Senate Committee Advances Media–Big Tech Cartel Bill

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 22 advanced a controversial bill that would allow media outlets to form cartels to negotiate with Big Tech platforms.

The bill, dubbed the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), has as many opponents as it has supporters among media outlets and media advocacy groups.

Specifically, the complicated bill would supersede some existing antitrust laws and allow media companies to band together to negotiate with Big Tech platforms, such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter.

The JCPA states: “A news content creator may not be held liable under the antitrust laws for engaging in negotiations with any other news content creator during the 4-year period beginning on the date of enactment of this Act to collectively withhold content from, or negotiate with, an online content distributor regarding the terms on which the news content of the news content creator may be distributed by the online content distributor.”

This means that online and print media outlets, including some of the largest and longest-established names in the industry, could band together in a kind of media union to demand concessions from tech companies in order for the coalition to continue to allow their content on the platform. Under existing antitrust laws, such cartels—which describe a collusion of firms in an industry that have joined together for a common financial or industry outcome—are decidedly illegal.

Proponents of the JCPA have presented it as a much-needed panacea to address the dwindling number of dedicated local media companies that, proponents say, are often left behind in the umbrella of Big Tech algorithms and advertising capacity.

However, critics of the cartel bill have warned that the measures in the JCPA could serve to further the interests of legacy and mainstream media outlets against independent and anti-establish outlets.

Specifically, opponents point to a section of

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