South Africa to fine Google, Meta over $16m annually for 3-5 years over news sharing

South Africa’s Competition Commission has called for Google to pay local news media between R300 million ($16 million) and R500 million ($27 million) annually for three to five years. This demand comes from a provisional report released today after a 16-month investigation into how digital platforms affect the media industry in the count

Apart from Google, the commission equally named X, Meta Platforms, and other tech companies, warning that if they do not comply with these terms, it might push for a 5-10% levy on their earnings to support local media.

The report accuses tech giants of hurting South African news outlets by taking ad money and traffic without making fair payments.

For Google, the commission wants changes to its search engine to fix what it calls an “imbalance in shared value.” It said, “This includes the removal of search bias in favour of foreign media and YouTube and the promotion of vernacular and community media.”

For Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, Trends and WhatsApp, the commission demanded, “Meta to stop de-prioritising news on Facebook ‘to restore referral traffic to the media from its peak with at least a 100% increase in referral traffic.’” It also told Meta and Elon Musk’s X to “cease de-prioritising news with links in the user feed.”

The commission laid out other demons:

• YouTube must help media companies, including the SABC, make more money from their content. It suggested: “Increases in the revenue share to 70% and active promotion of higher value direct sales by the media.”
• To fight fake news, it wants the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act changed to hold platforms responsible for harmful content. It added: “The social media platforms partner with and compensate the media on fact-checking.”
• Tech companies should share more user data with news outlets. The report said: “Search and social media should share richer anonymised user data for consumers engaging with news content on their platforms to enable improved insights and monetisation of their audiences.”
• Local media should team up to negotiate with AI firms like Microsoft and OpenAI for content deals to train chatbots. If that fails, the commission wants rules “to prevent AI chatbots from favouring global media partners and to drive referral traffic to local news media.”

Why this matters

The commission stressed the importance of news for democracy:

“The news media is essential for free expression and democracy, informing citizens and holding institutions accountable. Globally, the media industry is undergoing rapid change due to the shift to online news consumption, challenging traditional revenue models and necessitating changes to business models.” 

It admitted digital growth has hit the media hard but blamed tech firms for making it worse. 

“While there are challenges that the media must face from the disruptive effect of digitalisation, the inquiry provisionally finds that these challenges are exacerbated by the conduct of platforms that hinder the ability of the news media to secure and monetise digital traffic.” 

It pointed out: “These digital platforms do not produce news themselves and cannot replace journalism’s role.”

The findings, which target big names like Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, X, and TikTok, focus mainly on their operations in South Africa. 

According to the commission, “The provisional report presents a series of provisional findings against tech giants… along with provisional remedies across search, social media, generative AI and digital advertising to address conduct that adversely impacts competition for digital advertising and journalism in South Africa.”

But these ideas are not final. The commission noted, “It is important to note that the findings and remedies are provisional and that further submissions, evidence and engagements with the inquiry following the release of the provisional report may result in changes to these findings, recommendations and remedies.”

Tech heavyweights have fought similar clampdowns in other regions, setting the stage for a tough battle ahead. For now, South Africa’s media industry waits to see if this push will bring relief or spark a bigger fight.