Suppressing news is the same as fake news.

The Indian government should make Google and Facebook pay for news, wrote Saubhik Chakrabarti. Australia has already passed such a law after Facebook agreed to lift a ban on users sharing news content on its platform. India, "A large democracy with growing internet market power run by a government that champions local enterprise and can get tough on global players is just about the perfect candidate to be a key player in this fight." Most newspapers have installed paywalls to restrict access to news content. Some people may subscribe to one or two online newspapers but it is impossible to subscribe to all. In India, Livemint, which is the online version of Mint newspaper, has imposed a paywall which is extremely unfair for those of us who buy the Mint in physical form since the content is the same. "Around 80% of external traffic to news websites is carried by Google and Facebook," so they earn 70-80% of advertising revenue. But, newspapers, which are erecting paywalls, are also using Google, probably for free. Google and Facebook are blocked in China by its Great Firewall. The Indian government wants foreign companies to place their servers in India so that it can place every citizen under surveillance but it cannot ensure a constant supply of electricity for them. In 2019, "Google used about 12.4 terawatt-hours of electricity, which means it uses more electric power than entire countries, including ones like Sri Lanka and Zambia," reported Forbes. "Furthermore, Google's electricity use is doubling every three years or so." "Credible, fact-checked news is a bedrock of democracy." Indeed. But, what if they leave out news for fear of the government or because of their bias? US news channel CNN is blatantly anti Republican and continues to cover up for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's responsibility in nursing home deaths. "More than 15,000 New Yorkers in care homes have died since the start of the pandemic. But - until last month - the state's health department had logged just over 8,500 fatalities," reported BBC. Why the cover up? To manipulate the presidential election by blaming Trump. In India, Republic TV is completely biased in favor of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. When Chief Editor of Republic TV Arnab Goswami was arrested for being responsible for the suicide of Anvay Naik, senior ministers rushed out to condemn this as an attack on the freedom of the press, wrote Tavleen Singh. "They know better than anyone else that Modi has done more to curb press freedom than any prime minister since Indira Gandhi." Besides, Google and Facebook are free but we are forced to provide fingerprints and iris scans to pay income tax, used by the government for surveillance on us. There is nothing that Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook or Sundar Pichai, CEO or Alphabet, which controls Google, can do to us, but the government has the sole monopoly on violence. Which it uses with extreme malice. We need privacy from surveillance. Not from gossip.