Sushil Kumar Modi: India should pass a law to make Facebook, Google to Pay for News, like Australia

Rajya Sabha Member Sushil Modi appealed to the government about the traditional print and broadcast media. He spoke of how their content is available on internet for free and how they are passing through their worst phase as ads are shifted to tech platforms. “Following the lead of Australia, India should enact a law to make tech companies like Google and Facebook pay for the content they use,” said the former deputy chief minister of Bihar.

“Australian parliament has passed the world’s first law last month that ensures news media companies get good reimbursement for the news they release”, he said. “I would request the Indian government to share the Intermediary guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code to obligate social media and OTT platforms and to enact a law with the same pattern as Australian Code so Google will have to share it’s revenue with the traditional media.” he added.

Rajya Sabha Chairman and Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu has said that the suggestion was ‘worth considering’.

The senior BJP leader also said, “They are in deep financial crisis. First, due to pandemic and now, because of tech giants like Google, YouTube and Facebook.

Traditional News media companies invest in many employees, like anchors, reporters and journalists. They gather information from all around, verify the news and deliver it credibly. Advertising was their main source of income, which has shifted from them to these tech giants, Google, Facebook etc. The earnings from advertising is going to Google and Facebook, because of this the print news channels are facing a financial crisis.

“I urge the government to follow the example set by Australia by enacting a law- News Law Bargaining Code, using which they compelled Google to share the revenue from advertising with traditional media”, he said.

Google resisted and even threatened to blackout news from its portal. Ultimately, at the end of the day it surrendered, Modi said.

“Australia has started this and a few European countries are making laws for advertisement revenue sharing.” he said.