There is no bigger threat to democracy in our country than the power of Big Tech companies to control what information we as citizens are allowed to share. The monopoly power that companies such as Google and Facebook have over the online advertising market gives the far-left employees of these firms far too much control over what ideas can be shared on their platforms.
Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and John Kennedy (R-LA) dealt a huge blow to these monopolists last week when they successfully attached an amendment to the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act that forbids Big Tech firms and online publishers from forming an agreement on how to censor content online.
After decades of lax antitrust enforcement at the Federal Trade Commission, both Google and Facebook have been able to merge their way into monopoly positions in the online advertising marketplace. Using their ill-gotten market power, Google and Facebook are able to capture about half of all online advertising spending. This is why even though news site traffic has been up 40% since 2014, the revenues that publishers collect have been down 58%.
The JCPA counteracts this monopoly power by allowing smaller online publishers to band together and negotiate with Google and Facebook as one larger, more powerful entity. A similar law in Australia has forced Google and Facebook to pay online publishers billions. This is why Big Tech firms such as Google and Facebook have spent millions fighting this legislation here in Washington.
But there was one danger with this proposed arrangement — that was that Google and Facebook would use this narrow antitrust protection not only to bargain about the price of their online advertising services, but also to make rules that would enable them to censor what online publishers published.
After weeks of negotiations, Cruz and Kennedy found bipartisan language that makes it clear Big Tech companies are not allowed to negotiate with online publishers over content moderation rules.
This legislation will not end the power of Big Tech to influence what information we can share, but it does strike a big blow to their bottom line, and it will allow conservative publishers (including the Washington Examiner) to keep more of the revenues we produce.
