Sushil Modi Urges Centre to Enact Australia-like Law to Make Google, Facebook, YouTube Pay for News Content

BJP Rajya Sabha MP Sushil Modi on Wednesday urged the Centre to enact an ‘Australia-like’ law which would make tech giants such as Google, Facebook and YouTube to share their advertisement revenues with financially-hit news media firms in India.

Raising the issue through a Zero Hour mention, Modi said, “Media makes a lot of investment employing reporters, cameramen, anchors, desk people to collect news, verify it and then deliver credible information to audience. Their main revenue is advertising. But in recent years, a large share of revenue has gone to such tech giants which has led to a financial crisis in print media and TV channels.”

Citing Australian government’s recent decision making Google and Facebook pay for news content on their respective platforms, former deputy chief minister of Bihar said that India should also adopt the same law to make such tech giants pay for domestically produced news content. He also noted that the traditional print and news broadcast media are passing through their worst phase in recent history.

“I would urge the Government of India that the way they have notified Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code to regulate social media and OTT platforms, they should enact a law on the pattern of Australian Code so that we can compel Google, Facebook and YouTube to share their revenues with traditional media,” he added.

“Australia has set a precedence and now France and other European countries are making laws for advertisement revenue sharing,” Modi said.

Rajya Sabha Chairman and Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu remarked that the suggestion is “worth considering”.

(with inputs from PTI)