In all seriousness I hope this drives the less informed in Australia to seek out actual news sources and break out of the echo chamber that is Facebook. And I hope it forces Facebook to actually support journalism instead of leeching off of it. You can't have a robust democracy without a robust fourth estate.
Are these less informed people numerous enough to cause a problem to others, perhaps by voting badly? How would you know?
Are you one of them? How would you know? If you are, then aren't any opinions you share on the internet just making things worse?
I ask these questions because I keep seeing the news exaggerating some bogeyman and people believing that it's more significant than it really is. For example, you expressed concern for democracy in your post here, which seems like a pretty big danger! Is that really at risk for Australia or are you misinformed about the significance of this particular bogeyman?
I also see people complaining about misinformation while never identifying themselves as victims of it. Why aren't the victims complaining? Because part of being a victim of misinformation includes not knowing that you are. So maybe it's yourself, in which case, better to address that problem before trying to "correct" others. Also, this idea of there being a huge underclass of misinformed people damaging democracy is divisive. It classifies people into good (always ourselves) and bad (always someone else), giving moral justification to the self-declared "good" people to correct the "bad" people.
> the Federal government is ignoring their constitutional responsibility to enact a quarantine for international travelers
I assume your claim is true even though a quick Google doesn't show how. So doesn't Australia have any process to compel the government to comply with the constitution? It's entirely up to the whim of voters? Then it's fair enough that they don't comply since it's optional. Democracy is the general population choosing the government, not a self-declared group of "right" people.
So far, your claim about less informed people is essentially just "other people voted for a government I don't like so they must have been less informed than me".
> So doesn't Australia have any process to compel the government to comply with the constitution?
Australia has the most volatile politics of any English speaking country. The two ways for a government to be forced to follow the constitution is for the Queen to fire them, or for a military coup.
>So far, your claim about less informed people is essentially just "other people voted for a government I don't like so they must have been less informed than me".
My claim is that an Australian government is acting outside the constitution and responsible for the deaths of thousands. Not sure what you're trying to do with your strawman argument.
OK, so the constitution's optional. No problem violating it then.
If you don't like what the government did, I don't mind you sharing your opinion. But how does it logically connect with my comment that you replied to? I thought you were giving an example showing that voters are not well informed and I pointed out that it's not objectively wrong, just different from what you want.
So just wait for that to happen then elect a new one and repeat until he/she stops violating it. Voters can still vote for a prime minister who violates the constitution if they want. That's their right, and it's a good part of democracy. Hopefully the country has other institutions to prevent that but it sounds like Australia doesn't because the queen isn't doing her job, so it ends up de-facto allowed if the voters want it.
If FB thought that would happen they wouldn't have done.
And have you seen the types of 'information' people share on Facebook when they are not sharing links to news? I think users will stay in Facebook but share lower quality stuff.
I can guarantee that the exact opposite of that is gonna happen. There's a reason why we are in the current state of misinformation. Quality journalism stays behind paywalls, while misinformation is free. In the age of constant information, anything that has more barriers to access, keeps losing its position in the ecosystem.
I hope so too. Though I have a different theory on how the public would react. Australian users of FB/Instagram can't share links to any news website. But they can share screenshots and memes about the news. Even videos. The other thing - many summary accounts just popup who would give their version of the news in text or video. Why? because the news is paywalled and not everyone pays.
This is a rabbit hole, and Australian govt wont let it go easily. They will next complain about screenshots being shared - tough to monitor but they are literally taking away the traffic from news sites. People move away from a website if it can't fulfill their needs. But, if they have all the needs (wants?) fulfilled except the part about news, they won't go to another site, they will just find a hack to fulfill the news bit. How far can the content moderation go? Given the motives of publishers are not noble here, asking for money for something they should be paying, not having traffic would hurt them badly. This is what Facebook is betting on, but given the size of the issue, it would be embarrassment for the govt to walk back the proposals after FB has withdrawn. Give it a year, they will come to an agreement where both parties win.
Australia doesn't really have a robust fourth estate. It has a Murdoch-ruled empire which is pretty much the propaganda arm of the rightwing Liberal government, though it's hard to say who wags who's tail.
FB is an insane echo chamber for sure but at least you can pick your chamber. Any exposure to the news in Australia is tainted by the Murdoch's foul agenda.
In all seriousness I hope this drives the less informed in Australia to seek out actual news sources and break out of the echo chamber that is Facebook. And I hope it forces Facebook to actually support journalism instead of leeching off of it. You can't have a robust democracy without a robust fourth estate.