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Senate Bill 3591 would set up a structure for online news
outlets to negotiate with social media platforms to get
compensated when someone shares a news story on their news feed.
“This legislation requires big tech to compensate news
publishers for use of the news content,” said bill sponsor state
Sen. Steve Stadelman, D-Rockford.
The measure is the product of the Illinois Local Journalism Task
Force, which was created by legislation in 2021 to evaluate the
state of local journalism. A report from the group released in
January recommended a variety of policies task force members
said could address a decline in the number of reporters and
negative economic impacts on publications.
News/Media Alliance CEO Danielle Coffey said SB3591 is needed.
“This broken marketplace must be addressed through government
action. Without it, Illinois and the rest of the country will
have a very bleak future,” she told the Illinois Senate
Executive Committee Wednesday.
Opponents said when news stories are shared on social media,
they often do not include the entirety of the contents of a
story, just a preview. Others questioned what other causes there
are to the downturn of certain legacy media outlets.
Jeff Jarvis, a longtime journalist and professor, questioned the
First Amendment implications.
“To require platforms to have a must-carry clause in essence is
to say that this is compelled speech, and compelled speech is
not free speech,” Jarvis told the committee.
Jarvis said the current proposal will only benefit large
publications, not startups. And in locations that have already
done this, social media companies ended sharing news stories
online, resulting in no loss of traffic for them, but lost
traffic to the news outlet.
Stadelman, a former reporter turned legislator, said his idea is
not a “link tax” as opponents characterized it.
“They have news content on their feeds. They track advertising
dollars. They get personal information from people that go on
their sites but however they don’t compensate local news
publishers who create that content,” Stadelman said.
State Sen. Neil Anderson, R-Andalusia, said there are other ways
to help out local journalism with tax credits as is found in
Senate Bill 3592, but Stadelman’s SB3591 is not the answer.
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