TechCentral reported in August that the Campaign for Free Expression CFE had lodged a complaint against Meta with the Information Regulator after the social media giant, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, refused an information request from the CFE.
Prior to the election, Meta representatives told TechCentral in an interview about the company's strategies to deal with the threat of misinformation on its platforms related to the pivotal election in which the ANC lost its parliamentary majority for the first time.
According to Information Regulator chair Pansy Tlakula, who was speaking at a press briefing in Johannesburg on Wednesday, all three companies - Meta, X and Google - refused to abide by requests for information made in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act Paia. They did so, she said, on the general presumption that Paia does not apply to them "extraterritorially", despite all three doing business in South Africa.
Google has agreed to meet with the regulator to discuss both parties' concerns. Similar commitments from Meta and X have not been forthcoming.
In an affidavit to the Information Regulator, CFE executive director Anton Harber said the fact that Meta, Inc - the California-headquartered company - is itself not a registered South African entity cannot form a basis for the idea that it need not concern itself with constitutional rights in its dealings with the South African public, particularly where this engagement takes place within the country. To suggest otherwise would be to allow foreign companies to act lawlessly without consequence, which would be legally untenable, he said.
