Keypoints:
- Australia raises pressure on Big Tech
- African journalism faces a funding squeeze
- Continental rules could strengthen bargaining power
AUSTRALIA’S newly enacted News Bargaining Incentive, which financially pressures major digital platforms to strike commercial agreements with news publishers or face a levy, represents more than another chapter in the long-running dispute between publishers and Silicon Valley.
It is a reminder that governments can intervene when digital markets become so concentrated that those producing valuable public-interest content cannot negotiate on reasonably equal terms with those distributing and monetising it.
The lesson matters far beyond Australia. It should command particular attention across Africa, where media organisations operate in economies characterised by comparatively limited advertising revenues, rising production costs and increasing dependence on global search engines, social networks and artificial intelligence platforms.
According to Reuters, Australia’s new regime introduces a 2.5 percent charge on the Australian advertising revenue of covered digital platforms. Qualifying commercial agreements with news publishers can reduce or eliminate that liability, creating a strong incentive for platforms to negotiate rather than simply rely on voluntary arrangements.
Africa should examine the principle carefully.
The continent does not need to copy Australian legislation word for word. African media markets, legal systems, regulatory institutions and economic circumstances vary considerably. But African governments should recognise the underlying problem Australia is attempting to address: the enormous imbalance of bargaining power between global technology companies and the journalists and publishers producing information on which democratic societies depend.
Journalism has value beyond clicks
For too long, journalism has been treated in the digital economy as though the cost of producing reliable information disappears once a story is published online.
It does not.
Behind every credible investigation, political report, business story, photograph or public-interest exposé are journalists, editors, researchers, photographers, lawyers, technology specialists and newsrooms that have to be financed.
Digital platforms have undeniably created tremendous opportunities for African publishers. Google, Facebook, X, TikTok and other services can expose African journalism to audiences that traditional distribution channels could never have reached.
The relationship, therefore, should not be reduced to an argument that technology platforms provide no value.
The real question is whether the enormous market power of global platforms allows African publishers to negotiate on equitable terms and receive a fair share of the economic value generated around professionally produced journalism.
That is where governments have a legitimate role.
African journalism is not simply another category of online content. Independent journalism supports credible elections, exposes corruption, scrutinises public expenditure, challenges abuses of authority, informs markets and helps citizens distinguish verified information from misinformation and propaganda.
Weakening the institutions performing these functions imposes costs far beyond the balance sheets of newspaper companies.
African journalism faces a funding squeeze
Across the continent, the economics of journalism have become increasingly difficult.
Print circulation has declined in many markets. Advertising has migrated online. Production and distribution costs have risen. Newsrooms have been forced to reduce staffing, close regional bureaus or scale back expensive investigative reporting.
Meanwhile, much of the growth in digital advertising has accrued to a relatively small number of international technology companies.
Nigeria illustrates the problem particularly clearly.
The country possesses one of Africa’s largest and most dynamic media industries, yet publishers face rising operational costs, weakened traditional advertising income and growing uncertainty over the commercial future of digital journalism.
The issue has now reached the highest levels of government.
In July 2026, President Bola Tinubu directed Nigeria’s Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission to investigate major technology and generative AI companies following complaints from Nigerian media organisations concerning alleged anti-competitive conduct and the use of journalistic content.
That investigation matters because it should establish facts rather than presume wrongdoing. But its very existence demonstrates that concerns about the relationship between platforms and African publishers can no longer be dismissed as a peripheral industry dispute.
Nigeria is not alone.
South Africa has already demonstrated that African regulators are not powerless. Its Competition Commission examined the relationship between digital platforms and publishers through the Media and Digital Platforms Market Inquiry.
That process led to commitments from Google and YouTube that included a R688m media-support package, according to Reuters.
This is important because it shifts the discussion away from a simplistic proposition that Africa should merely imitate Australia. African regulators are already exploring their own responses to platform concentration, media sustainability and digital-market power.
AI raises the stakes further
Artificial intelligence makes the debate considerably more urgent.
Publishers around the world are asking whether AI developers should be permitted to use copyrighted journalism in training systems or generate answers containing information derived from original reporting without negotiated licensing or compensation.
These remain complex and evolving legal questions.
Governments should resist simplistic conclusions while courts, copyright authorities and competition regulators continue examining copyright law, licensing arrangements and applicable exceptions.
But Africa cannot afford to remain a passive observer.
African newspapers, broadcasters, photographers, writers and digital publishers possess enormous bodies of original material documenting the continent’s politics, history, culture, businesses, conflicts and communities.
That information has economic value.
If African-created material contributes to increasingly powerful commercial AI systems, African governments, publishers and rights holders should participate in determining the rules governing access, licensing, attribution and remuneration.
This is not an argument against artificial intelligence.
Africa should embrace AI aggressively. The continent should build AI companies, train engineers, expand computing infrastructure, develop local language models and encourage media organisations to use generative technologies to improve productivity.
The debate over digital sovereignty is already gathering momentum across the continent, including calls for African-controlled data infrastructure and common governance frameworks.
