Technology
Bill to charge tech companies for news stories fails to pass Oregon Senate
Some of the bill’s opponents pointed to Canada, where Meta simply throttled news content after the government adopted a similar requirement.
SALEM, Ore. — A bill that some lawmakers hoped would help preserve local journalism by charging tech companies for content narrowly failed to pass in Salem, as other potential supporters warned it would be a poison pill for a media outlets already on the ropes.
Under Senate Bill 686, social media companies would have to enter into an agreement with news outlets and pay for the content shared on news feeds, for example. The precise amount would have been up to the news outlets and the tech companies to negotiate.
Several senators who supported the bill said they wanted to reverse the long-term decline of local news.
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“Journalism is an important way to hold all of us accountable and to connect us together,” said Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin, a Democrat from Corvallis. “It is so much more valuable to me to read from a high-quality journalist that has written an article from an objective perspective that has taken on evidence and records than it is for me to just read a press release.”
But other lawmakers warned that the bill could hurt the very news outlets it seeks to protect, as tech companies like Meta have threatened to simply block Oregon news content on their sites. And it’s not an idle threat — they’ve done it before.
“Does anybody honestly believe these companies are going to just write the check and keep doing business as usual here?” said Sen. Mark Meek, a Democrat from Oregon City. “No. They will stop sharing news content in Oregon altogether, just like they did in Canada. This bill is not a new revenue strategy; it’s a geofence that cuts off Oregonians from the news.”
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In Canada, many news outlets still have Facebook pages, and some of them continue to post regularly. But their reach is throttled, essentially limited to direct visitors to their pages. Meta has refused to play ball on paying for content, and that’s been a net negative for outlets that relied on the extra eyeballs for traffic.
When it came to a vote on SB 686 in the Senate, it looked as if the bill were headed for a 14-14 tie. But then, Sen. Kayse Jama, a Democrat from Damascus, decided to change his ‘yes’ vote to a ‘no’ vote, causing the measure to fail.