The Indian government currently has no plans to replicate Australia when it comes to passing a law and requiring media platforms like Facebook and Google to pay local publishers for news content.

HIGHLIGHTS

• MP Shashi Tharoor asked MEITY whether India plans to bring a law similar to Australia.
• Australia in 2024 passed a law asking Facebook and Google to pay local news publishers.
• MEITY noted that for now, there was no proposal to bring a law on compensation to the news.

The Indian government has confirmed that it has no plans yet to make tech giants Facebook and Google pay local publishers for news content. The response from the Indian government comes after the matter was brought up during the ongoing winter session of the Parliament.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Union Minister of State for Entrepreneurship, Skill Development, Electronics & Technology, has confirmed that the Indian government has no plans to make platforms like Facebook and Google pay for local news.

Australia earlier this year passed the world’s first law to make it mandatory for digital platforms such as Facebook and Google to pay for local news content. It was expected that the Australian would be followed by other countries around the world. Before the law came into effect, both Google and Facebook campaigned against it, with both threatening to withdraw key services from Australia when the law wasn’t passed. However, when the Australian government didn’t change its stance, both companies agreed and then entered into some partnerships with Australian media companies.

In Australia, before the law came into effect, Google threatened to shut down its search engine service if the country passed the law. While Facebook, in a dramatic move, blocked news on its platform for Australian users.

MP Shashi Tharoor asked the government whether the Ministry has taken cognizance of the draft law proposed in Australia to make platforms such as Facebook and Google pay for news and whether the government has any concerns about the market power and dominance of certain platforms.

On Wednesday, the Union Minister of State for Entrepreneurship, Skill Development, Electronics & Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, responded that the government is aware of such a law in Australia, announced in February 2024, called News Media and Digital Platform Mandatory Bargaining Code, which requires companies to pay for local news contents. However, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Chandrasekhar clarified that there is no proposal to enact a law by the Ministry in this regard.