Tom Cotton: Democrats and Liberal Media Support JCPA, Because It Promotes Censorship

Journalism Competition and Protection Act (JCPA), allows media to form a cartel in order to bargain with big tech.

Conservatives must oppose any special treatment of favored industries. A cartel will only lead to greater censorship.

Republicans should vote NO to the JCPA.

— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) September 21, 2022

Breitbart News’s Allum Bokhari reported:

The new JCPA includes a clause that permits “eligible”Media companies form a cartel “create admission criteria for membership unrelated to the size of an eligible digital journalism provider or the views expressed by its content, including criteria to limit membership to only eligible publishers or only eligible broadcasters.”

This provision is important because of its particularity. The mainstream media cartels of left and right may exclude certain groups based on their size. “views expressed by its content.”This is not the way exclusion will occur.

They are allowed to exclude these self-proclaimed mainstream media and left-wing media cartels based on all the subjective, usual factors that they always use, like: “trustworthiness,” “fake news, “extremism,” “misinformation,” “hate speech,” “conspiracy,” “correction policy,” “expertise,” “authoritativeness,” etc.

This opens the doors to further abuses from arbitrariness. “fact-checkers,”Bokhari says that those trying to discredit the news have often branded trusted outlets as insecure over time.

Despite misleading the American public for years – even winning a Pulitzer for their efforts – most of the news companies that pushed the discredited “Russiagate”Like the conspiracy theory New York Times and the Washington PostContinue receiving a “green” approval rating from NewsGuard, while news outlets that debunked the conspiracy theory, like Breitbart News and Fox News, are smeared as untrustworthy and unreliable.

It is easy to imagine a news cartel pointing to NewsGuard criteria – or the criteria of any organization presenting itself as an “independent watchdog” – as an allegedly viewpoint-neutral excuse to exclude conservative and independent media.

Democrat Senator Alex Padilla (D–CA), at a September 8 Judiciary Committee Meeting.  the quiet part out loud, essentially exposing his colleagues’ true agenda, which they hide under the guise of preserving local news.

“How will this bill help or hurt our efforts to combat hate speech and disinformation online that have poisoned our discourse in recent years as Senator Kennedy has lamented?”He continued, ” “And I agree.”

Similarly,  In the same meeting, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D–CA), read a letter from Theodore Roosevelt. Los Angeles Times and the San Diego Union Tribune, which argued that the failure to take action will “erode”Disinformation can be defeated.

This is why the Cruz–Klobuchar amendment was not added to these issues. Speaking before the committee on Thursday, Sen. Mike Lee (Republican from Utah) stated that this amendment is not needed to address these concerns. “still a bad bill.”

“This is still a bill that undermines competition. This is still a bill that actually exacerbates the dependence of news publishers on Big Tech. It certainly doesn’t solve it and I think it makes it a lot worse,”He was very clear.

Sens. Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R.TN) and Josh Hawley, (R.MO) are also opposed to this measure.

Senator Mike Lee (R.UT) addresses a press conference at the Capitol Tuesday, July 20, 2021. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images