Google removes news in protest of California press protection law

Last year, the state of California introduced the California Journalism Preservation Act, which requires social media platforms like Google and Meta to pay a monthly “journalism usage fee” for work that appears on their platforms and services.

Google begins deleting news to protest California press protection law image 1 — Photo: Jonny Gios/Unsplash

The fee will be determined through an arbitration process decided by a panel of three judges — based on the monthly advertising revenue of the platforms (like Facebook or Google News).

The bill passed the California Assembly in the middle of last year and is now being considered by the state Senate Judiciary Committee. The California Senate would have to pass it by the end of the year for it to become law.

Meta has also taken a hard line against the law, saying it could pull news entirely from the state where the tech giant was born. Google wrote in a blog post last week that the California Journalism Preservation Act is endangering the news ecosystem.

“If passed, the CJPA could result in significant changes to the services we can provide to Californians and the traffic we can provide to California news organizations,” Google said in a statement.

Google’s move isn’t new, as the company and Meta have made similar moves in Australia and, more recently, Canada. Australia is the first country in the world to actually enact a law forcing Big Tech to pay for news.

In the Australian case, both Alphabet and Meta initially opposed the groundbreaking law in 2020 and 2021. Facebook removed all local and international news from its platform (including Instagram) in Australia.

Only after renegotiation did Facebook agree to pay for articles appearing on its platform in Australia. Google has also signed similar agreements through Google News Showcase.

Hoang Hai (according to Google, Silicon)

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