A bipartisan California bill that would require big technology companies to pay publishers for news reports that help drive their profits passed the state Assembly, despite a threat this week from Facebook parent Meta that the law would spur it to remove news articles from its platforms.by Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat, and co-authored by Assemblymen Bill Essayli, a Riverside Republican, and Josh Lowenthal, a Democrat representing Long Beach. It now heads to the state Senate.
Wicks introduced the bill following the December collapse in Congress of proposed federal legislation with similar goals. That bill, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, was introduced by U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, and John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican. The bill is backed by a number of print and broadcast news organizations. But in addition to its chief targets — Alphabet’s Google and Meta’s Facebook — it is opposed by the ACLU of California, the California Chamber of Commerce, California Taxpayers Association, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and some online news organizations, including CalMatters.
“The bill fails to recognize that publishers and broadcasters put their content on our platform themselves and that substantial consolidation in California’s local news industry came over 15 years ago, well before Facebook was widely used,” Meta’s statement continued. “It is disappointing that California lawmakers appear to be prioritizing the best interests of national and international media companies over their own constituents.
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