Social media platforms have enormous power to direct traffic based on their algorithms.
South Africa’s Competition Commission has ordered social media platforms YouTube, Meta, TikTok and X to significantly invest in supporting South Africa’s media sector, to restore fairness, transparency and sustainability in the media ecosystem.
This is one of several key remedies proposed by the Competition Commission’s Media and Digital Platforms Market Inquiry final report, which was released yesterday.
The commission this week presented its findings, recommendations and proposed remedial actions from the inquiry, which officially commenced in May 2021.
This follows 24 months of extensive evidence-gathering, public and in-camera hearings, expert report submissions, consultation with industry role players, a consumer survey and focus group discussions.
The inquiry, undertaken in terms of section 43B(1)(a) of the Competition Act 89 of 1998, was initiated because the Competition Commission had reason to believe there are market features on digital platforms that distribute news media content that impede, distort, or restrict competition, or undermine the purposes of the Act.
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The final report presents a series of provisional findings against social media platforms, along with provisional remedies.
According to the report, social media platforms − such as Meta (Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp), YouTube, X and TikTok − play a massive role in distributing news to South Africans, particularly within community and vernacular audiences.
While these platforms gain immense engagement value from news, few South African outlets are accredited or technically enabled to monetise their content on the platforms.
The report notes that social media platforms benefit significantly from displaying news content (through engagement and ad revenue), while news outlets, which invest in creating that content, receive no direct compensation from the platforms, leading to a significant power imbalance.
As consumers seek to access news through these aggregator platforms because it is easy and convenient, the social media platforms have enormous power to direct traffic based on their algorithms, it adds.
In contrast, the bargaining power of news media is limited, in part because one media source is largely interchangeable with another when reporting on national events, which means the threat of withdrawing just means the void is filled by a competitor. This is exploited by platforms to ensure access to content for free and the ability to make unilateral decisions on content recommender algorithms.
As part of the remedial recommendations, the Competition Commission has ordered the platforms to introduce the following: “Meta will create a media liaison office in South Africa and expand monetisation access through workshops, ad credits and the removal of follower thresholds.
“YouTube will offer automatic access for all South African media to its Partner Programme and support the SABC with direct ad sales and archive digitisation. TikTok will roll out its Publisher Support Suite in South Africa, including monetisation and analytics tools, while X will make all monetisation programmes available locally and provide training workshops. All platforms will implement digital literacy initiatives to strengthen media resilience and counter misinformation.”
According to the report, Meta is the largest user platform for news and has deliberately deprecated news content on its platform since 2021, but started to choke organic reach in 2018, forcing news media to pay to promote posts for reach.
X has also deprecated news posts with links, which cuts referral traffic. This makes monetisation on the platform more important, reinforced by the growing prominence of video content viewed on X.
With YouTube, the issues are different insofar as content must be viewed on its platform and this enables it to set the terms for monetisation of news media videos. This has significant implications for broadcasters in particular, including the public broadcaster, given it’s a video platform.
“Broadcasters have raised concerns over the lack of transparency around the payments received from YouTube. In particular, YouTube provides them with a monthly payment but does not provide sufficient underlying information to determine whether that payment fairly reflects the viewership and ad revenues generated on their content on YouTube,” the report finds.
TikTok has been on the rise as a source of news among social media platforms. Due to the growing interest in news content on TikTok, news media are putting more of their content on the platform, whereas previously they would have focused on Facebook and X. While TikTok started as a pure entertainment platform, as it grows and matures, so the content loaded onto the platform has evolved, according to the report.
Additional remedial actions imposed by the inquiry include:
YouTube:
- Introduce a YouTube scaling support programme within six months to deepen skills in developing, scaling and monetising a YouTube news channel, and provide access to the YouTube Partner Programme for participants, along with support from YouTube partner managers.
- Adjustment of the YouTube Partner Sales programme criteria for South Africa to enable access to be achievable by free-to-air broadcasters.
Meta platforms (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp):
- Launch the Meta Platform Support Programme within six months for a three-year period to offer quarterly training on establishing a stronger presence across Meta’s platforms.
- Provide all monetisation programmes operated by Meta globally in SA.
- Introduce initiatives for media to grow audience reach and engagement on the Meta platforms through the provision of annual advert credits within six months and for a period of three years to South African news media.
X (formerly Twitter):
- Provide all monetisation programmes operated by X globally in SA.
- Offer biannual skills development workshops on leveraging the X monetisation programmes and the development of content strategies for media to maximise audience reach.
TikTok:
- Provide all monetisation programmes operated by TikTok globally in SA, including Article Links, Publisher Suite, Bulletin Board, Smart-Split, Moderation Support and Lead Generation.
- Provide or fund a media digital literacy programme for South African adults and children within six months for three years.
