Lawmakers want to empower publishers to collectively negotiate with Facebook
On the heels of a heated standoff between platforms and publishers in Australia, U.S. lawmakers reintroduced a piece of legislation that would allow the news industry to collectively negotiate content deals with tech companies.
The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act is sponsored in the Senate by Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and John Kennedy (R-LA) and in the House by David Cicilline (D-RI), Ken Buck (R-NY) and Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA.). The legislation was first introduced in 2019, but the bipartisan cluster of lawmakers hope to breathe new life into it during the Biden era.
The bill would create an exemption from existing antitrust laws that would allow news organizations to collectively negotiate favorable terms with tech companies like Facebook and Google. That special treatment would open a 48-month window for publishers, in theory boosting their leverage to better the industry as a whole.
The U.S. isn’t the only country grappling with tech platforms’ publishing dominance. Last month, Facebook dramatically pulled links to news content in Australia as it pushed back against new regulations that could force tech platforms to pay for more content. Specifically, Facebook objected to a final arbitration clause that would set the price for news automatically if tech platforms and news publishers couldn’t agree on terms.
“We must enable news organizations to negotiate on a level playing field with the big tech companies if we want to preserve a strong and independent press,” Sen. Klobuchar said of the bill, which she argues would give publishers a “fighting chance” in dealing with tech platforms.
“A strong, diverse, free press is critical for any successful democracy,” Rep. Cicilline said. “Access to trustworthy local journalism helps inform the public, hold powerful people accountable and root out corruption.”
Both Cicilline and Klobuchar sit in powerful positions, chairing the House and Senate’s respective antitrust subcommittees. In the coming months, those committees will play a major role in shaping legislative proposals that could rein in big tech’s many excesses. Balancing the power of colossal tech platforms against the priorities of a shrinking news industry is just one piece of that puzzle.
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Kenya labor court rules that Facebook can be sued
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — A judge in Kenya has ruled that Facebook’s parent company, Meta, can be sued in the East African country.
Meta tried to have the case dropped, arguing that Kenyan courts do not have jurisdiction over their operations, but the labor court judge dismissed that in a ruling on Monday.
A former Facebook moderator in Kenya, Daniel Motaung, is suing the company claiming poor working conditions.
Motaung said that while working as a moderator he was exposed to gruesome content such as rape, torture and beheadings that risked his and colleagues’ mental health.
He said Meta did not offer mental health support to employees, required unreasonably long working hours, and offered minimal pay. Motaung worked in Facebook’s African hub in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, which is operated by Samasource Ltd.
Following the judge’s decision that Meta can be sued in Kenya, the next step in case will be considered by the court on Mar. 8.
Meta is facing a separate court case in which two Ethiopians say hate speech was allowed and even promoted on Facebook amid heated rhetoric over their country’s deadly Tigray conflict.
That lawsuit alleges that Meta hasn’t hired enough content moderators to adequately monitor posts, that it uses an algorithm that prioritizes hateful content, and that it responds more slowly to crises in Africa than elsewhere in the world.
The Associated Press and more than a dozen other media outlets last year reported that Facebook had failed to quickly and effectively moderate hate speech in several places around the world, including in Ethiopia. The reports were based on internal Facebook documents leaked by former employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen.
Mayor Woodards to Present 2023 State of the City Address
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This year’s theme is “Building Tomorrow Together.”
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