A Duel Over Free Media

Context: India cannot let intermediaries like Google and Facebook bankrupt our news organisations.

Changing international digital regulation paradigm: On apprehension from tech giants Google and Facebook not having a better compensation for publishers universally.

• Legalisation: The EU, Britain and the US have made attempts towards legislation to ensure tech giants adequately pay news publishers.
• Developed framework for resolving disputes: Australia’s News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code 2021 provides a framework of fair arbitration process to resolve disputes.
• Penalties and sanctions: In 2019, French regulators penalised and sanctioned Google for ‘opaque and difficult to understand’ operating rules for its ad platform and for applying them in ‘an unfair and random manner’.
• Copyright reforms approach: The EU legislated a pan-EU copyright reform to ensure remuneration by digital platforms for the use of online publications.
  • Evokes the principle of ‘neighbouring right’: Allows a newspaper or publishing organisation the right to republish and distribute a piece written by a journalist or author and publishers having the right to charge a fee.

Need for regulation of digital news media

• Imbalanced relationship between news media organisations and technology giants:
  • Though the tech giants like Google and Facebook played a key role as intermediary and have significantly amplified the reach of news media organisations, news media organisation’s revenues have seen a steady decline.
  • There lies a significant biases where smaller and new media organisations are being left out in deals with tech giants.
• High potential to abuse: Combined with monopolistic power, tech platforms have created a high level of opacity in the algorithms they run for advertising.
• Democratic values at stake: News media is a public good, and there is a great social value to professional journalism.
• Regulatory gap: Often, tech companies have tried to evade compliance with local laws by pulling out or threatening to pull out their services, as was the case in France, Germany and Australia.
  • In India, too, some tech giants refuse to comply with the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 under the false pretext of protecting freedom of expression.

Way forward: India will have to find its own solution as no unelected, for-profit foreign organisation that has zero accountability to the people of India should be allowed to challenge the Indian sovereign.

• Address the need for binding rules: GoI should facilitate a platform where all stakeholders can debate and discuss to arrive at a fair arrangement for the larger good of the nation.
  • Properly share advertising revenues: Increase publisher’s share of advertising revenue and ensure transparency in its revenue reports.
• Leverage India’s advantageous position: That is its market heft and being the exemplar of using technology for governance.