Facebook recently ‘unfriended’ Australia on the issue of paying news companies to share their links. He claimed that the government’s proposed law has ‘wrongly’ understood the relationship between this platform and news publishers.
Following the controversy over Facebook banning news on its platform and stern statements by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, the social media giant said on Tuesday that it would withdraw the controversial ban from Australian News and allow local media companies for content Will pay All this has happened after the last agreement on the pending historical law.
Australia is almost ready to bring a law under which big tech companies will need to do commercial deals with media companies within 90 days.
According to the government, the law will give better bargaining power to news companies who have struggled for advertising revenue, while Google and Facebook have been filling their pockets.
What do Indian news publishers say?
Meanwhile, some Indian news publishers, who said that there is actually an imbalance in the relationship between ‘big tech’ platforms and publishers.
The confrontation between Facebook, Google and the Australian Government has also attracted the attention of other parts of the world. Many countries, including Canada and Britain, are considering similar steps to rein in major tech platforms and maintain media diversity.
Senior Indian publishing executives said that publishers are often not in a position to negotiate because the process of monetization of content and algorithms of platforms is opaque. He said that such steps should be given priority in India to save newsrooms and quality journalism.
Abhinandan Sekhri, co-founder and CEO of NewsLaundry, said that as a philosophy and a general trend in the digital space, there are two facts.
First, Sekhri explained, “Some tech giants are benefiting greatly. They are the highest profit making companies of the world so far and they have also benefited due to the news generated by news companies.
Apart from this, he said, “At the Philosophical level, it is better to give less importance to the world and let journalism remain important. As a broad argument, I am completely in favor of it.
Former CEO of Hindustan Times Media, Rajiv Verma said that India’s situation is no different from Australia. He explained that the legacy media companies have been at a disadvantage for some time and the difficulties of publishers have increased after COVID.
Agreeing that such a regulatory step could work in India as well, Verma said, “If Australia, Europe has a proposal coming in and if the US is inquiring into issues related to monopoly abuse, then Why should India be different? ”
On the question whether such a move would be welcomed in India too, Verma said, “I hope we will, because saving journalism is more important for India. India is a democracy and it is in the public interest to save journalism for the sake of democracy.”
