Facebook Called Out for Latest Attempt to Game Media Industry: ‘Lucy Promises Not to Pull Football Away This Time’

Facebook announced a new plan to license content from news outlets, as reported in the Wall Street Journal, but the reaction in the media Twitter world was, to say the least, unenthusiastic.

Many news organizations are understandably wary of working with Facebook after it rolled out a big push toward featuring news in its users’ feed years ago only to later backtrack and drop the initiative. And many of those news outlets who did embrace Facebook’s publishing platform gained very little traffic or revenue from the partnership.

Jouranlists’ bitterness over Facebook’s past behavior was on full display…

Lucy Promises Not To Pull The Football Away This Time https://t.co/V50pVNefHg

— Nick Baumann (@NickBaumann) August 8, 2019

ugghh https://t.co/IQt4JYdvWF

— Amanda Terkel (@aterkel) August 8, 2019

Picking winners? https://t.co/7qKmyhKXTC

— Dan Gillmor (@dangillmor) August 8, 2019

ugghh https://t.co/IQt4JYdvWF

— Amanda Terkel (@aterkel) August 8, 2019

Morons who run digital media, I beg of you: Please don’t fall for this for the 18th time. https://t.co/5we9ldkug8

— Barry Petchesky (@barry) August 8, 2019

why doesn’t anyone get any smarter, as time passes https://t.co/S5O56yI3Fw

— Casey Johnston (@caseyjohnston) August 8, 2019

Here’s another idea: why don’t we all tell Facebook to go fuck itself instead https://t.co/lTUEGdPv16

— Patrick George (@bypatrickgeorge) August 8, 2019

call me when facebook agrees to hand over half of its ad revenue https://t.co/4C0K64glbu

— Jack Mirkinson (@jackmirkinson) August 8, 2019

And then a year later, all those incentives will dry up if history is any guide.

Any publisher that ignores years of evidence and willingly puts itself behind Facebook’s walled garden deserves what it gets. https://t.co/raLZm5R4Sk

— Jeremy Littau (@JeremyLittau) August 8, 2019

[stares in social media manager] https://t.co/SPh0atX8Vp

— danny nett (@dannynett) August 8, 2019

“Imagine a boot pivoting on a human face — forever.” https://t.co/xzoXXmYcQ2

— Edward A. Rueda (@ruedanews) August 8, 2019

Oh great another thing that will completely ignore local news as newspapers continue to die.

“millions of dollars” but how many for local news outlets? https://t.co/VsAbQBgjbJ

— Sean Kennedy (@SeanDKennedy) August 8, 2019

The newspaper industry is literally trying to push Congress to let it legally negotiate as a trust to do something very similar. Something tells me they will get a better deal if they continue down that path. https://t.co/9ohAH1RPQq

— Ernie Smith (@ShortFormErnie) August 8, 2019

And then there were the gif reactions…

https://t.co/yfs67psqxg pic.twitter.com/DO12kYns84

— Brian Barrett (@brbarrett) August 8, 2019

https://t.co/rHLTwLBRWn pic.twitter.com/xOdPzn4lfa

— Ben Werdmuller (@benwerd) August 8, 2019

https://t.co/NDWS87E2oW pic.twitter.com/DYy8r5F0L6

— Chris Chester (@ChrisBChester) August 8, 2019

La estrategia de Facebook para mejorar su imagen en medios de comunciación consiste en sacar la cartera y empezar a repartir millones de dólares. https://t.co/aWjMWlNGF8 pic.twitter.com/tj05Zv6ikc

— Eduardo Arcos @ Area 51 (@earcos) August 8, 2019

[featured photo via LOIC VENANCE/AFP/Getty Images)