Google has reportedly agreed to pay South African media houses R688 million following the completion of the Competition Commission’s Media and Digital Platforms Market Inquiry, a landmark investigation that could reshape the financial relationship between global tech platforms and local news publishers.
According to The Citizen, the final report concludes a 24-month process involving extensive evidence gathering, five rounds of information requests, public and closed hearings, expert submissions, stakeholder consultations, consumer surveys, focus groups and a provisional report that opened the process to broad industry input. It is one of the most comprehensive investigations the Commission has undertaken into the digital economy.
The inquiry examined whether the structure and conduct of digital platforms that distribute news content — including Google, Meta, Microsoft, TikTok, X and AI firms such as OpenAI — distort competition or undermine the objectives of the Competition Act. These platforms dominate the gateways through which most South Africans now access news and information, particularly search engines, social platforms and AI-powered tools.
The inquiry found that Google maintains a near-monopoly in search, where news accounts for 5–10% of queries and drives significant user engagement that Google monetises through advertising. Despite this, Google does not compensate South African publishers whose content appears in search results, summaries, and AI-driven features.
The report shows that referral traffic to media websites has declined sharply, largely because users increasingly consume summaries directly on Google’s results pages or AI tools, and because Google’s algorithms tend to prioritise large foreign news outlets over South African or vernacular publishers. This algorithmic bias has deepened financial and visibility inequalities, especially for small, independent and community media. Microsoft was found to display a similar pattern, with its MSN service contracting very few South African publishers.
The inquiry also highlights how Meta (Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp), TikTok, YouTube, and X have become critical channels for news distribution, particularly among younger, community, and vernacular audiences. However, Inquiry Chair James Hodge said only a small fraction of South African publishers are accredited or technically equipped to monetise their content on these platforms. The situation has worsened as Meta and X have deprioritised posts containing news links, reducing traffic to publishers’ websites. Inquiry chair, James Hodge, noted that even the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), which depends heavily on YouTube for distribution, earns minimal revenue-share compensation.
Compounding the problem, social media algorithms amplify sensational and misleading content, increasing misinformation and imposing additional costs on reliable newsrooms working to debunk fake news.
The inquiry also found that AI companies have scraped South African news content without payment to train large language models and produce real-time responses. While major AI companies now allow publishers to opt out of scraping, most small and community outlets lack the technical capacity to enforce this. Hodge stressed that even though news forms a small portion of training data, its value is disproportionately high because it feeds the credibility of AI systems.
A key finding is that South Africa’s fragmented media landscape leaves individual publishers too small to negotiate licences with global tech companies. But collectively, they could command significant value, a model that echoes successful interventions in Australia and Canada, as well as proposals in the European Union, where legislation has forced platforms to pay media for the use of news content. The Commission suggests that with coordinated bargaining, improved technical capacity, and fair compensation frameworks, both media and digital platforms could benefit. AI technologies could also help newsrooms innovate, but only if local publishers gain access to affordable tools and training.
Google’s dominance in the advertising technology stack entrenches publisher dependency and raises operating costs, with bundled systems that favour Google’s own ad exchange. Regulators in the EU, US, Australia and India have reported similar distortions.
Hodge said that while South Africa cannot solve global market imbalances alone, aligning with international regulatory efforts could help restore fairness in the digital marketplace. He added that AI and digital platforms offer opportunities for innovation, but only if local media can collectively bargain, build technical capacity and secure fair compensation for their content. Sustained collaboration, investment and policy support, he said, are essential to ensuring a diverse, credible and sustainable South African media ecosystem.
