Governance
Regulating Digital News Intermediaries
- 11 May 2022
- 4 min read
For Prelims: Article 19
For Mains: Need to Regulate Digital News Intermediaries
Why in News?
Recently, Canada introduced a Bill that seeks to make Internet platforms such as Google and Facebook pay news publishers for use of their content.
What is the underlying Idea?
- The bill seeks to regulate digital news intermediaries “to enhance fairness in the Canadian digital news marketplace and contribute to its sustainability.”
- The legislation is expected to produce four outcomes.
- A framework that supports fair business relationships between digital platforms and news outlets.
- Sustainability in the news ecosystem.
- Maintenance of press independence.
- Diversity within the news landscape.
What is the Nature of Publisher-Platform Relationships?
- Use of Tools and Strategies:
- Their relationship has till recently been largely about how publishers can use tools and strategies to better use the reach provided by these platforms.
- Google and Facebook provide much of the traffic for a lot of traditional news publishers.
- Making Money:
- All over the world the platforms are able to make much of the money from this arrangement while publishers struggle.
- The publishers also have to contend with frequent changes to the platform algorithm, which comes with the real threat of them losing a large amount of readers all of a sudden.
What is the importance of Such Law for India?
- About:
- The Canadian order on the issue is likely to boost the chances of India’s news publishers getting a fair revenue-sharing system in the country.
- ndia in December 2021 said that it had no plans to make tech giants, such as Facebook and Google, pay local publishers for news content.
- However, following a complaint by Digital News Publishers’ Association (DNPA) the Competition Commission of India ordered investigations into Google earlier in 2022.
- In the process of the order, the watchdog did take note of the legislations in Australia and France.
- Need to Regulate:
- India, once the world's largest unconnected country, will soon be one of the world’s biggest internet-enabled nations, with over 800 million online.
- Technology will likely be a big part of our economy, accounting for almost a fifth of our overall output.
- Unregulated social and digital media could pose a threat to India’s rise as a trustworthy and responsible nation, as also Indian democracy, the world’s largest.
- These challenges can be addressed by regulating social media efficiently and modernizing our laws and institutions.
What is the Status in Other Countries?
- Google and Facebook face legal battles over compensation for using news content worldwide.
- They also face antitrust lawsuits from regulators and publishers.
- With news publishers in Australia, the UK, the European Union, and France having enacted or planning to enact laws to enforce a fair revenue-sharing model, the tech giants seem to be fighting desperately to hang on to their alleged monopolistic system to rake in huge revenues.
