The Media and Digital Platforms Market Inquiry (MDPMI) inquiry set a precedent of accountability over the digital platforms in the global South and global majority countries, the South African National Editors Forum (Sanef) said yesterday.
It also paved a way in establishing such investigations in South Africa and Africa, the organisation said.
Speaking on the first day of the hearings of the inquiry convened by the Competition Commission, Sanef's legal representative, Michael Power, said as such, Sanef and its partners welcomed the opportunity to continue to participate in this process.
The MDPMI is chaired by chief economist and Acting Deputy Commissioner James Hodge of the Competition Commission, with other panel members.
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.
Sanef chair Sbu Ngalwa said considering how news publishers could benefit from the platforms, by looking at their online traffic, such as news hits, considering the disadvantage community media and vernacular media had in South Africa, it was known that these AI tools and algorithms mirrored the biases and skills of the experts who put them together.
“Those biases do filter through and when using that model in the South African context, going on online clicks means there is a whole host of media that will be excluded. This is a point this inquiry should look at,” Ngalwa said.
On the point of fair compensation, this should be based on the value that the platforms derive from the content.
“We also believe that small and local community media organisations should be enabled to participate and benefit from these systems. The reality is that we do not know what that value is because the tech companies do not provide that information.
“As a result of this non-transparency we have a news media that does not have a clear indication of what is required for optimal advertising performance and revenue or the user data that allows the successful targeting of adverts for intended audience,” he said.
For example, he said in the US research had been done that calculated what they believed was fair value for this content. Furthermore, in Switzerland, a study found 40% of the revenue Google generated in that region was from news content.
Ngalwa said, “I think that it would be prudent that as South Africa we have a similar study that looks at what we regard to be fair value in terms of what news publishers ought to be receiving from content used on these various platforms.”
Media stalwart Professor Guy Burger presented some of the thematic sways that gave a cumulative case about the problems of the current set-up.
He said, “What we see in the submissions of Sanef is a discussion competition in two markets. The first is the markets for attention and the second is the market for advertising. These are distinct but often interrelated markets and now we have a third emerging market, which is the market for content generation through generative AI.”
The Competition Commission said the only major global platform that had so far refused to participate in the hearings was X Corp, formerly Twitter, represented by ENS.
It said the panel did not find this position acceptable as it denied media the transparency and accountability.
“We also find it somewhat ironic that X has taken this position given its own value proposition to users being ‘a real-time, global, open, public conversation platform where people can see every side of a topic, discover news, share their perspectives, and engage in discussion and debate’,” it added.
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