South Africa’s Competition Commission has recommended that social media platforms X and Facebook should introduce a level of liability for actively promoting misinformation and disinformation on their platforms.
This should be alongside the introduction of a policy of not amplifying misinformation and disinformation, including through promoted posts.
These are some of the key provisional remedies proposed by the Competition Commission’s Media and Digital Platforms Market Inquiry provisional report that was released yesterday.
The commission this week presented its provisional findings, recommendations and proposed remedial actions from the inquiry, which officially commenced in May 2021.
According to the commission’s investigation, there are reasons to believe some online operators have impeded or restricted fair competition among their competitors, and these actions may undermine the purpose of the Competition Act.
Companies under review include Google, Facebook owner Meta, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, TikTok and OpenAI.
The report finds: “The incentive to drive engagement on social media has resulted in the promotion by the social media algorithms of more sensationalist and provocative content, and an unwillingness to completely remove misinformation and disinformation.
“This algorithmic bias distorts competition on the platforms for selection and ranking, placing the news media at a disadvantage given their focus on credible news reporting. It also undermines efforts to counter the negative impact of misinformation with credible news content, as credible news is surfaced less in the feed.”
News media also bears the cost of fact-checking misinformation spread on social media and yet is not compensated by social media for this role, according to the findings.
X and Facebook have both deliberately deprecated posts with links to keep users on their platform, starving the news media of referral traffic.
Social media benefits from the lack of regulatory oversight at the expense of credible news. These effects are particularly harmful to children and those lacking in digital literacy skills, it states.
“The deliberate deprecation of public content and follower posts more generally since 2018, and news more specifically since 2021, on Meta, along with the deprecation of posts with links to keep users on their platforms, distorts competition for digital advertising and distorts the value share arrangements with the news media. It also undermines consumer choice, which is to have news content available on their feed, including credible news which users have made a deliberate decision to follow on social media.
“Opportunities to monetise on Meta are also limited with a similar low revenue share for in-stream video ads and of lower value than monetisation on news websites and broadcasts.”
Meta recently announced plans to get rid of fact checkers and replace them with community notes.
Recommended remedies
Rather than dictate how platforms detect likely misinformation, the inquiry notes that introducing a level of liability for actively promoting misinformation is the best means to ensure the platforms choose effective means of doing so, including identifying what is likely misinformation.
This should be alongside a policy of not amplifying misinformation, including through promoted posts. Promoting credible sources of news has to be part of the solution too. The inquiry is of the preliminary view that this is best achieved through legislation and/or regulation rather than remedial orders, as the commission is not in a position to police misinformation on platforms.
Meta should cease deprioritising South African news media posts with links in the home feed algorithm and ensure the organic reach of South African news media posts with links is on average similar to the organic reach of local news media posts without links.
It should cease deprecating news content in SA and restore the Facebook referral traffic for SA news media through algorithm changes that result in a 100% increase in SA news media referral traffic, or to match peak referral traffic to the news media in the past eight years.
X should cease deprioritising news media posts with links in the “For You” and “Latest Feed” algorithm and ensure the organic reach of SA news media posts with links is on average similar to the organic reach of SA news media posts without links, it says.
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