I support this move, provided Nigeria has the institutional and regulatory capacity to influence how these global technology companies operate within our jurisdiction. “President Bola Tinubu has directed the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) to investigate major global technology companies and generative artificial intelligence platforms operating in Nigeria over allegations of anti-competitive conduct and the unauthorized use of news content produced by Nigerian media organizations.”

This directive represents Nigeria’s most significant regulatory intervention yet in the relationship between global digital platforms, AI companies, and the country’s media industry. It aligns with a growing international effort to ensure that technology companies fairly compensate news publishers whose content powers search engines, social media feeds, digital advertising, and increasingly, AI systems.

Why do I consider this important? One of the persistent challenges Nigerian publishers face is the significant discount applied to Nigerian internet traffic. A click originating from New York may generate twenty cents, while a comparable click from Lagos could generate only one cent, or even less. The disparity goes beyond geography. Over time, publishers have also experienced rising impression requirements. What once required 1,000 impressions to earn a modest return may now require 10,000 or more, and those thresholds can increase dramatically from year to year with little transparency.

Certainly, advertising economics are influenced by supply and demand, and markets with abundant inventory generally command lower prices. But that explanation is insufficient when many of these same technology companies continue to report record revenues and profits while publishers in emerging markets bear increasingly unfavorable economics.

The consequence is visible across Nigeria’s digital media landscape. Publishers are forced to display more advertisements, increasing page clutter and degrading the user experience, simply to compensate for declining yields. Readers suffer, publishers struggle, while the platforms continue to capture a disproportionate share of the digital advertising value chain.

I do not underestimate the difficulty of this undertaking. Nigeria may not possess sufficient leverage on its own to fundamentally reshape the global business models of companies such as Meta, Google, and other large technology firms. Nevertheless, it is important that the country asserts a principle: Nigerian publishers create value, and that value deserves fair recognition and compensation.

Even if the immediate outcome is modest, establishing that principle matters. It signals that Nigeria expects a more balanced digital ecosystem, one where innovation thrives, but creators of content are not permanently disadvantaged.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has directed the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) to investigate major global technology companies and generative artificial intelligence platforms operating in Nigeria over allegations of anti-competitive conduct and the unauthorized use of news content produced by Nigerian media organizations.

The move signals Nigeria’s most significant regulatory intervention yet into the relationship between global digital platforms, artificial intelligence developers and the country’s media industry, aligning the country with a growing international push to make technology companies compensate news publishers whose content is used to drive digital advertising, search results and AI systems.

The FCCPC disclosed the directive in a statement issued on Monday by its Director of Corporate Affairs, Ondaje Ijagwu, saying the investigation followed a petition submitted to the Presidency by the Nigerian Press Organization (NPO).

The NPO comprises the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association of Nigeria (NPAN), the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), the Broadcasting Organizations of Nigeria (BON), and the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers (GOCOP).

According to the Commission, the directive was formally conveyed through a letter signed by the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris.

The FCCPC said the inquiry will examine the activities of leading technology companies, including Meta, Alphabet, the parent company of Google, and X, formerly Twitter, as well as several generative AI platforms operating within Nigeria.

Although the Commission did not identify individual AI companies, its reference to “certain generative AI platforms” indicates that developers such as OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT, and Anthropic, developer of Claude AI, could also fall within the scope of the investigation.

The regulator said the inquiry was prompted by mounting concerns from Nigeria’s media industry that global digital platforms have fundamentally altered the economics of journalism by benefiting commercially from news content while contributing relatively little to the organizations that produce it.

Publishers argue that search engines, social media platforms and AI systems increasingly aggregate, summarize, display and utilize journalistic content to attract users and generate revenue, often without negotiating licensing agreements or providing financial compensation to the original publishers.

FCCPC Promises Evidence-Based Investigation

Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the FCCPC, Tunji Bello, said the Commission would undertake an independent and transparent investigation to establish whether any violations of Nigerian competition law have occurred.

“We recognize the strategic importance of the media to Nigeria’s democracy and the equally significant role of technology in driving innovation and economic growth,” Bello said.

“Our responsibility is to objectively determine the facts and ensure that competition within the digital ecosystem remains fair, transparent, and consistent with Nigerian law.”

He stressed that the investigation should not be interpreted as evidence that the companies under review had already breached the law.

“This inquiry is not directed at any entity by presumption of wrongdoing,” Bello said.

“Rather, it is an opportunity to carefully examine the facts, hear from all affected parties, and determine whether any conduct has resulted in anti-competitive outcomes or unfair business practices.”

He added that every organization involved would be given an opportunity to present its position before any regulatory conclusions are reached.

One of the most significant aspects of the investigation concerns how generative AI companies acquire and use journalistic content.

The FCCPC said it would examine allegations involving the unauthorized extraction, scraping, ingestion and commercial use of copyrighted news reports, broadcast materials and other original journalistic works for the development and training of large language models.

The issue has become one of the most contentious legal questions confronting the global AI industry.

Publishers around the world have increasingly accused AI developers of using copyrighted articles without permission to train models capable of generating summaries, answering questions, and producing content that competes directly with the original publishers. Several major lawsuits involving AI developers and media organizations are already underway in the United States, Europe, and other jurisdictions.

Nigeria’s inquiry suggests the country may also seek to establish clearer legal standards governing the use of copyrighted journalistic material in AI development.

Competition Concerns Extend Beyond AI

The Commission said its investigation will also examine broader allegations that dominant digital platforms have engaged in anti-competitive conduct by limiting the commercial bargaining power of Nigerian media organizations.

