Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Cal.), Sen. Ted Cruz (R.-Tex.) passed a law that would allow media outlets to form cartels. Negotiate with big tech companies.
Padilla on Thursday At the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, he told members he supported the bill’s “stated purpose”, but still I disagree with his colleagues’ statements when he says he believes “stronger language is needed to ensure that the proceeds from this bill go to the workers who make journalism possible and invest in high-quality local journalism.” . a person who argues that the bill is “not related to content moderation.”
“I don’t say this often. But Senator Cruz is right to be concerned about the impact of the bill on how information is shared and used online,” the Democrat said.
“But we deviate significantly from the way the problems in this bill present themselves. And while it’s great that this committee has spent the last two weeks making sure Senator Cruz passes the bill, my serious concerns are being ignored,” Padilla said, essentially complaining that the bill didn’t go far enough to resolve what he called “bad” religious figures. ”, arguing that the provisions “force platforms to increase the spread of hate speech and disinformation online.”
In fact, the bill exacerbates the censorship problem, according to Breitbart News. While these nascent media cartels cannot exclude media companies on the basis of “opinions expressed in their content,” they will still be able to exclude them based on arbitrary factors widely used by the radical left and big tech that already evaluate conservatives. , subjective. if they don’t agree with the narrative, they will rate their message as “disinformation”, “extremism” or “hate speech”.
But Padilla clearly believes that the bill does not allow for adequate censorship. “These provisions also work together to allow unscrupulous actors to force platforms to increase the spread of hate speech and disinformation online,” Padilla said, raising concerns over the bill’s “impact on the open internet and the public’s ability to access and share information.” ”
“There are many vague terms in the bill,” he continued, explaining that it “defines content access as fetching, crawling and indexing content,” but not these key terms. Does “take” refer to an action taken intentionally by the platform, or does it include every instance of a video or piece of content a user uploads to the platform? he asked, expressing concern that the bill would benefit organizations like Project Veritas and InfoWars.
“In other words, does a platform like YouTube receive content, for example, when a user uploads a video to its service? “If your answer is yes, this bill gives organizations like Project Veritas or InfoWars the ability to upload their videos to YouTube and then force the company to pay from the platform.”
“Confusion in the interpretation of these high-tech terms can have very serious consequences,” Padilla concludes, concluding that the proposal “still needs a lot of work.”
Padilla said he could not support the bill in parliament as it is currently being drafted. However, the committee accepted Cruz’s change and delayed the proposal.
Source: Breitbart
