Right now, companies like Google and Meta are locked in a battle against the American government. Right now, there’s a bill circulating called the CJPA (California Journalism Preservation Act), and it’s been stirring up some drama in the journalism industry. Well, the CJPA just passed the Senate Appropriations Committee, and now it’s going to a floor vote.
To catch you up, the CJPA is an act that would force major tech companies to pay publishers to link to their sites. These major tech brands as large corporations that distribute links to the masses like Google, Meta, Microsoft, and others. These are companies that share ad revenue with the companies whose links they display.
As you can imagine, these companies have pushed back against this over the years. Both Meta and Google have stopped displaying links in certain countries and regions, which resulted in major damaging effects. The large corporations don’t care, of course, as they’re able to throw their weight around.
Meta stopped sharing links in Canada and Google pulled out of Spain for eight years, just to name a few instances.
The CJPA will make it to a floor vote
According to a new report from Media Post, the official bill (CJPA, AB 886) has just passed the state Senate Appropriations Committee. This is another step forward in its journey to becoming official legislature.
This bill came about back in March 2023, and it’s definitely faced some pushback from the companies that would need to pay up. It passed the Senate Judiciary Committee in June 2024. Now, it’s on its way to a floor vote. The results of this vote could steer the direction of this whole push. We’re going to have to wait for the vote to know what’s going to happen.
President and CEO of the News/Media Alliance, Danielle Coffey, offered a statement, “News publishers must receive compensation from the Big Tech platforms for the use of their content to be able to continue their critically important work. We need quality news and information now more than ever to stay informed and help counter the tsunami of misinformation online.”
Why this is necessary
It seems odd that the government wants major companies to pay publishers to use their links. The companies already share the ad revenue with publishers, and that pays the bills. However, the fact of the matter is that the amount of ad revenue (at least in Google’s case) going to news organizations has been decreasing over the years.
That’s unsettling because the amount of ad revenue that the company’s been getting has been increasing over the years. That’s extremely unfair. This, coupled with the fact that AI tools like Google’s AI Overviews threaten to tighten the vice on publications even more, means that publications are in a tight spot. They need to be properly funded in order to inform the masses about what’s going on. There’s a “tsunami of misinformation” as Coffey puts it, and it’s true. Quality reporting is in need of financial support, especially during an election.
Potential effects
If this bill does get passed, this could be potentially great for California… or it could be the final nail in the coffin. Google, in all its mercifulness, has threatened to stop showing links to California-based news organizations if it gets passed. Google is the biggest search company in the world. Bing, which is the second-largest search engine in the world is miles behind Google. It only has 3% of the search engine market while Google has over 90%.
So, if Google agrees to cut links to California-based news sites, then most, if not all, of the California-based sites depending on Google will fizzle out. Millions of people will lose their jobs, and the flow of news out of California will be hindered. Just because of ONE company.
It’s up to Google and the government to come to some sort of agreement regarding this BEFORE everything hits the fan. It’s not the responsibility of the people (who are already struggling in this economic climate), to take the consequences of this fight.
Also, a playground-bully move like what Google is planning on doing should be illegal. Google has the right to protect its bottom line, but it shouldn’t be allowed to screw over a large part of the journalism industry with the flip of a switch.
Other companies like Meta and Microsoft aren’t looking like they’re going to be a shining beacon for journalists either. Both companies are diving deeper into the world of AI. We got reports that Meta plans to stop displaying links to publications, start showing AI-generated results, and start displaying ads on those results. Can there be a bigger f$&k-you to journalists?
We don’t know what Microsoft is planning on doing, but OpenAI is working on launching an AI-powered search engine. There’s no telling if Microsoft is going to go down that same route.
The biggest players supporting the journalism industry are the main ones letting it down. If this bill passes, it could either be great or devastating for the journalism industry.
The post The California Journalism Preservation Act takes a step forward appeared first on Android Headlines.