Big tech must pay a fair proportion of money to digital news publishers: Apurva Chandra

Supporting the country's digital news publishers, Apurva Chandra, Secretary of the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, stated on Friday that digital news platforms, who are the original creators of news material, must receive a fair amount of revenue from the huge internet corporations that are news aggregators.

"Digital news platforms have in place a system of checks and balances to ensure right and true news is given out, which is a good illustration of our self-regulation strategy," Chandra said in a note at the maiden e4m-DNPA Future of Digital Media Conference in Delhi. However, following the Covid epidemic, there have been concerns about the financial stability of not only the internet news industry but also the parent print news industry."

"It is critical for the growth of the news industry that digital news publishers that create original content receive a fair share of money from the huge tech platforms that operate as aggregators of information created by others," Chandra emphasized.

"If the traditional news industry continues to be badly impacted, the future of journalism, the fourth pillar of democracy, is likewise jeopardized," he added. As a result, this is a matter of journalism as well as credible content."

He also mentioned that nations such as Australia, Canada, France, and the European Union have taken the lead through legislation and are strengthening their competition commissioners to ensure a fair revenue split between news content creators and aggregators.

"I hope that the deliberations in this conference would result in significant ideas in the Indian context," Chandra said. I also like to do what is best for everyone and act on ideas accordingly."

Chandra complimented the DNPA for taking the initiative to organize DNPA talks on the critical topic, praising its decades-long public service and gesture to honour numerous digital initiatives of the government. He stated that the administration is eager to hear their recommendations.

It is worth noting that Indian digital news publishers have long demanded a fair share of advertising money from large internet companies such as Google.

The Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA), an umbrella body of 17 big news publishers with digital editions, even took Google to the Competition Commission of India in this regard last year, forcing the antitrust authority to open an investigation. Google has always maintained that it already shares a considerable portion of its revenue with digital publishers.