‘Tech giants must share ad revenue with news media’

NEW DELHI: With the increasing rise in the sharing of news content on social media services such as Facebook and Google, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member of Parliament Sushil Kumar Modi on Friday urged the government to fix “revenue sharing modalities” in the upcoming Digital India Act.

Speaking in the Rajya Sabha, Modi said that “the traditional print and digital media, the fourth pillar of democracy, and news channels have been going through a crisis”. “Crores are spent on journalists, reports, anchors, cameramen, newsrooms, offices to compile news, to find out its truth, to create content,” he said.

“Their main source of income is advertisement. But in recent years, after the rise of tech giants Facebook, Google, YouTube, bulk of ads are going to them. Google India’s advertising income was ₹24,927 crore in 2021-22 and Facebook’s ₹16,189 cr, which was 75% higher year on year.”

He added that these digital platforms “display news content of print and digital media without spending any money on content-creation, and earn money through advertisement from it”. “Hence, it’s necessary that these companies be compelled to share ad revenue with creators of original news content.”

Modi used the example of legislations in Australia, Canada and the EU that have sought revenue sharing arrangements. “To this effect, in 2021 Australia mandated such ad revenue sharing by making the News Media Bargaining Code. Canada, France and EU have also made such laws, New Zealand has also taken initiative to bring similar legislation,” he said.

He further urged the government to incorporate ad revenue sharing modalities between big tech and news media in the upcoming Digital India Act, and empower the Competition Commission of India to intervene in related matters. “Doing so will save news media from situations of economic crisis,” he said.

Union minister for state Rajeev Chandrasekhar last year said that the government was planning to bring in legislation that would ask news aggregators to pay publishers. Twitter, Meta and Google declined to comment.

The Competition Commission of India has also clubbed complaints made by several news organisations alleging abuse of dominant position by Google to dictate terms and conditions which unilaterally favour the tech giant.

READ: Min vows to address digital news monetisation imbalance