[1] [https://github.com/dennybritz/rails_startup_template/pull/3](https://github.com/dennybritz/rails_startup_template/pull/3)

</comment><comment><USER13> So, I did something similar, and I found that one of my least favorite things was going into the browser to create and link the github repo. Using the octokit gem, I automated that part. Feel free to swipe some code from my gist:

[https://gist.github.com/BrainScraps/5952463](https://gist.github.com/BrainScraps/5952463)

Rock on.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's great, thanks! I hate creating the github repo as well (sometimes I skip that part and just use Heroku). If you don't mind I'll copy some of your code and make creating a github repo another optional prompt.

<comment><USER13> Absolutely!

I noticed that suspenders(thoughtbot) also had that option. They used hub, which I think is a bit more intrusive than just installing the octokit gem. I'm interested to see what you come up with! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is something similar available for django projects?

<comment><USER15> There are plenty of Django project templates:

[https://github.com/rdegges/django-skel](https://github.com/rdegges/django- skel)

[https://github.com/twoscoops/django-twoscoops- project](https://github.com/twoscoops/django-twoscoops-project)

[https://github.com/amarsahinovic/django-project- template](https://github.com/amarsahinovic/django-project-template) (my version, feedback welcome)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> No guard or similar? Do you run tests and reload pages manually or use something else?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I usually use guard. Indeed, I forgot to put that in there. Thanks for noticing!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why not make a switch gems, in case someone doesn't want them? In other words, something like:

ENV['dont_include']='bourbon,analytics-ruby' rails new [app-name] -m template.rb

</comment><comment><USER18> Why Haml instead of Slim?

<comment><USER10> Why Haml at all? You will be changing all of your html in a browser anyways. Why not write html/erb?

<comment><AUTHOR> I know this would become a debate, haha. HAML has definitely disadvantages, ERB is indeed nicer if you need to write a lot of nested tags, or stuff like strong, small, etc. Still I've found it's more pleasant to work with... But that's just personal taste and I should probably make it optional.

<comment><USER10> Coffeescript is really nice, though it can sometimes be a pain to debug. Haml is more succinct than HTML and I like the forced tab alignment. The problem is I almost never write view code that does not need to immediately be debugged in the browser. So I have to pay a mental tax to transform it nearly every time I write it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Allow SECURE_TOKEN to be set via environment variable and it to be rotate- able.</comment>


News – YEcombinator – Com - <AUTHOR> https://stayingqold.github.io/news-yecombinator-com/ <comment><USER2> Cross-Origin Request Blocked: The Same Origin Policy disallows reading the remote resource at [https://www.reddit.com/r/kanye/hot.json?count=20](https://www.reddit.com/r/kanye/hot.json?count=20). (Reason: CORS request did not succeed).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I saw Kanye tweeting about Y Combinator last night and decided to build a hacker news clone that displays posts from r/kanye :)</comment>


Apple's enterprise strategy the same as it ever was - <AUTHOR> http://www.macworld.com/article/136762/2008/11/apple_enterprise.html

<comment><USER2> The biggest problem I've encountered with Apple in a business setting is Open Directory. You give it the evil eye and it gets corrupted; requiring restoration from backup (You have a backup, right?). BerkleyDB just doesn't cut it. Apple's documentation and KB could use some major overhauls, too...

In contrast, I can drop kick a Windows 2003 server out the 12th Floor Window and Active Directory keep running, and if I do have problems the KB can at least give me a lead on finding a solution.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think Apple will produce a surprise. They won't be able to hide it from Sun's investors, but I expect the first proper, public confirmation, product announcement, and strategy brief to be when Scott walks on stage, shakes hands with Steve, and announces that Apple owns Sun.

Yes, Sun OSS'd a bunch of stuff, but they did it in a way that protects their kernel level IP from being integrated with Linux. That's still valuable to Apple (hell, it even ties in nicely with Darwin). But not as valuable as the relationships Sun has with large enterprise customers that still don't yet use Linux for everything.

<comment><USER4> I've heard of two companies that Apple is going to buy now: Yahoo and Sun. :-)

<comment><USER5> you are kidding, right?

