Rasmus Kleis Nielsen on Australia, Facebook and the Future of Journalism
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 25 February 2021
⏱️ 47 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
This week on Lawfare's Arbiters of Truth miniseries on disinformation and misinformation, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, the director of the Reuters Institute and professor of political communication at the University of Oxford, about the fight between Australia and Facebook. After Australia proposed a law that would force Facebook to pay for content linked on its platform from Australian news sites, Facebook responded by blocking any news posts in the country. The company and the Australian government have since resolved the spat—for now—but the dust-up raises bigger questions about the relationship between traditional media and social media platforms and the future of the media industry. They talked not only about Australia, but also about the role of social media in contributing to political polarization, the outlook for various business models funding journalism and what political solutions—other than Australia’s—might look like.
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
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| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:32.6 | I mean, fundamentally, I think this is a very heated debate because there is money on the |
| 0:38.4 | line and different self-interest commercial players are gunning for that money either |
| 0:41.9 | to keep it or to get it. |
| 0:43.8 | There is a lot of political capital invested in this when a number of government ministers |
| 0:49.2 | and a government have invested capital in forcing a number of companies to do something, then |
| 0:56.9 | of course there is a risk that will look like they've backed down if they don't, in fact, |
| 1:00.4 | accomplish some version of it. |
| 1:03.0 | And then there are various people who make their living in part having strong opinions |
| 1:08.0 | about things that also are weighing in on this debate. |
| 1:12.7 | I'm Quinted Jurassic and this is the LawFair podcast February 25th, 2021. |
| 1:20.5 | It's another episode of the Arbiters of Truth, the LawFair Podcast's mini-series on disinformation |
| 1:25.5 | and misinformation. |
| 1:27.6 | This week, Evelyn Dwight and I spoke with Rasmus Cliced Nielsen, the director of the Reuters |
| 1:32.6 | Institute and professor of political communication at the University of Oxford. |
| 1:38.2 | He asked Rasmus to come on the show to discuss the fight between Australia and Facebook. |
| 1:43.8 | After Australia proposed a law that would force Facebook to pay for content linked on |
| 1:48.1 | its platform from Australian news sites, Facebook responded by blocking any news posts in the |
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