Meta’s Latest Attempt at Blackmail Shows Why Congress Must Pass the JCPA

December 5, 2022 Press Release

Washington, D.C. – The American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement in response to news that Meta is threatening to remove news content from its platform if Congress passes the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA).

“Meta’s efforts to blackmail Congress prove again why this monopoly is a threat to democracies worldwide,” said Matt Stoller, Director of Research at the American Economic Liberties Project. “The JCPA offers a vital lifeline to media outlets that are being eaten alive by Big Tech’s business model, and we encourage policymakers in Congress to quickly pass this bipartisan legislation.”

In 2021, when Australian regulators sought to pass legislation similar to the JCPA, Meta, then Facebook, similarly threatened to restrict Australian publishers and people from sharing news content on its platform. Facebook ultimately retracted that threat. That Australian legislation has since proved successful at its aims, spurring new growth in the Australian media sector not seen for decades.

The JCPA rebalances the unequal relationship between tech platforms and news organizations by creating a time-limited “safe harbor” exemption to our antitrust laws, allowing smaller publishers and news organizations to coordinate together to bargain with tech platforms without running afoul of the law.

The JCPA also has provisions that ensure the stability and fairness of the negotiation process itself. Tech platforms and news media providers are held to the same standards: they must both make reasonable, good-faith proposals that must be responded to in a timely manner to prevent stalling. A neutral arbitration board is designated to resolve any standstills in the process and is tasked with providing a fair and final judgement if news organizations and tech platforms can’t come to an agreement. To protect the integrity of the process, the JCPA also explicitly protects journalism providers from any form of retaliation by tech platforms.

To learn more, read “Should Congress save newspapers from Google,” in Fast Company and “Minority-Owned Media and the Digital Duopoly.”

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.