Indonesia govt issues regulations requiring Meta and Alphabet to pay news media for content
The move is aimed at levelling the playing field between the media industry and big tech companies.
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Indonesian President Joko Widodo has signed a regulation requiring digital platforms to pay media outlets that provide them with content, a move aimed at levelling the playing field between the media industry and big tech companies, Reuters reported.
These platforms include Big Tech firms like Meta's Facebook, Alphabet Inc's Google and local aggregators.
"The spirit of the regulation is... to ensure a fair cooperation between media and digital platforms," said the president.
He added, “We want to provide a clear general framework for cooperation between news companies and digital platforms... We still have to anticipate potential risks, especially during the implementation period, in terms of the response from digital platforms and the community using these services.”
Google said it will review the regulation. It has worked with news publishers and the government to build a sustainable news ecosystem in Indonesia, Reuters quoted the spokesperson.
The drafting process of the regulation, proposed three years ago, had been very long due to different opinions among media and digital platforms, said the government.
The regulation suggests cooperation between digital platforms and media companies could be in the form of paying licences or sharing data of news users. A committee would be formed to ensure digital platforms fulfil their responsibilities to the media companies, it said.
The regulation, which takes effect in six months, would not harm content creators as it applied only to digital platforms, the president said.
Indonesia joins Australia and Canada in pushing digital platforms including ones owned by Big Tech firms to pay for news.
Indonesia's communication and information minister, Budi Arie Setiadi, said in a statement the regulation was part of government efforts to ensure media companies "are not eroded" by digital platforms.
Reports don't mention Microsoft-backed OpenAI and its generative AI platform.
