Opinion | Facebook and Google want to kill this California bill. Here’s why they’re wrong

A free press that reports the news and informs the public is a foundation of our democratic system. But the financial underpinnings of local journalism are increasingly at risk.

Newsrooms across the country are shrinking, and newspapers are disappearing at an alarming rate — in large part because major tech platforms can link to news stories and capture the resulting advertising dollars without paying for the journalism that adds value to their sites.

Assembly Bill 886 has drawn powerful opposition from tech giants such as Meta and Google because it could provide momentum in the U.S. and around the world for directing some advertising proceeds back to the actual creators of the news content that appears on the tech companies’ sites. Put simply, the legislation authored by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, would require Google and Facebook to pay a fee for the news on their platforms, allowing journalism providers to recoup their fair share of revenue for the news stories they produce.

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