The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), according to Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), should be opposed by conservatives because it will increase censorship.

“The Journalism Competition and Protection Act (JCPA) enables the media to band together to bargain with major digital companies. The special treatment of favored industries should be opposed by conservatives, because a cartel will increase censorship. Republicans need to oppose the JCPA,” according to Cotton.

The conservative from Arkansas spoke before the Senate Judiciary Panel session on Thursday, when the committee will discuss the proposed legislation.

Last week, after Klobuchar made the decision to postpone the bill’s markup, the Minnesota Dem. stated that “democracy depends” on the bill’s approval.

“Even though I’m a newspaperman’s daughter, I won’t give up the struggle for local news. On that, our democracy is based. Our measure will be discussed in the Judiciary Committee next week, as Chairman Durbin promised,” according to Senator Klobuchar.

Despite its name, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Bill would grant the media sector an antitrust exemption, enabling media corporations to bargain with major digital platforms for more advantageous advertising contracts.

Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Cotton, Mike Lee (R-UT), and other conservative senators argue that the media sector should not be given special consideration and that the bill would lead to further restriction of free expression.

Lobbyists and other supporters of the measure have claimed that it will be used to stop “misinformation,” as Breitbart News Senior Technology Correspondent Allum Bokhari has documented.

At a House Judiciary Committee meeting, News Media Association CEO and President David Chavern stated that the media needed to be saved because it “served as an obvious antidote to the scores of falsehoods hitting neighborhoods around the country.”

Lee cited an article by Bokhari from Breitbart News that described how the JCPA might be used to suppress free expression before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

These self-declared mainstream and liberal-leaning media cartels ARE permitted to exclude content based on the customary, completely arbitrary criteria they always use, including “fake news,” “trustworthiness,” “extremism,” “misinformation,” “conspiracy,” “hate speech,” “correction policy,” “expertise,” “authoritativeness,” etc.

Lee added that the JCPA might act as a “Obamacare for the freedom of press” and that it will probably violate America’s Constitution via compelled speech.

According to Lee, a conservative who opposes the measure, “the JCPA is simply a mechanism to shift income from a politically unfavored group to a politically liked one with the pretext of allegedly improving competition.”