<comment><USER4> No, these are both speculation that I've heard today.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mirage 2014 review: IPv6, TLS, Irmin, Jitsu and community growth - <AUTHOR> http://openmirage.org/blog/2014-in-review

<comment><USER2> My job for new years day recovery is to update the website to go live on IPv6 and TLS. But for now, happy new year everyone!</comment>


Amazon Prime putting in commercials - <AUTHOR> Why is Amazon injecting commercials in their Prime content? I was just subjected to a Geico commercial. I pay for no commercials. That is the only reason I have it. Why is there not a firestorm about this online?  I contacted customer support and they told me they are called "snippets" based on my viewing habits; "they aren't commercials". I will be cancelling if this does not change. <comment><USER2> Write up a blog post with some screenshots of the ad and the absolutely ridiculous customer response, and I am sure you can reach the front page of reddit.

</comment><comment><USER3> "I pay for no commercials."

Where does Amazon say this? I might be dense but I've never seen them promote their content as "commercial free."

</comment><comment><USER4> Wow.. I dint expect ads on Prime content! Amazon will charge for Video and Music subscription separately?. Ad supported for just prime?

<comment><USER5> Prime music is ad-free. [https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/prime/pipeline/landing?ie=UTF8&*...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/prime/pipeline/landing?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0)

> Prime Music

> Ad-free albums, playlists and stations with Prime Music. Prime Music gives > you ad-free albums, playlists and stations. Listen to the music you love and > find new music that fits your tastes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What service were you using to watch Prime? I have to say that I have not seen any commercials using my Vizio Smart TV interface which I was watching 3 of the new pilots.

I would agree that any commercials on Prime and I would strongly consider cancelling. I cancelled Hulu for the same reason.

<comment><USER3> "I cancelled Hulu for the same reason."

Isn't Hulu pretty up-front about their commercials? What were you expecting vs. what you received?

<comment><USER7> Hulu was nice at first, until i realized that they couldn't handle slicing up a show to inject commercials to save their lives.

example:

      1. original scene change/comercial at 00:58
      2. show runs up until 01:00
      3. hulu then starts to buffer the commercial
      4. hulu then resumes show, but backs up to 00:55 showing the fade to black and some of the show again...

maybe they've gotten better, but this was an awful experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I recall seeing them on some pilots. The ad appeared once before the show for 15-30s. I don't recall any in-show commercials.

</comment><comment><USER9> Wow. How often do they show up? Are they skippable? This is pretty ridiculous, after making such a big deal of it being ad-free.

<comment><USER9> Ok. It looks like it is just a single ad before the content of each of the pilots in the current promotion. Definitely a bit silly but not outrageous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Fight the power cuz.</comment>


Show HN: Relaunching AudioBox - your media library, in any cloud - <AUTHOR> http://audiobox.fm

<comment><USER2> just tried it out: way more cool features than the old version, it's faster (and nicer). And I can connect my dropbox and GDrive. Well well done!</comment>


On Google and evil - <AUTHOR> http://johnaugust.com/archives/2011/on-google-and-evil

<comment><USER2> I find it disturbing that people get so caught up in the marketing spin and counter-spin of these amoral giant corporations that their personal self-image becomes tied to the companies they root for and they create these moralistic interpretations of their actions. Grow up. Corporations are just money making machines, they don't have your or anyone else's interest at heart besides their shareholder's.

</comment><comment><USER3> Google's just reached giant status. They're no longer the plucky little underdog, and we shouldn't expect them to act like one. As far as large corporations go, they're on the "less evil" side of things. They still do some shady things, but I would call Apple and Microsoft far shadier. Google only looks bad in comparison to their stated motto, not by real-world actions.

</comment><comment><USER4> _When Microsoft has a big success — Kinect, for example, is amazing — I find myself rooting for them._

I was amazed to find myself doing the same thing, and if I had gone back in time to tell my younger self that I would be doing that, the younger me would have suspected that the older me was pulling his leg.

<comment><AUTHOR> Everything in Xbox land has that kind of tint for me. The 360 has been a great console and the Kinect is a wildly impressive bit of technology, not to mention a great user experience. If you can remember to stand in front of your TV, it's hard to do anything wrong.

It's fun, it works well, and it beats the hell out of anything you could do with Wii nunchucks and the balance board.

