Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member Sushil Modi said on Tuesday that India needs an independent regulator to monitor the activities of large technology companies and ensure that they allocate appropriate budgets for “content review” and “revenue sharing” with traditional media. organization.
He also accused the social media platform Facebook of not flagging false content and hate speech, thereby “undermining the safety of Indian users.”
Modi said in a speech at Rajya Sabha at zero hour that Google and Facebook together occupy approximately 75% of the digital advertising market in India.
“With 23,213 crore ad revenues-9,326 crore for Facebook and 13,887 crore for Google-their (Facebook and Google) revenue is higher than the total revenue of the top 10 listed traditional media companies. Through their The advertising distributor model, they sent most of them at a price of Rs 8,396 crore. Facebook sends 90% of the total advertising revenue to its global subsidiaries, while Google India sends 87%,” he said.
The lawmaker claimed that although these large technology companies make money by displaying news content, they have not paid enough for traditional news platforms. Companies like Google are forced to pay traditional media for the use of their content,” he said.
Modi criticized these companies for not flagging hate speech and fake news. He said: “Facebook is undermining the security of India’s largest user base of 340 million users. It will not flag problematic content such as fake [news], misinformation, and hatred. Remarks. According to a report, Facebook found that more than 40% of the top pageviews in West Bengal are’fake or untrue’.”
Modi said that the social media giant spends “a tiny 13% of its budget” to label content outside the United States. Members of Congress also stated that due to its budget allocation to India, the platform lacks the ability to mark Hindi and Bengali content.
Complete News Source : Hindustan Times
