Indian news media outlets depend heavily on the viewership and engagement social media platforms bring. So if a potential Facebook ban like Australia and Canada were to happen, it’s safe to say that it would have rippling effects on Indian news media outlets.

According to Reuters Digital News Report 2024, about 49 percent of respondents consume news from social media in India. The survey showcases that the main news source for new-gen Indians is social media, where Facebook comes third only to YouTube and WhatsApp – the two biggest news disseminators.

Talks of banning Facebook are already causing tremors in Australia's smaller media businesses, a recent parliament discussion revealed. This comes after Meta decided against extending contracts for the payment of news content after the previous arrangements—set up as per Australia's news media bargaining law—expired in 2021.

Crackdown impact 

Rishi Anand, Partner, DSK Legal explained, “In India, many small-scale news agencies leverage platforms like Facebook to reach their audience. A ban on news dissemination through such platforms will have far-reaching implications, a major one being high barriers to entry in the market.”

He asserts that in India, unlike Australia, such a blanket ban by Facebook will also impact awareness and sharing of important information among the audience of such news agencies, given that many people rely on such platforms for their daily news.

Paritosh Dhawan, Principal & Founder, Dhawan and Co. believes there is a benefit too. The publishers need to understand that this would direct the flow of the traffic from the digital hosting platforms to their publishing mediums. This would push the traffic that the publishers could cater to directly and be more in control of the revenue generated from the utilisation of the content they put out themselves.

“In my opinion such a transition could allow for a more direct revenue generation for independent media houses, providing them with a definite inflow of resources to keep the fourth pillar of democracy strong and steady. The future of such a massive change is going to have the eyeballs of a lot of stakeholders,” he added.

But is a revenue sharing arrangement actually required in the Indian context? 

Aarushi Jain, Partner, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas highlighted, “Data rates are cheap, internet consumption is high, and Indians are hooked to social media. While paper subscriptions are limited, there has been a definitive uptick in digital news consumption via the platform. There is an argument to say that platforms do play a part in increasing reach and clicks. Should they, then, also be asked to share revenue? Assuming yes, how will this work vis-à-vis small, mid, and large-size publications in the Indian context?”

According to her, not much head-way has been made on this issue as yet. Frankly, this is a complex issue, hence, a lot of thought and study needs to go into understanding business models, markets, revenue shares, interests, conflicts etc. 

Possible solutions

In Australia, content publishers demanded the enforcement of the News Media Bargaining Code, a law designed to have large technology platforms that operate in Australia pay local news publishers for the news content made available or linked on their platforms. A similar move was made in Canada under the Online News Act in 2023. This demand has been made by the Digital News Publishers Association in India as well

Dhawan shared, “While a replication most certainly seems possible, raising awareness amongst the populace is fairly vital. The narrative can very easily be twisted in a manner where it is seen that the government is deliberately pushing such platforms to not host third party news content.” 

He further added, “It’s most important that masses need to be made aware of the fact that the enforcement of such Codes doesn’t seek to curtail their freedom of speech and expression but rather to ensure that the digital platforms properly remunerate the original publishers for their news content.”

On the other hand, Anand believes that while the intent behind the Australian code, to remedy the imbalance between news agencies and big tech platforms, is very relevant in India as well, Australia's ‘negotiate-arbitrate’ approach may act as a strong deterrent for big tech platforms, who will find it difficult to comply with the law while also protecting their business interests. A different approach may be adopted in India to protect the interests of both news agencies and big tech platforms.

All in all, Jain feels the interest of platforms which, by their very nature, allow posting or sharing of content has to be balanced with the interest of news publishers who are looking at these platforms for revenue from content sharing.

As a solution, Smriti Jaswal, Associate, Accord Juris LLP suggested the Indian Media outlets should start diversifying their avenues with respect to advertising their content and come up with innovative strategies. Further, the Indian Government should also work towards creating laws that protect the Media outlets from tech giants like Facebook, Google, X etc. and also promote Indian social networking websites such as Koo, Leher, Mitron etc. where Indian Media outlets can advertise their content.