Starmer says Tories are ‘dragging feet’ in making platforms pay for news
Sir Keir Starmer has backed calls to make social media platforms pay for news content, accusing the government of dragging its feet on the matter.
Writing for campaign group Journalism Matters, the leader of the opposition said that big tech’s dominance of the online advertising space is to the detriment of consumers, other rivals and papers.
News content created by British publishers generates around £1bn in UK revenues for Google and Facebook each year according to a study from Cambridge University this year.
“The way the government has dragged its feet on levelling the playing field between big tech platforms and news organisations, threatens the sustainability of journalism,” the Labour leader wrote.
He added that the future of journalism was “stuck in a legislative logjam”.
Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan recently said that the Online Safety Bill and the new regulator Digital Markets Unit (DMU) would be essential in safe guarding journalism and protecting free speech.
However, the DMU is yet to be put into legal footing, whilst the online safety laws are slowly making their way through parliament after being introduced at the start of this year.