In its lead edit today, the Times of India argued that digital platforms like Google and Facebook "drain profits" while news producers incur the costs.

According to the piece, platforms like Google and Facebook "demand gratitude for imparting wider reach to news content and play deaf to sharing revenues for content produced at considerable cost". In the process, Google and Facebook "don’t have to invest in news gathering but can waltz away with the ad revenues and earn close to trillion dollar valuations while paying a pittance for journalism".

With advertising revenues "crashing" during the Covid-19 outbreak, the editorial said, "authorities must urgently address the glaring asymmetry between digital platforms and news outlets".