Congress drops media bargaining bill amid Facebook, industry blowback

Lawmakers ended what had been an effort to allow media organizations to band together to negotiate revenue sharing deals with tech giants, leaving the provisions out of a massive spending bill amid intense pushback from industry and advocacy groups. The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) was omitted from a bicameral agreement on Congress’s sprawling defense-spending legislation. Apparently, the JCPA provisions had been considered for potential inclusion. The move came a day after Facebook said it would “consider removing news from our platform” if lawmakers moved ahead with the measure, a threat that publisher groups denounced.