The US Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday voted to approve a bill that helps news organisations negotiate with Google and Facebook to gain more revenue. 

The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act passed the committee after it voted 15 to 7 in favour, according to a Reuters report. Now the bill will be tabled in the Senate. A similar bill is currently being presented in the House of Representatives. 

The aim of the bill is to make it easier for media organisations to “negotiate collectively and secure fair terms from gatekeeper platforms that regularly access news content without paying for its value.” The move comes after years of criticism from news houses that platforms like Facebook and Google have used their content to gain ad revenue and push traffic without fairly compensating the publishers. 

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The bill has seen support from both sides of the political aisle. While Democrat Amy Klobuchar has led the bill, it has attracted the support of Republican senators like John Kennedy and Lindsey Graham who have co-sponsored it.

However, not everyone is supportive of the bill. Earlier this month, Senator Ted Cruz managed to gain support to include provisions that would combat what he considers stifling of conservative voices by Big Tech. Before the bill went for a vote Klobuchar managed to win support for an amendment that specified that the issue was the prices of the content. 

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Calling Facebook and Google “monopolies” Klobuchar said during the voting session on the bill that it would allow smaller news organisations to get fair compensation for their work. 

While the bill still needs to pass the Senate and the House of Representatives, some media groups have denounced the bill saying that it favours larger news organisations like News Corp, Sinclair and Comcast/NBCU.

Predictably, technology industry trade groups like Computer & Communications Industry Association and NetChoice have opposed the bill. Both Meta and Google are a part of these groups.