Nigeria’s competition watchdog said it will investigate Big Tech firms over alleged anti-competition practices and unauthorized use of news content.
The probe, announced this week, is the second major inquiry in three years against global tech firms undertaken by Nigeria, and points to growing global concerns over firms using proprietary third-party content to train AI models.
Nigerian news groups had in March complained to President Bola Tinubu, alleging Alphabet, Meta, and X were among firms whose extraction of content from local publishers was undermining the press industry. Nigeria imposed a $220 million fine on Meta in 2024 following an investigation that alleged a breach of data privacy laws and market power abuse by the Silicon Valley giant. Meta has appealed the fine. The Nigerian examples follow similar cases elsewhere: The New York Times filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing it of using copyrighted material to train AI systems, while five Canadian publications, including The Globe and Mail, filed a similar suit against OpenAI in 2024.