The South African National Editors Forum (Sanef) has told the Competition Commission that Big Tech – firms such as Google and Meta Platforms – must be held to more stringent rules for the publishing and distribution of news content, similar to rules governing South African media houses.

The argument is part of Sanef’s submission to the commission’s media and digital platforms market enquiry, the public hearings for which kicked off in Pretoria on Monday.

“News producers are legally liable for the content they produce, but as Big Tech you can dodge responsibility by saying it is third-party content and not yours, even though they make money from it,” said Guy Berger, director for freedom of expression and media development at Unesco and a former head of the School of Journalism at Rhodes University.

“Sanef … is requesting the Competition Commission to force Big Tech to properly invest in their control structures so that they meet the duty of care that other news media have in this country,” Berger said.

Sanef also raised the contentious issue of “fair compensation” from Big Tech companies for news content in its oral submission to the commission.

Technology firms have been criticised in South Africa and other countries for their alleged secrecy regarding the value they derive from news content, making it difficult for news content producers to determine what fair value for their output should be.

Sanef argued that payments based on fair value would allow small local community organisations to participate and benefit from digital platforms.

The rest of Sanef’s arguments had a more qualitative flavour to them, focusing on broader societal implications.

‘Public good’

The forum’s speakers, which also included Sanef chairman Sbu Ngalwa and legal expert Michael Power of Power and Associates, urged the commission to focus on the view of the news as a “public good” in its deliberations, saying the provision of news “must be a constitutional issue and not only a matter of commercial competition”.

Also argued for was the idea that digital platforms should prioritise credible news by favouring publications that subscribe to an independent self-regulatory body – and some form of ethical code – as an antidote to misinformation and disinformation. Related to this is the idea that the algorithms that Big Tech platforms use to determine which content is displayed should be made transparent.

“Without this, the information asymmetry is such that properly functioning markets in the communications space (including advertising) will remain distant for South Africans,” said Ngalwa.

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Artificial intelligence also took centre stage in the Sanef presentation, with a lack of transparency regarding how generative AI algorithms are trained said to be reinforcing biases driving inequalities in the country’s information ecosystem.

Seen to have two aspects to it – content creation and distribution – Sanef proposed that the content generation aspect, although important, should take a back seat so that the commission can focus on regulating the distribution platforms as they facilitate the spread of information and misinformation.

Sanef’s submission to the commission was a joint effort with the Press Council, the Association of Independent Publishers and the Forum of Community Journalists. The commission launched the inquiry in October, following complaints lodged in 2021 by Publisher Support Services (PSS), an industry association founded by Media24, Arena Holdings, Caxton, Independent Media and Mail & Guardian Media.

PSS submitted that the transition of news from print to digital, with advertising following suit, has led to massive declines in publisher revenues while the costs newsrooms must devote to their online presence have increased.

“The inquiry was initiated to examine the distribution of media content on search and social media digital platforms, AI chatbots and assisted search, and the advertising technology (adtech) markets that connect advertisers and news publishers’ websites. The purpose is to determine if there are any market features that may be adversely affecting competition or undermining the purposes of the Competition Act, and to comprehensively remedy those features,” said James Hodge, acting deputy competition commissioner, in his opening remarks at the hearings.

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The inquiry is not uniquely South African, as other jurisdictions, including the EU and Indonesia, have also chosen to investigate digital platforms as well as the markets they operate in and ultimately control.

“News has one hand tied behind its back and the platforms have both hands free. South African news media bear a financial burden for their efforts to comply with the law. The Competition Commission cannot deal with the entire gamut of what we face, but there are things that can be done,” said Berger. – © 2024 NewsCentral Media