NetChoice, whose members include some of the biggest of Big Tech -- Amazon, Google, Meta (Facebook) -- is behind a TV ad that sounds and looks more like a Donald Trump attack on his political opponents and the coverage he receives in the media, rather than leading-edge online companies more often allied with the liberals the ad is attacking.
The association has been fighting hard against a bill, the Journalism Competition & Preservation Act (JCPA), which is designed to give creators of original news content, like local broadcasters, more leverage over compensation for their content's re-use online.
"The Washington liberals have a dangerous plan to bail out their allies in the [liberal] media," the TV ad warns ominously.
Also: Big Tech Says JCPA Benefits Big Broadcasters
It says "the left's" new internet regulation would "threaten access to reliable information online and silence conservative voices." That is the knock those conservative voices have on Big Tech, arguing that they are the ones in league with liberals.
The add pictures Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont and President Biden and suggests they are behind the "dangerous plan" but were "too afraid" to push that "radical agenda" before the election, which is why Americans don't trust politicians, it intones.
NetChoice calls on the audience to press Senate conservatives to oppose the bill.
"The JCPA threatens an independent media by providing specific news outlets with government privileges that will likely increase the government’s ability to pressure such outlets on editorial decisions," says NetChoice President Steve DelBianco. ■
