In October 2022, Turkish competition authorities charged Meta Platforms with a hefty penalty. Previously, it also conducted investigations in 2021 into Meta-owned platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook.
The main issue between Meta and Turkish authorities was that they considered the tech giant to be destructive to competition. Turkish authorities suggested that Meta blocks competitors in the social network and online video advertising industry by combining the data it gathers from its social media platforms.
The Turkish authorities argued that Meta had violated the competition law. In 2022, they charged the company a total of 346.72 million lira or around $18.63 million, according to the exchange rate that year.
Today, according to Reuters, the Turkish authorities have placed another fine on the tech giant.
The latest fine is worth 4.8 million lira ($160,160.16) per day. According to the Turkish competition board, Meta failed to provide sufficient documentation regarding the 2022 investigations.
The board required Meta to provide the steps and compliance measures the company was taking to ensure it did not monopolize the online video advertising industry. It needed to prove to the watchdogs that it was not violating the competition laws of the country.
The board argued that it did not find the provided evidence sufficient and charged the fine that had to be paid daily starting Dec 12, 2023.
At the same time, it announced that it would be initiating a deeper investigation into Instagram and Threads. It wanted to find out whether Meta enjoyed an unfair advantage by tying its latest social media app, Threads, with Instagram.
On July 6, Meta announced that users could not delete their Threads accounts without deleting their Instagram accounts. This attracted concerns from users and the company tried to make changes.
Finally, on November 14, 2023, the company announced that it was working on a new feature that lets users delete their accounts separately without letting the Threads account affect the one on Instagram.
Nevertheless, it continued to attract suspicion from the Turkish authorities.
Source: Reuters