But technological innovation and intellectual property protection are not mutually exclusive.
A sustainable digital economy requires both.
Africa needs collective bargaining power
There is another reason Africa should approach this issue strategically.
A large economy may possess sufficient commercial leverage to negotiate individually with global technology corporations. Many smaller African economies do not.
Fragmentation weakens bargaining power.
Fifty-four different approaches to platform regulation could leave governments competing against one another while multinational companies operate seamlessly across national borders.
The African Union should therefore consider developing continental principles governing the relationship between digital platforms, AI companies, news publishers and African content creators.
Such principles need not impose identical legislation on every country.
They could establish minimum standards covering competition, intellectual property, publisher negotiations, transparency, data governance and dispute resolution while allowing states to design legislation suited to their domestic circumstances.
Regional organisations could also contribute.
ECOWAS, the East African Community, SADC and other regional blocs could help governments share regulatory expertise and prevent the emergence of frameworks that are either too weak to matter or so restrictive that they discourage legitimate investment and technological innovation.
Africa needs intelligent regulation, not digital isolationism.
The objective should be sovereignty with openness: the ability to welcome investment and innovation while retaining the authority to establish fair rules for companies operating within African markets.
Nigeria can provide a test case
Nigeria is particularly well positioned to help shape this emerging African framework.
Its population, media industry, technology ecosystem and consumer market give it commercial weight that many smaller economies lack.
The current FCCPC investigation offers an opportunity to examine the evidence carefully.
How much economic value do digital platforms derive from Nigerian journalism? How much referral traffic do they provide publishers in return? What effect are AI-generated summaries having on publisher traffic? Under what circumstances is journalistic material being used to train AI systems? How should existing copyright legislation apply? And what would constitute fair commercial negotiation?
These questions require evidence, not slogans.
If Nigeria establishes that genuine bargaining imbalances exist, the government should consider a Digital Platform Compensation and Accountability Act.
Such a framework could provide mechanisms for good-faith commercial negotiations, independent arbitration when negotiations break down, transparent eligibility standards for publishers and safeguards preventing dominant media organisations from capturing all the benefits.
Small publishers, regional newspapers and digital-native organisations must not be forgotten.
A compensation scheme that merely transfers money from large technology corporations to Africa’s biggest media houses would solve only part of the problem.
The objective should be a stronger, more diverse and more sustainable journalism ecosystem.
Transparency must accompany compensation
Money alone will not resolve the broader challenge of platform power.
African regulators also need a deeper understanding of the digital systems determining what information citizens see, how publishers are ranked and how changes to algorithms affect the visibility and economic viability of journalism.
Search engines, social platforms and increasingly AI-powered interfaces exert substantial influence over how information reaches citizens.
Governments must proceed carefully.
Political authorities should never acquire powers allowing them to dictate editorial rankings or manipulate the circulation of information under the guise of algorithmic transparency.
That would replace one concentration of power with another.
But regulators should have sufficient authority and technical expertise to investigate potentially anti-competitive conduct, discriminatory market practices and significant changes that could unfairly disadvantage publishers.
Transparency should strengthen competition and accountability without providing governments with an instrument for controlling journalism.
That distinction is fundamental.
Journalism is part of digital sovereignty
Digital sovereignty should not mean shutting Africa away from the global technology economy.
It means possessing the institutional, legal and economic capacity to determine the rules under which global companies operate within African markets.
Africa has spent decades confronting the consequences of exporting valuable natural resources while retaining too little of the economic value generated from them.
The continent should not repeat that experience with data, intellectual property and creative content.
African journalism represents knowledge.
It records African societies through African voices. It provides historical memory, democratic scrutiny, cultural representation and the raw information upon which citizens, businesses and governments make decisions.
That value does not disappear merely because the means of distribution have changed.
Australia has demonstrated that governments do not have to accept an imbalance between powerful global platforms and domestic journalism as inevitable.
South Africa has demonstrated that African competition authorities can investigate the same imbalance and secure meaningful commitments.
Nigeria now has an opportunity to build upon these experiences and develop a model reflecting African economic and democratic realities.
The objective should not be to punish technology companies or construct barriers against innovation. It should be to create a digital marketplace in which innovation, journalism, intellectual property and fair competition can coexist.
For Nigeria, the debate has already begun.
For Africa, the larger conversation must now accelerate.
The digital economy will increasingly determine who controls information, who profits from knowledge, whose intellectual property creates tomorrow’s technologies and whose voices shape the global understanding of Africa.
African governments must ensure that the continent enters that future as a rule-maker and value creator, not merely a source of data and content from which others extract economic value.
That is the strategic lesson Africa should take from Australia.
Professor Ojo Emmanuel Ademola is a Professor of Cybersecurity and Information Technology Management, global education advocate, Chartered Manager, UK digital journalist and Contributing Editor to Africa Briefing, strategic adviser, public intellectual, African governance thinker and General Evangelist of Christ Apostolic Church Nigeria and Overseas
