Facebook, Google, YouTube Should Be Made to Share Ad Revenue With Media Companies, Rajya Sabha MP Says

BJP Rajya Sabha member Sushil Kumar Modi on Friday suggested that big techs like Facebook, Google and YouTube, should be made to share advertising revenue, they earn from posting news reports, with media companies who are the original content creators.

Raising the matter during the Zero Hour in the House, he said newspapers and TV channels have been losing on advertising revenue after the entry of big technology companies.

He said print and electronic media companies spend thousands of crores of rupees on news content creation.

The main source of income of traditional print and electronic media is advertising revenue, he said with the emergence of tech companies, a large chunk of advertising revenue was moving towards them.

Citing data, he said Google India’s income from advertisement during 2021-22 was Rs. 24,927 crore and that of Facebook was Rs. 16,189 crore, which was 75 percent more over the preceding year.

“These big techs do not spend money for content creation. But show the readymade content for free,” he said.

The senior BJP leader stressed there is a need to mandate such companies to share the revenue income with original news content creators.

A provision in this regard should be made in the proposed Digital India Act.

He also said that laws in this regard have already been enacted by countries, including Australia.

In his Zero Hour mention, V Sivadasan (CPI-M) accused the central government of not creating jobs in the country. He said a large number of vacancies were pending in various departments, and even the number of employees in the Central Public Sector Enterprises have significantly come down.