https://www.siliconvalley.com/2023/04/26/california-bill-to-make-internet-platforms-pay-for-news-advances-with-questions/ > A California bill that aims to ease newspapers’ internet-age woes by making Big Tech companies like Google and Facebook pay for the online articles their users access through their platforms advanced out of its first committee hearing Tuesday night, but not without lots of questions from lawmakers. > “A free and diverse press is the backbone of a healthy and vibrant democracy,” Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat, told the Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee, which passed her bill on a 9-0 vote with two members abstaining. “These dominant companies are padding their profit margins with locally produced news without adequately compensating the originators of that content.”