Watchdog hits Meta with $220m fine

Nigeria's competition watchdog has fined Meta Platforms $220m after investigations showed data-sharing on social platforms violated local consumer, data protection and privacy laws. Nigeria's Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) said Meta appropriated the data of Nigerian users on its platforms without their consent, abused its market dominance by forcing exploitative privacy policies on users, and meted out discriminatory and disparate treatment on Nigerians, compared with other jurisdictions with similar regulations, according to a report in The East African. Meta did not immediately comment, but the FCCPC said in a statement that the company had provided some documents and have retained counsels who have met and engaged with the agency. FCCPC Chief Adamu Abdullahi said the investigations were jointly held with Nigeria's Data Protection Commission and spanned over 38 months. The investigations found Meta policies don't allow users the option or opportunity to self-determine or withhold consent to the gathering, use, and sharing of personal data, Abdullahi said. The final order mandates steps and actions Meta must take to comply with local laws, Abdullahi said. Meta's plan to use personal data to train its artificial intelligence models without seeking consent has come under fire in Europe. And in SA, the competition watchdog has announced plans to investigate whether digital platforms, including Meta, unfairly compete with news publishers by using their content to generate ad revenue.