South Africa’s Competition Commission is currently investigating Google, X and Meta platforms and has fined Google between R300 million to R500 million a year ‘provisional remedy’ for five years, to compensate local news media, including online, television and radio, for the imbalance in competition and digital advertising revenue.
This is one of the main findings in the commission’s much-anticipated provisional report stemming from its 16-month media and digital platforms market inquiry.
As the commission continues to investigate other platforms, it has warned that if the companies targeted in its findings don’t cooperate on the proposed remedies, it may seek a 5-10 per cent levy on the tech giants to compensate the local media industry.
The commission said it wants Meta to stop de-prioritising news on Facebook “to restore referral traffic to the media from its peak with at least a 100 per cent increase in referral traffic”.
Elon Musk’s X and Meta must also “cease de-prioritising news with links in the user feed”, the commission said, adding that these demands set up the commission for a big fight with the global tech giants, which have pushed back against such proposals in other jurisdictions.