South African Competition Commission to Investigate Meta and Google for Alleged Competition Violations

Digital platforms are considered to be competing unhealthy with news agencies in South Africa. (photo; dock. pexels)

JAKARTA - The South African Competition Commission said on Tuesday, October 17, it would investigate whether digital platforms such as Meta and Google were unfairly competing with news publishers by using their content to generate advertising revenue.

The Commission will investigate, among other things, market features that may disrupt competition for advertising revenues between news media organizations and digital platforms, as well as whether these are affected by an imbalance of bargaining power.

"This inquisition comes at a critical time for the media industry as news consumption is rapidly shifting to online platforms and traditional funding sources for print and broadcast advertising are declining," Commissioner Doris Tshepe told journalists.

Principal Economist and Deputy Executive Commissioner, James Hodge, said media consumers were increasingly relying on video sharing platforms, news aggregators, and social media for news access and revenue, and that there was a need to promote diversity in news and public interest journalism.

The inquisition will cover general search engines such as Alphabet's Google and Bing, social media platforms such as Meta and platform X, news aggregation platforms, video sharing platforms such as YouTube and TikTok, and advertising networks such as Google Ads.

The Commission will also examine generative artificial intelligence such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and how it uses original news content in its output, the Commission added.