- Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw urged fair revenue sharing with all digital content creators
- He warned deepfakes and disinformation threaten global trust and democratic stability
- Platforms must accept responsibility for synthetic content and misinformation risks
Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has declared that social media platforms must introduce fair revenue sharing with all categories of content creators, from professional journalists to independent voices in remote areas, as part of a broader effort to protect trust in the digital age.
Speaking on Thursday at the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) Conclave 2026 in Delhi, the minister for information and broadcasting warned that deepfakes and coordinated disinformation campaigns are placing global trust at risk.
What It Means
"The way the world is emerging today, the core tenet of trust is under threat," the Minister told the gathering of policymakers, media leaders and industry experts. Vaishnaw described the threat as coming from multiple directions.
By placing fair revenue sharing alongside the regulation of deepfakes and synthetic content, the government is framing both issues as essential to preserving public trust and democratic stability.
Deepfakes, he said, can make people believe events that have never happened. Misinformation, he added, has become systemic. Platforms that host content, he insisted, must accept responsibility for what appears on them because deepfakes, fake news and misinformation carry serious risks for society and for democratic institutions.
The Minister placed particular emphasis on revenue. Social media platforms, he said, must share revenue in a fair way with the people who create the content. This includes news persons and conventional media outlets, creators based in far-flung areas, influencers, professors and researchers who disseminate their work through these platforms.
The speech also broadens the definition of "content creator" well beyond traditional newsrooms to include professors, researchers and individuals in remote locations. This suggests future rules could apply across the entire digital economy rather than to media companies alone.
"Everywhere the principle now has to be set right and there has to be a fair share of revenue with the people who are creating the content," he stated.
"Synthetic content should not be generated without the consent of the person whose face or voice or personality has been used to create the content. Time has come to make that big inflectional change," he added.
The insistence on explicit consent for the use of any person's face, voice or personality in AI-generated material points to forthcoming restrictions on synthetic media, potentially backed by new legal safeguards for digital security and personal rights.
Vaishnaw also spoke of a "disinformation barrage" that can create a sense of distrust which does not exist in real life. He pointed to the growing misuse of technology in producing synthetically generated pictures of well-respected figures in society and videos that have absolutely no correlation with reality. Such material, he said, reaches the common citizen and leads people to question the very basic structure of society.
The Minister made clear that the problem is not confined to India. It is happening everywhere, he said, and represents a global challenge linked to emerging technologies. AI-generated content featuring individuals, he added, should require explicit consent in order to protect digital security and individual rights.
Digital platforms, he argued, should ensure fair revenue sharing not only with news organisations but also with independent creators in remote areas, influencers, professors and researchers.
"I request all platforms to rethink their negotiation policies. If voluntary action is not taken, many countries have already shown that legal pathways exist," he said.
On the subject of fair revenue systems for content creators, Vaishnaw repeated his request: "I will request all the platforms to rethink their revenue-sharing policies because that is also one of the major concerns that the entire society today is raising. If this is not done voluntarily, then there are so many countries which have shown the path to get it done in a legal way."
