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In early 2022 and after long hours of drafting and debate, Senators John Kennedy (R-LA) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) came to the Senate Judiciary Committee with a bipartisan proposal to discomfort “Big Tech.” The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) generated much controversy and raised the temperature in the upper chamber.
After countless days of negotiation and threatening to throw the text in the trash, the committee advanced the legislation with a 15-7 vote, which started the rugged path to the president’s desk. Now, the bill must be evaluated by the full Senate and the House of Representatives.
With all the controversy emanating from this bill, it is natural to ask the question: What does the Journalism Preservation and Competition Act do?
Independent journalism is critical to strengthening democracy & keeping us informed. My bipartisan bill with Sen. Kennedy to help save our local media outlets from losing hard-earned revenue to Facebook & Google just passed out of committee 17-7! One step closer to becoming law!
— Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar) September 22, 2022
The legislation intends to protect small newspapers and media outlets from the might of the so-called “Big Tech.” The main problem that the authors of the bill found is that technology corporations, such as Google and Facebook, add advertising to the content generated by these media outlets and make millions of dollars in profits without paying a cent to the original authors of such content.
Therefore, through an exception to the antitrust laws, these small media will be able to form a group to negotiate with corporations and obtain money for their publications.
As stated in the bill, the senators’ definition of “small media” is that they have less than 1,500 employees.
An amendment by Ted Cruz shook the bill
From ground zero, several conservatives such as Josh Hawley and Mike Lee took a dim view of the bill, as they were unhappy with the exception of the antitrust laws. However, Ted Cruz saw bright spots in the JCPA and was drawn by the idea that “Big Tech hates this bill.”
Just when it looked like the bill would advance straight to the Senate, Cruz asked for the floor and proposed an amendment that would prohibit this media cartel from including any content moderation in the negotiations. In other words, the discussion should be about money for content created, not about the type of content or its ideology.
A Ted Cruz amendment that was incorporated into the JCPA angered Amy Klobuchar, who threatened to backtrack on the bill. (Source: EFE).
“Without this amendment, the cartel would give an immunity from antitrust liability for the cartel sitting down agreeing to censor and so whether or not that is your principal objective it would be a subsidy for censorship from the U.S. Congress (…) This amendment would do is it would say when this simply says if your conduct extends to censorship there’s not an immunity from this bill for that activity,” Cruz said in committee.
Of course, the amendment had to be put to a vote. Although the Senate Judiciary Committee is composed of 11 Democrats and 11 Republicans, due to the absence of Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) for Coronavirus, the amendment advanced 11-10. Frustration among his colleagues was evident, given that he also failed to leave a “proxy vote,” which would have allowed his staff to vote for it.
Klobuchar could not help but be angry and even threatened to withdraw the bill, while John Kennedy defended Cruz by claiming that his amendment only makes explicit something that was already implicit. “If I’m missing something, tell me,” the Lousiana senator remarked.
After a few seconds of sharp silence, Kennedy quipped that “this is a new experience we actually have democracy in action where we have a debate here.”
After months of debate, JCPA will reach the Senate floor
Naturally, this situation extended the negotiations, which ended on Thursday, September 22 with an agreement between Cruz, Klobuchar, and Kennedy.
Today I secured significant protections against Big Tech censorship with an amendment to the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act of 2022. 1/xhttps://t.co/1Knw9bPCLR
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) September 22, 2022
“For the last two weeks Senator Cruz, Kennedy, and I have been working on an amendment that would allow this bill to proceed this amendment. Amendment Sil 22b 36 replaces Senator Cruz’s Amendment with Provisions that further clarify that the Bill’s focus is solely on compensation for news organizations when platforms access our content and that discussions or agreements between news organizations and platforms on content are outside of the scope of the bill,” Klobuchar stated last Thursday.
“Tech Goliaths like Facebook and Google are strangling smaller conservative publications by keeping them from making a profit on online platforms. The manipulation is squashing free speech. This bill bars Big Tech firms from throttling, filtering, suppressing or curating online content while providing local news outlets with a fair playing field to negotiate against these censorship giants,” Kennedy celebrated.
The legislation advanced 15-7 in committee and now heads straight to the Senate and House of Representatives, where it must cross a thorny path to President Joe Biden’s desk.
Joaquín Núñez es licenciado en comunicación periodística por la Universidad Católica Argentina. Se especializa en el escenario internacional y en la política nacional norteamericana. Confeso hincha de Racing Club de Avellaneda. Contacto: [email protected] // Joaquín Núñez has a degree in journalistic communication from the Universidad Católica Argentina. He specializes in the international scene and national American politics. Confessed fan of Racing Club of Avellaneda. Contact: [email protected]