Tom Cotton: Democrats and liberal media support JCPA for promoting censorship

The Ted Cruz-backed Journalism Contest and Protection Act (JCPA) promotes censorship – a major reason Democrats and liberal media support it, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) on Thursday.

“There is a reason why democrats and liberal media everywhere support the Competition and Protection of Journalists Act. And not because they want to protect freedom of speech for conservatives,” Cotton said. His remarks coincided with the Senate Judiciary Committee meeting on the Senator’s bill. Ted Cruz (R-TX) to explain why he accepted the Senator’s offer. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN):

There’s a reason why Democrats and liberal media generally support the Competition and Protection of Journalists Act.

And not because they want to protect freedom of speech for conservatives.

— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) September 22, 2022

The bill allows media outlets to form cartels to negotiate with big tech companies. While Klobuchar insisted on Thursday that the bill was about “not content” but “only price negotiations”, it wasn’t.

“The Competition and Protection of Journalists Act (JCPA) allows media outlets to form a cartel to negotiate with big tech,” Cotton said in a statement Wednesday. “Conservatives must oppose special treatment for privileged industries and the cartel will lead to increased censorship. Republicans should vote against the JCPA.”

The Competition and Protection of Journalists Act (JCPA) allows media outlets to form a cartel to negotiate big tech.

Conservatives should oppose special treatment for privileged industries and the cartel will lead to increased censorship.

Republicans should vote against the JCPA.

— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) September 21, 2022

Allum Bokhari of Breitbart News says:

Specifically, the new JCPA includes a provision that allows “qualified” media companies that form cartels “to establish entry criteria for membership that are unrelated to the size of an eligible digital journalism provider or the views expressed by its content, including criteria that only restrict eligibility.” publishers.” or only eligible publishers.”

This provision is particularly important because of its specificity. These mainstream and left-wing media cartels cannot be eliminated on the basis of their size or the “opinions expressed in their content”. But exclusion will not or will not be like that.

These self-proclaimed mainstream and left media cartels are allowed to be excluded based on the usual, purely subjective factors they always do: “credibility”, “fake news”, “extremism”, “disinformation”, “hate speech”, “conspiracy” “. ”, “corrective policy”, “expertise”, “authority” etc.

In essence, this opens the door for further abuse by arbitrary “fact-checkers” who have tried to discredit real news by labeling conservative media as unreliable for years, Bohari said:

Despite years of misleading the American public and even winning a Pulitzer Prize for their efforts, most news companies have supported the discredited Rusgate conspiracy theory, for example: Newspaper “New York Times and Washington postWhile news organizations that produce conspiracy theories such as Breitbart News and Fox News are perceived as unreliable and unreliable, they continue to receive a green approval rating from NewsGuard.

It’s easy to imagine a news cartel citing NewsGuard’s standards – or the standards of any organization that presents itself as an “independent watchdog” – as a supposedly neutral reason to exclude conservative and independent media.

Democratic Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) at a Judiciary Committee meeting on September 8, aforementioned A loud silent episode reveals essentially his colleagues’ true plans, which they hide under the guise of protecting local news.

“How will this bill help or harm our efforts to combat the online hate speech and misinformation that has poisoned our discourse for years, as Senator Kennedy laments?” he asked and added, “I agree too.”

Same way, At the same meeting, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) read a letter. Los Angeles times and San Diego Union Tribune, argued that inaction would “weaken” the ability to combat disinformation.

Adding the Cruz-Klobuchar change does nothing to address these concerns. you are. Speaking to the committee on Thursday, Mike Lee (R-UT) made it clear that it was “still a bad proposition”.

“This is still a bill that destroys competition. It’s a bill that still really shakes news publishers’ trust in Big Tech. This of course does not solve the problem and I think it makes the situation worse,” he warned.

Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) also oppose the measure.