Rajiv Chandrasekhar, Minister of State, discusses AI, ad-tech monopolies, and the dominance of big tech companies like Facebook and Google.
During the DNPA Conclave & Awards 2024 event, Union Minister of State Rajeev Chandrasekhar discussed the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and expressed concerns about ad tech monopolies in the digital media industry. He praised India’s impressive technological growth and acknowledged the benefits of AI tools, while also acknowledging their impact on the Indian media ecosystem. The minister also emphasized the forthcoming advantages of the Digital India Act and its potential impact on addressing “visible asymmetries”.
Rajiv Chandrasekhar on ad tech monopolies
MoS Chandrasekhar spoke at length about AI and the challenges facing India’s current digital media ecosystem. When asked about ad tech monopolies, he said: “We are concerned about the deep asymmetry between content creators and those who help monetize them. From a decision-making perspective, we want the internet to be open, and we certainly don’t want the monetization of the internet to be the responsibility or control of just one, two or three companies.”
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This statement highlights how big tech companies like Alphabet-owned Google, Facebook, Instagram, X and others have a virtual monopoly on online advertising revenue. Chandrasekhar hinted that Big Tech giants take a much larger share of revenue than news publishers from the use of the content they publish. It also highlights that digital media and news publishers get far less revenue than the big tech platforms. Chandrasekhar said these issues should be addressed in India as several other regions such as Australia, Europe, America and Canada are asking for a balance in ad-tech revenue for a fairer structure and distribution.
He said the Digital India Act, introduced after the 2024 general elections, would “address this very clear and visible asymmetry between the small to medium man and the big [tech] platforms, the gatekeepers of the Indian digital ecosystem. From monetization of content. The asymmetry needs to be regulated or at least regulated with the rules of the new legislation.
A summary of the message delivered by MoS Chandrasekhar covered his expressed concern about the asymmetry in the revenue sharing model between digital news publishers and Big Tech platforms. While that was a problem, Chandrasekhar also indicated that a solution might be on the way as well. He announced that the upcoming Digital India Act aims to redress the imbalance.
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