NPR - Google blocks California news in response to bill that would force tech giant to pay

CJL director Dr. Courtney Radsch’s was quoted from an article written for CalMatters, in which she attributed declining journalism revenues to digital advertising monopolies.

"For more than a decade, tech giants built the world's most valuable companies off the backs of journalists while siphoning off revenue from news publishers by creating digital advertising monopolies,” she wrote.

Google has started blocking news articles for some people in California, the company announced on Friday.

Stories from California-based news organizations will not be available for an unspecified number of state residents who use Google to search the web, in a show of its might as Google attempts to quash a state proposal it has been fighting for years.

It is an approach Google has deployed before in the face of laws forcing the company to pay for journalism. Critics of the tech giant's hardball tactics have compared it to blackmail.

In California, the pending law in question would force tech companies like Google and Meta to pay publishers for news content.

Supporters say it would offer a lifeline to California's news organizations, which have long been shedding jobs.

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