Social media firms must share revenue fairly with content creators: Ashwini Vaishnaw

Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.

Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Thursday social media platforms must ensure a fair revenue distribution for those creating content— from established news organisations to independent creators in remote regions.

Speaking at the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) Conclave, Vaishnaw said, "Social media platforms must also share revenue in a fair way with the people who are creating the content, whether it is news persons, conventional media, creators sitting in far-flung areas, influencers, the professors and researchers who are disseminating their work using the platforms.

“Everywhere the principle now has to be set right,” he said, calling for equitable monetisation models across platforms.

He emphasised that intellectual property has historically powered societal progress. “If original content is not fairly compensated, then the growth of science, technology, arts and literature will get stunted,” he warned.

“I will request all the platforms to rethink your revenue sharing policies. If this is not done voluntarily, there are so many countries which have shown the path to get it done in a legal way,” said the minister.

During his address, Vaishnaw largely spoke on how trust -- a principle which has bound various pillars of human society, which includes media, legislature and judiciary, has been under challenge lately and attributed the challenge to deepfakes and disinformation available on the social media platforms.

He warned that deepfakes, disinformation campaigns and synthetically generated videos are increasingly undermining public faith in institutions, including media.

"The core tenet of trust is under threat. It is coming in different forms -- deepfakes, things which have never happened anywhere; disinformation.. creating synthetically generated pictures of well respected people, creating videos which have no correlation to AI; and all that content, so-called content/news, when it reaches common people -- they start questioning the basic structure of the society," said Vaishnaw.

Stating that social media firms must take responsibility for content such as deepfakes and disinformation that are hosted on their platforms, Vaishnaw said, "Platforms must understand the importance of reinforcing trust in the institutions which human society has created over thousands of years. Platforms must take the responsibility for the content that is hosted by them."