Facebook has announced that it will launch its news service Facebook News in India soon. The social media giant will also be launching its news service in four other countries--Germany, the UK, Brazil, and France. It had already introduced the service in the United States last year.

With this, the Silicon Valley firm will pay news publishers for content and original reporting.

Facebook has found that over 95 per cent of the traffic Facebook News delivers to publishers "is incremental to the traffic they already get from News Feed," Campbell Brown, VP, Global News Partnerships at Facebook said.

Facebook, which has over 300 million users in India has come under fire for allegedly favouring ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in its platform.Last week, Facebook clarified its position saying it has removed and will continue to remove content posted by public figures in India that violate its community standards. "We take allegations of bias incredibly seriously, and want to make it clear that we denounce hate and bigotry in any form," Facebook India Vice President and Managing Director Ajit Mohan said in a blog post.

Meanwhile, the parliamentary standing committee on Information Technology has summoned Facebook on September 2 to discuss the alleged misuse of social media platforms. For the September 1 meeting, representatives of ministries of communications and home affairs have been called. Representatives of Information and Broadcasting Ministry, News Broadcasters Association, Press Council of India and Prasar Bharati have been invited for the discussion on 'Ethical Standards in Media Coverage.