Tribune News Service
New Delhi, 4th December
Amid mounting evidence from social media giants that hosting news accounts for a large portion of advertising revenue, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology informed parliament this week that Google, Facebook and other social media companies are yet to draft a law. There are no plans to do so. Platforms pay for news.
Minister of State for IT Rajiv Chandrashekhar, in response to a question by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, said that there is no proposal for such a law.
Tharoor, who chairs the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, had asked whether the ministry had taken cognizance of the proposed draft law in Australia and other similar steps to make Google and Facebook pay for news and if so, the details. What was
The minister, in his reply, said: “The government is aware of the growing risks of dominance of various large tech platforms on the Internet and is deploying tools and capabilities to address this, including actively working with social media intermediaries. At present, there is no proposal by the Ministry to enact any law in this regard.
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Congress MP Shashi Tharoor had flagged the matter earlier this year citing a law passed in Australia that forces Google and Facebook to pay media publishers for news.