(RepublicanWire.org) – Ted Cruz stepped in at the last minute and derailed a new Dem bill from moving forward. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) was not happy saying:
“I think the agreement that we had has been blown up,” Klobuchar said. “This bill is about protecting local journalism by leveling the playing field and allowing local news outlets to band together to negotiate for fair compensation from tech platforms.
“I am committed to targeted, bipartisan legislation to achieve this goal. Since news outlets depend on the antitrust exemption while the covered platforms do not, the platforms could then raise content moderations at the first opportunity in an attempt to avoid the joint negotiations.”
Klobuchar admitted defeat telling a GOP Senator, “Sen. Kennedy, we worked on this for months and we won’t be able to support the Cruz amendment here, so I’m hoping we can talk about this in the future. But if this is in it we can’t support the bill.”
Ted Cruz fired back saying his amendment would stop any possible censorship between big tech and the media (as we saw with Hunter Biden), which should be the goal of Congress when they pass laws, not fostering an environment where censorship can happen.
“It simply says the topic of discussion when the two sides get together can’t be censorship. It should be ad revenue, which is what all of this discussion of this markup has focused on,” Cruz said.
“Democrats would rather pull their bill entirely than advance it with my proposed protections for Americans from unfair online censorship,” Cruz said.
Cruz added, “What is preeminent to me is whether this bill is going to increase or decrease censorship.
“If you’re negotiating, you ought to be negotiating on the ostensible harm this bill is directed at, which is the inability to get revenues from your content.
“You should not be negotiating on content moderation and how you are going to censor substantive content.”
Supporters of a bill meant to give news organizations greater leverage against the giant tech companies were forced to temporarily withdraw the measure Thursday, raising new doubts about one of Congress’ prime efforts to check Silicon Valley’s power.
Two hours into its Thursday markup, Republicans inserted provisions designed to limit the platforms’ abilities to moderate content, over the objections of lead sponsor Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who then withdrew the bill. She said she fully plans to move the bill forward in a bipartisan way.
