California lawmakers have announced a deal that will kill a bill that would have forced tech giants like Google and Facebook to pay news organizations for their content. In exchange, the Silicon Valley Masters of the Universe will commit $250 million to fund newsrooms and an “AI accelerator.”
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the California Journalism Preservation Act, which aimed to impose fees on large digital platforms based on a percentage of their ad revenue, has been set aside in favor of a new partnership to support California newsrooms. Assembly Member Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, revealed that the nearly $250 million investment of public and private funds will be used to fund newsrooms and an artificial intelligence accelerator project over the next five years.
Under the deal, the majority of the funds will be allocated to newsrooms, with $100 million being spent in the first year to kick-start the efforts. The News Transformation Fund, as the money for California news publishers is being called, will be administered at the UC Berkeley School of Journalism — a sure sign it will focus on leftist and progressive news sources.
Governor Gavin Newsom (D) praised the deal, stating that it represents a major breakthrough in ensuring the survival of newsrooms and bolstering local journalism across California, without imposing new taxes on Californians. However, some journalists and unions have expressed concerns about the deal, citing a lack of regulation over tech companies and the inclusion of funding for artificial intelligence, which many consider a threat to human journalists.
Matt Pearce, the president of the Media Guild of the West, criticized the deal, stating that it allows Google to avoid regulation and may actually cause harm to journalists instead of helping them. He also noted that the deal creates a public-private partnership with Google that allows the company’s contributions to be tax-deductible, with Californians footing a larger share of the bill for supporting local news.
Despite the concerns raised by some journalists and unions, the California News Publishers Association CEO Chuck Champion and board chair Julie Makinen said they would make the most of this initiative. The San Francisco Chronicle, among other news organizations, supported the original bill but acknowledged that the deal was a step in the right direction, although it did not go far enough.
Some top Democrats within the Legislature also criticized the deal, highlighting an intraparty rift over the agreement. California Senate Pro Tem Mike McGuire, D-North Coast, expressed concerns that the deal lacks sufficient funding for newspapers and local media and doesn’t fully address the inequities facing the industry.
The tech companies targeted by the original bill, including Google and Facebook, have aggressively attacked the legislation for more than a year. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, even threatened to pull news from its platforms if the bill passed. In April, Google News removed links to California news websites in response to the bill, a move that was called an “abuse of power” by Senator McGuire.
Despite the controversy surrounding the deal, supporters of the original bill maintain that social media companies benefit financially from content produced by journalists posted on their sites, which help them attract and retain visitors. The platforms, however, are not paying the journalists who produce the content, effectively starving news organizations of advertising revenue generated by their own work.
Read more at the San Francisco Chronicle here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
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