If you’re like me, you’ve probably been bombarded with ads about how awful AB 886 is. You should know that AB 886 is an attempt to support local journalism by forcing large, for-profit platforms that share links to online local news articles, like Reddit, Xitter, Facebook, and Google, to pay money to those local news agencies for access to their work. The group behind the ads against AB886 is the CCIA, or the Computer & Communications Industry Association, which is a lobbying group whose membership includes such small, local journalism organizations as:
- Amazon
- And many more
Here’s their Wikipedia page if you’re interested: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_%26_Communications_Industry_Association
So, predictably, this is down to huge for profit companies wanting to continue getting access to other people’s work for free. If you’re feeling like taking memes seriously and getting into fights with strangers, you might think about calling your assembly member and letting them know that the CCIA can go fuck themselves and to support AB886.
“This bill would prohibit a covered platform from retaliating against a digital journalism provider for asserting its rights under the act by refusing to access content” – AB 886
This clause is an attempt to prevent these platforms from just blocking links to Californians and its news organizations.
It won’t work. Forced speech has been regularly shot down in the courts for violating the first amendment.
Good point.