Tech giant Meta has been slammed by authorities in Turkey for hindering competition and preventing arch-rivals from flourishing in the industry.
For this reason, Facebook’s parent firm will now be penalized a staggering value comprising $160k per day by Turkish officials after their investigation stemming from 2021 proved the company guilty of enjoining in the act.
The penalty was rolled out in Meta’s direction regarding an investigation from October 2022. But this is not the only investigation it carried out as similar probes were done against both WhatsApp and Facebook apps which come under the company’s ownership.
The authorities alleged that it’s sad to see such a large-scale corporation destroying competition in the industry by blocking others out of social media networks as well as online video ads. This was done by putting together data after gathering it from various social media apps.
Furthermore, the officials in Turkey kept on arguing more about how the firm carried out violations against competition laws. For this reason, they sent bills featuring a massive 346 million lira punishment as mentioned in reports arising from last year.
But now that the behavior is continuing and Turkey continues to impose more fines like that shown above, the matter is seriously concerning. However, the Turkish board says Meta keeps on failing in terms of providing the right kind of documents needed to fulfill the investigation stemming from 2022.
They also highlighted how the company failed to highlight what steps and necessary measures it took to hinder the monopoly arising in the online ad industry of today. So many of the country’s watchdogs were said to be viewing the firm’s moves very closely as the nation is known for its stringent competition laws.
The board similarly put out arguments about how it failed to delineate the right kind of evidence needed to prove its innocence and for that reason, it would be fined heavily with daily payments starting from December 12 of last year.
Similarly, it also rolled out the decision to further scrutinize Meta’s Threads and Instagram apps. They wish to seek whether or not the company is making the most of unfair advantages arising from the close intertwining of Threads to Instagram.
In July, we saw Meta mention how users couldn’t delete accounts on Threads without getting rid of accounts on Instagram. That forced them to stay on the app as they feared losing out on Instagram in case they got rid of the newly launched app called Threads at that time.
After widespread criticism on this front and a growing number of serious concerns related to the subject, we’re finally seeing the company make changes that enabled accounts on Threads to not affect users with accounts on Instagram. And that was a serious sense of relief for many Instagram users.
Now, toward the end of November 2023, we are hearing so much more regarding this matter from Meta who finally unveiled that users don’t need to worry about such matters as a lot was being done for their ease.
But we’re not sure if that kind of reaffirmation is enough for officials in Turkey who still see the matter with great suspicion.
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