On April 12, 2024, Google announced in a blogpost that the company is blocking links to some Californian news sites such as KQED, San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times from appearing in Google searches. The decision was in response to the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (CJPA) of 2023, a bill that would require big tech companies like Google to pay fees to Californian news organizations for having their news articles on its platform.
Many news organizations urge state legislators to pass CJPA, which is currently in progress. Kari Paul, a technology reporter at The Guardian, wrote “[CJPA] would require large online platforms to pay a ‘journalism usage fee’ for linking to news sites based in the Golden state.” The usage fee would be based on advertisement revenue that Google receives from news websites.
In April 2024, Google started blocking Californian news sites in response to CJPA. The blockages affected a number of random Google users in the state for testing.
If a user affected by the blockages searches for a website such as the San Francisco Chronicle, none of the publication’s articles will show up. Instead, the Google user will only find the publication’s social media accounts or links to other news organizations’ websites.
History Teacher Josie Rodberg believes that CJPA reveals a larger issue with Google. “Google — which we all know has huge amounts of money — is taking a stand around not paying journalists for their work. And to me, that’s the problem, not the law,” she said.
While Google’s April 2024 response to CJPA affects a random selection of Google users in California, it also has an effect on people working for news organizations in the state.
In an interview with The Urban Legend, Molly Solomon, senior editor for the California Politics and Government Desk at KQED, said “I think it affected me pretty closely. … One of my reporters had been really closely following the fallout of an election, … and it was really difficult for him to actually get news alerts on some of the stories that were published. We noticed that [Google] had started blocking content from Californian news organizations.”
Outside of news organizations, some students believe Google’s response to CJPA affects how people perceive search engines. “[Google]’s focus isn’t what we sometimes think it is. … We think it’s just [a tool] for us to access information. But [it’s] also a company — they also have their own interests,” said Harper Lind ‘27. “It reveals how their priority is not serving their customers. … they’re focused on their own benefit.”
Asher Albers ‘26 spoke to the implications of Google’s efforts to avoid paying fees to California news organizations. “While it is scary that Google’s doing this, I’d argue that what is much scarier is the fact that they actually are able to do this,” he said. “All of our news sources are so concentrated that one [search engine] could be like, ‘No more Washington Post!’ — and there would be no more Washington Post and no one could change that. That’s terrifying.”
Solomon emphasized the potential impact of search engine censorship. “We live in a world [where], in order to survive, we have to [reach out] to people, … and for a lot of people, that’s online,” said Solomon. “But that seems scary to me when a company like [Google] has that much influence on what I may or may not [receive] in the news.”
Rodberg noted that CJPA will likely affect small, hyperlocal news organizations more so than the bigger publications which originally backed the bill. “Local news outlets are the most financially threatened and have been for several decades,” she said. “So what we’re losing first is local news coverage. I think we should all be concerned about what it means to not have access to news about the specific place in which we live.”
