Facebook will start news service in India soon, will pay Indian publishers

New Delhi, Facing political heat in India, Facebook said on Tuesday that it will soon pay the country’s news publishers through Facebook News so that their content will be available on its new product. Facebook News was launched in the US last year and will also be launched in the UK, Germany, France, India and Brazil in the next six to twelve months.

Campbell Brown, vice president of Global News Partnership at Facebook, said consumer habits and news lists vary in different countries. That is why we will work closely with our news partners in each country so that they can take advantage of their experience and work accordingly. According to him, Facebook has found that 95 percent of the traffic provided by Facebook News to the publisher is in addition to the traffic already received by their news feed. “Based on this progress, we are accelerating our plans for international expansion,” Brown said.

Facing accusations of being a BJP supporter on its platform, Facebook said last week that it had removed content posted by celebrities in India that violated its community standards. Facebook India vice president and managing director Ajit Mohan issued a statement saying that Facebook has always been an open, transparent and fair platform where people can express themselves freely. In the last few days, we have been accused of bias in compliance with our policies. We take allegations of bias very seriously and make it clear that we condemn hatred and bigotry in any form.