The Swiss government favors compensation for journalistic “excerpts” published by online services.

Geneva — Switzerland’s executive branch says it supports changes to its copyright law that would require major online providers, including social media platforms and search engines, to pay media companies to use their journalistic content, even for small details.

The Federal Council, Switzerland’s executive body, announced on Wednesday that it had begun a four-month investigation into a proposed legal change to improve compensation for journalists and their media companies.

The government has highlighted the importance of public debate in a democracy that has now largely moved online.

“The content offered by search engines, social media and multimedia platforms is largely based on the journalistic creations of traditional publishing media,” the government said in a statement. Short previews – or “snippets” – of journalistic content are currently not protected under Swiss copyright law.

He said that media companies and journalists do not receive any compensation from the online service companies that use their work. Determining the level of such compensation should be worked out among industry players.

“The Federal Council recommends that large online service providers be obliged to pay media companies for the use of excerpts,” the government said. “If, for example, a major search engine displays excerpts of newspaper articles among its results, the online service provider will have to pay a fee for this in the future.

Only the largest online services – those that attract users equal to at least 10 percent of Switzerland’s population each year – would have to pay such compensation. The population of Switzerland at the end of last year was approximately 8.8 million.

The Swiss government pointed to changes abroad, including a directive from the European Union — which excludes Switzerland from its 27 member states — that helped media companies protect their interests in online services.