Long hearing on bill to require tech platforms to compensate Oregon news providers; supporters and opponents split

Senate Bill 686 — described in committee as the Oregon Journalism Protection Act — drew extended testimony and legal analysis on April 23. The posted dash-3 amendment narrowed the payment structure proposed in earlier drafts and set two scale bands for annual payments by covered platforms: $104,000,000 for platforms with 6,000,000,000 or more worldwide monthly active users and $18,000,000 for platforms with fewer than 6,000,000,000 worldwide monthly active users. The bill also preserves an arbitration pathway in lieu of the annual payment.

Sponsor Senator Khan Pham described the bill as a targeted remedy to the diversion of advertising revenue from local journalism to a handful of large digital platforms. He submitted a 2023 study by Dr. Harris Mateen into the record to justify the payment figures and said platforms could elect arbitration to submit a different fair-market value.

Supporters included newspaper publishers, the News Media Alliance, broadcasters, journalism academics and unions. Testimony emphasized local-news closures, declining audience referrals from platforms and the emerging risk of AI-generated summaries that replicate reporting without directing traffic to source outlets. Several publishers and local news supporters argued payments would stabilise local newsrooms, preserve jobs and keep local reporting alive.

Opponents included NetChoice, the Technology Association of Oregon and the Oregon Taxpayers Association. Opponents warned that mandatory platform fees or compelled payments could prompt platforms to block news links (citing experiences in Australia and Canada) and argued the bill raises constitutional issues about compelled subsidy and content regulation. NetChoice also warned of practical harms to the open Internet and suggested government subsidies would risk editorial independence.

Legislative counsel provided an opinion on constitutional risks. Counsel’s written opinion, posted to OLIS and summarized in committee, said the bill raises complex First Amendment questions under both the U.S. Constitution and Oregon’s constitution; the analysis depends in part on how a court interprets ambiguous statutory text. Counsel concluded the bill likely would not violate the U.S. First Amendment as an unconstitutional compelled subsidy in many reasonable interpretations, because a covered platform would be paying only for content it had already made available on its service; however, the opinion flagged stronger procedural and content‑distinction risks under Oregon’s free‑speech clause and urged careful drafting.

Committee members received a large volume of testimony: academics, local journalists, publishers and broadcasters urged support; tech-industry groups and business associations urged defeat or major rewrite. Committee staff and the sponsor described the dash‑3 as a negotiated narrowing and said additional drafting changes were possible; the measure remained contentious in committee at the close of the hearing.

Why this matters: Supporters say the bill addresses a structural market imbalance that has left local journalism struggling and that AI-driven products and platform scraping increase the urgency; opponents say the bill risks constitutional and marketplace harms and cite foreign cases where platforms blocked news services when required to pay.

What happened: The committee closed a lengthy public hearing and recorded that the Legislative Counsel opinion had been submitted to the record; no committee vote was recorded in the transcript. The sponsor and many supporters asked Rules to consider next steps with the posted amendment and invited further negotiations.