• by Ray Schultz , July 11, 2023

The California Assembly has postponed a bill to force the big tech companies to pay publishers for content they utilize. 

The California Journalism Preservation Act (AB 886), will now a two-year bill in order to ensure “the strongest legislation possible—because getting this policy right is more important than getting it quick,” says co-sponsor, Member Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland).

The bill’s co-sponsor, Senator Tom Umberg (D-Santa Ana) said a vote will be scheduled in committee in 2024 after an informational hearing this fall.

It is not clear if the legislators are concerned about threats by Meta to remove all news content from Facebook and Instagram. 

The company is now facing pushback in Canada after posing a similar threat there. Meta said in June that it is testing the blocking of news links for some Canadian users. Earlier, it reached a compromise with Australia. 

A national bill co-sponsored by Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) passed one hurdle recently when the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee approved it by a vote of 14-7. 

That bill would allow media outlets to “band together and negotiate for fair compensation from the Big Tech companies that profit from their news content, supporting the local journalism that our communities rely on,” Klobuchar said.

The sponsors of the California bill contend that the longer timeframe allows lawmakers to further develop their bills and ensure they succeed through the final hurdles of the legislative process.

Wicks argues that the California bill is designed “to support our free press and the democracy sustained by it, to make sure publications get paid what they are owed, and to hold our nation’s largest and wealthiest tech companies accountable for repurposing content that’s not theirs.”

Umberg adds, “My greatest concern is that we enact legislation that is fair, and that the benefits in this bill flow specifically to support local journalists—and in turn, all Californians.”