Congressional lawmakers are drafting a bill that would allow news publishers to unite against Facebook and Google.
The House Judiciary Committee plans to implement legislation in the coming weeks to allow small American news organizations to collectively negotiate with the two tech titans, Rep. Ken Buck (R-Col.), The panel’s top Republican, told Reuters.
The reported bill would increase regulatory pressure on Facebook and Google, which have been accused of putting the media in a stranglehold when using their content without adequate compensation.
The battle reached a fever pitch in Australia this week, when Facebook blocked users there from sharing news content in response to a proposed law that would allow publishers to negotiate payments from technology giants for using their content that appears in results. search or news feeds.
Buck told Reuters that the impending U.S. legislation would be similar to a 2019 bill that would allow small publishers to negotiate with Facebook and Google without conflicting with antitrust laws.
This measure was allegedly co-sponsored by Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI), who chairs the Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel.
“The biggest threat to the free market economy is big technology and it (potential legislation) should be very focused on that,” Buck told Reuters.
Google has already negotiated deals to pay media groups around the world for their content, including News Corp., which owns The Post and the Wall Street Journal.
A spokesman for Buck did not immediately respond to an email asking for comment on Friday.
The news of the project came after another House panel announced plans to attract three Big Tech CEOs for yet another round of testimony in Congress.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google chief Sundar Pichai and Twitter chief Jack Dorsey will attend the Energy and Commerce Committee on March 25 to discuss the “misinformation and misinformation that plagues online platforms”, lawmakers announced on Thursday.
All three men were questioned by the Senate Commerce Committee in October. Dorsey and Zuckerberg returned to a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in November.