Reporters in Congress are reportedly drafting a bill that would allow news publishers to unite against Facebook and Google.
The House Judiciary Committee plans to roll out legislation in the coming weeks to allow small U.S. news organizations to bargain collectively with the two tech titans, Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) Told Reuters. Republican top of the group.
The bill that would be added would add to the growing regulatory pressure on Facebook and Google, who have been accused of putting the media in a cramped place by using its content without proper compensation.
The battle reached fever in Australia this week when Facebook prevented users from sharing news content in response to a bill that would allow publishers to negotiate payments from tech giants for the use of their content that appears in the results of search or news sources.
Buck told Reuters that the upcoming U.S. legislation would be similar to a 2019 bill that would have allowed small publishers to negotiate together with Facebook and Google without facing antitrust laws.
This measure would have been sponsored by Representative David Cicilline (D-RI), who chairs the Judicial Committee’s antitrust group.
“The biggest threat to the free market economy is big technology and this (potential legislation) should focus heavily on that,” Buck told Reuters.
Google has already negotiated deals to pay media groups around the world for its content, including News Corp., which owns The Post and the Wall Street Journal.
A Buck spokesman did not immediately respond to an email asking for comments Friday.
The news of the bill came after another House group announced plans to attract three Big Tech CEOs for another round of witnesses in Congress.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google chief Sundar Pichai and Twitter chief Jack Dorsey will appear before the Energy and Trade Committee on March 25 to discuss “misinformation and misinformation affecting platforms online, “lawmakers announced Thursday.
The three men were grilled by the Senate Trade Committee in October. Dorsey and Zuckerberg returned to a Senate Judiciary hearing in November.