A new California law aiming to protect independent contractors at tech startups like Uber and Lyft has begun to affect media freelancers, the New York Post reported.

Freelance writers and photographers from Los Angeles to San Francisco are trying to get an injunction blocking the new law, known as Assembly Bill 5, from taking effect Jan. 1, claiming it hurts their ability to find work and violates free-speech rights under a federal civil rights act.

The law was originally written to guarantee rights to workers by forcing tech giants to make many of them employees instead of independent contractors, guaranteeing better pay and benefits, the Post noted.

But the California News Publishers Association, which opposed the bill, argues publishers who use freelancers are more likely to boot them then hire them, as did Vox Media, which fired 200 California-based bloggers at SB Nation.

Media industry watchdogs warn the bill in California could end up wiping out thousands of freelance jobs, the Post reported — potentially threatening thousands more if copied in the East Coast media capital of New York.

“The law says it wants to protect these people, but many of our clients are freelance by choice,” Caleb Trotter, a lawyer with the Pacific League Foundation in its suit in Los Angeles, told the Post.

“The government faces a heavy burden of justification when its regulations single out the press,” according to the suit, which says that the California law violates provisions of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.

• Journalism Job Cuts Haven't Been This Bad Since the Recession
• Cord-Cutting Pushed to 'Tipping Point' as Video Streaming Grows