The way people interact with news has changed dramatically. We search, stream and scroll across multiple sites, platforms and screens to understand what’s going on in our communities and around the world.
The Competition Commission’s provisional report on media and digital platforms ignores that and instead seeks to resurrect outdated business models.
Read: SA hits Google with R500-million demand for news media
The commission’s recommendations, if implemented, would force one platform to subsidise certain publishers artificially based on inaccurate calculations on the perceived value of news to Google’s business. This would also restrict access to information, stifle innovation, and disrupt monetisation and future investment. For example:
- Less choice for consumers: Google Search finds the most relevant results for your query from the thousands, or even millions, of webpages on that topic. Forcing Google to give algorithmic preference to local news will limit diversity of sources and perspectives, imposing on people what to read and watch. This is also contrary to South Africans’ fundamental rights to free expression and diversity of views.
- Less money for publishers: Our advertising technology helps publishers make money on their websites, videos and apps. The proposed changes would make it harder and more expensive for many publishers to earn money for their content.
- A less vibrant content ecosystem: YouTube offers South African creators, including many publishers, a global audience of billions and the ability to earn the majority of revenue from ads that run on their content. Proposing that certain creators get a greater share of revenue from their content than others is unsustainable.
- Impeding digital trade: The commission suggests a digital service tax that would be applied to a narrow band of digital services, including digital advertising, and would benefit a selected industry – publishers. Such taxes are harmful trade barriers that could impede cross-border digital trade.
- Restricting innovation in South Africa: The commission’s demands to modify specific AI products would break innovative features like AI Overviews and Gemini, both of which have been helping people in South Africa more easily learn about complex topics. Not only would this limit South Africans’ access to knowledge openly available elsewhere in the world, it could create conditions detrimental to future investment and innovation in the market.
Google is one of the world’s biggest supporters of journalism. In South Africa, we have partnered with publishers for over a decade by:
- Sending traffic to news publishers: Google Search, News and Discover sent 545 million clicks to South African news publishers in 2023, creating an estimated R350-million in referral traffic value for them. In comparison, we earned less than R19-million from ads displayed next to news queries in that same year. We have long said that news content does not have a measurable impact on search revenues or our ad revenues overall – as recently seen in the EU.
- Providing monetisation technology: Our adtech tools and YouTube partner programme help publishers make money from ads. There is fierce competition in the market to connect advertisers with publishers.
- Running multiple training programmes: Over the past 10 years, we have trained more than 1 500 journalists and publishers on strengthening their digital journalism, online revenue growth, audience engagement, subscription and content strategies, and AI innovation for the news publishing industry.
- Funding and local partnerships: Recently, together with the Association of Independent Publishers, we announced the R114-million Digital News Transformation Fund to help independent, community and local news publishers explore and build resilient digital business models.
Read: Google rejects claims it exploits South African news media
We will continue to collaborate with the industry and the Competition Commission to find balanced solutions for the news ecosystem’s future, and to invest in tools that help all publishers adapt and innovate. However, placing all the responsibility for the change in the way people access news exclusively onto Google misses the mark. Rather than focusing on outsized product and financial demands from one company, we should jointly seek meaningful solutions between government, business, digital platforms and news publishers themselves.
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- The author, Charles Murito, is regional director for government affairs and public policy in sub-Saharan Africa at Google
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