Overview
- The Competition Commission said Google will add tools that prioritise local news, share enhanced audience data, and provide technical assistance, with YouTube expanding monetisation access for South African outlets.
- The package includes roughly $4 million for national publishers over five years, $2.6 million per year for AI innovation, and $2.2 million over three years for community and small media.
- TikTok agreed to roll out a publisher support suite with monetisation and analytics, Microsoft will extend MSN contracts to additional local publishers, and Meta will offer ad credits plus local support and training.
- X did not reach a settlement and was ordered to make all monetisation programmes available in South Africa and run training workshops, with the directive open to appeal.
- The report highlights declining referral traffic, AI scraping of news content, and ad‑tech self‑preferencing as harms, and the minister will present the findings to parliament for next steps.