<comment><USER5> What kills the warm and fuzzies I have about the 360 (a game like Assassin's Creed 2 is just...gorgeous. To see it running so incredibly on 5 year old hardware is a marvel) is Xbox Live. The operations of that service take an enjoyable platform and put a greasy, scamy salesman in front of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> back in 2006 when i first moved into the "game changing strategies" role at Microsoft, we spent a lot of time analyzing Google's culture. one of the things we spotted was that "Don't be evil" isn't sustainable. there are a lot of situations where any option is at least somewhat evil; and business pressures have a way of forcing you to do evil things.

Of course I was very careful about saying this around Microsoft. People there are very competitive, and being evil used to be a core competency. I didn't want to get into a situation where folks were saying "hey we have an opportunity to can be more evil than Google!"

<comment><USER7> I agree. At some point, when your company gets so big and entrenched, it becomes necessary to make decisions to do what ever it takes to keep the machine running. Some may interpret this as being "evil", but I see it as a natural instinct to survive. Self preservation is not inherently evil. It's one thing to be the underdog fighting a giant, but it's another thing to become the giant yourself and having to defend against new underdogs. The Animal Farm analogy is apropos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't think it has anything to do with Apple or Microsoft or competition. I think it is Google's reliance on algorithms over people that caused them a lot of problems when human interaction is needed.

I see Google's bad PR as pretty much in line with Paypal's problems. A blackbox that people depend on. Paypal is that way because of fraud detection that errors on the guilty side. Google is that way do to lack of support infrastructure and a deep belief in the supremacy of algorithms. Add to this a motto that is easily mocked and makes for great link-baited headlines and you have Google's situation today.

The only thing being a competitor to Apple has influenced this IMHO is that it places Google in the consumer arena where they are not well structured to deal with customers. More avenues for interaction is the problem not the companies they compete against.

</comment><comment><USER9> Google Wave - under thought and over engineered? And this is coming from a screenwriter - NOT a designer. NOT an engineer.

I thought it was a great experiment. Shut down yes, but it's being open- sourced and I can see people will pick it up. Poor performance but I am sure the code and lessons can be used somewhere else.

</comment><comment><USER10> so what should the google movie be about then?

</comment><comment><USER5> _"But it's remarkable how much my appreciation for Google has shifted over the last year or two"_

I suspect this shift in sentiment has more to do with Google evolving from being Microsoft's competitor (back when Microsoft was the boogeyman to Apple), to Google being _Apple's_ competitor.

To many who hold Apple so dearly to their heart, this causes a serious conundrum. Suddenly every move by Google can only be seen with incredible suspicion and assumptions of worst intentions. See the recent raging about WebM as a perfect example.

 _The Android operating system it makes for mobile phones has become a viable challenger for Apple's iOS. But for all the talk about it being open, they're not giving it away out of the goodness of their hearts_

The link provided to purportedly demonstrate this undermines the point, because it is, demonstrating the point above, nothing but the raging conspiracy by an Apple fanatic who abhors any perceived threat to his love Apple.

Nonetheless, as a consumer I am fully aware of Google's ambitions with Android, which is the same reason why I don't use Chrome. However Android is the _best available option_ in the space for my rights, and the best opportunity to stop those rights from being trampled, however many ridiculous scarequotes are used to express the author's total misunderstanding of open.

<comment><USER7> Why all the hate for Apple? This article is about how opinion of Google has soured.

My theory is that "Don't be evil" isn't sustainable if society defines "evil" as making business decisions in the interest of self preservation. Society likes underdogs, and Google is now clearly the top dog fighting to survive instead of fighting to get the top. Once a company gets big enough, it becomes easy to be perceived as a bully because anything you do will have all that power and leverage behind it. And underdog entering a new market is innovative. A big corporation entering a new market is invasive. Firefox supporting WebM is practical, but Google supporting WebM is evil. Even Apple is generally perceived to be the evil Big Brother they so famously advertised against a few decades ago.

<comment><USER5> _Why all the hate for Apple? This article is about how opinion of Google has soured._

There's no hate for Apple. There is, however, perspective on human behavior, one of which is a "with us or against us" mentality.</comment></comment></comment>