Among the issues under review are claims that technology companies have failed to provide local publishers with fair opportunities to negotiate commercial agreements or receive compensation for content that attracts users to their platforms.

These concerns mirror debates that have emerged globally as governments seek to rebalance the relationship between digital platforms and traditional news organizations.

For more than a decade, publishers have lamented that while technology companies have captured an increasing share of digital advertising revenue, news organizations continue to bear most of the costs associated with producing original journalism.

The resulting financial pressures have contributed to newsroom downsizing, publication closures and declining investment in investigative reporting across many countries.

The FCCPC noted that similar interventions have already taken place elsewhere.

It pointed to South Africa, where an investigation by the South African Competition Commission resulted in Google agreeing to provide approximately R688 million (about $40 million) annually to local news publishers for between three and five years.

Comparable regulatory frameworks have also emerged in Australia, Canada, and parts of Europe, where lawmakers have introduced legislation requiring major digital platforms to negotiate payment agreements with news organizations.

The investigations reflect growing concerns that market forces alone have failed to ensure sustainable commercial relationships between global technology companies and media businesses.

FCCPC Building on Earlier Action Against Meta

The latest investigation comes against the backdrop of an assertive regulatory approach by the FCCPC toward multinational technology companies.

In 2024, the Commission imposed a $220 million penalty on Meta, alleging violations of Nigeria’s Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act, including discriminatory practices involving Nigerian users’ data and broader consumer protection breaches.

Meta challenged the sanction.

However, in April 2025, Nigeria’s Competition and Consumer Protection Tribunal upheld the Commission’s decision and ordered the social media company to pay the fine, marking one of the country’s most significant regulatory victories over a global technology company.

That decision strengthened the FCCPC’s enforcement credentials and demonstrated the Nigerian government’s willingness to pursue large multinational firms where it believes local competition and consumer protection laws have been violated.

The outcome of the investigation could have far-reaching consequences for both Nigeria’s media industry and the country’s rapidly expanding digital economy.

If the Commission determines that global technology companies have engaged in anti-competitive conduct or improperly used copyrighted news content, the inquiry could pave the way for new regulatory rules governing licensing arrangements, AI training practices and commercial negotiations between digital platforms and publishers.

The rapid rise of artificial intelligence coding assistants is delivering dramatic productivity gains for software engineers, but many developers say those gains are coming with an unexpected cost: mental exhaustion.

From startup founders to engineers at leading AI companies, programmers increasingly describe a workday defined by faster output, relentless decision-making, and the pressure to keep pace with constantly improving AI tools.

The discussion gained momentum after Midjourney founder David Holz shared a candid observation on X about what he was hearing from fellow programmers.

“My programmer friends are all feeling extremely productive and also extremely drained with the latest coding models,” Holz wrote.

He added that the trend made him feel “like something is wrong, and also that there might be a big opportunity,” before asking other developers whether they had found strategies to make working with AI less mentally taxing on a day-to-day basis.

His comments quickly resonated across the software community, prompting engineers, AI researchers and technology executives to share both practical coping mechanisms and broader concerns about how AI is reshaping software development.

One recurring theme was that AI-assisted programming changes the nature of cognitive work.

Former Meta engineer Shuming Hu said that “vibe coding” – an emerging term used to describe rapidly directing AI models to generate code through conversational prompts rather than manually writing software – prevents developers from entering the deep state of concentration traditionally associated with programming.

Instead of becoming immersed in solving a single technical problem, programmers often find themselves continuously reviewing AI-generated code, refining prompts, correcting mistakes, and deciding among multiple implementation options.

That constant context switching, many developers suggest, may produce more software while simultaneously increasing mental fatigue.

Catherine Wu, Anthropic’s Head of Product for Claude Code, said she deliberately limits her workflow at times to regain focus.

“I like focused work on a hard task with a single agent,” Wu wrote.

Although she often runs dozens of AI agents simultaneously, she said concentrating on one difficult problem with a single AI assistant allows her to “get into the zone” and complete work more effectively.

Her comments point to an emerging challenge in AI-assisted development.

Modern coding tools can launch multiple autonomous agents that write code, debug applications, generate documentation, and perform software testing simultaneously. While those capabilities dramatically increase throughput, they also require developers to supervise several streams of work at once, shifting their role from writing code to managing AI-generated output.

Some developers believe the psychological effects may become even more pronounced as AI capabilities improve.

Former X and Cash App designer Brandon Kainoa Jacoby said the problem is “probably going to get worse before it gets better.”

Rather than recommending more sophisticated AI workflows, Jacoby suggested stepping away from AI entirely for periods of time.

“I’ve noticed doing some sort of deep cognitive task, entirely away from any model, helps a tad,” he wrote.

Other developers proposed similarly simple approaches, including spending time outdoors, looking at trees, taking walks, or playing with their children as ways to reset mentally after prolonged interaction with AI systems.

The conversation comes from a broader phenomenon increasingly referred to within the technology industry as “AI fatigue.”

While artificial intelligence promises to eliminate repetitive programming tasks, many engineers say it has also introduced new forms of cognitive pressure. Instead of manually producing every line of code, developers now spend much of their time evaluating AI-generated suggestions, verifying correctness, comparing alternative solutions, and deciding when to trust automated output.

The result is less typing but often more continuous decision-making.

Concerns about AI fatigue have been building for months. In February, programmer Siddhant Khare published an essay arguing that AI fatigue is real but remains largely overlooked within the technology industry. The piece gained widespread attention among developers who said they recognized the same symptoms in their own work.

Some software engineers had earlier noted that the rapid pace of AI development had become overwhelming. New models, coding assistants, and software tools are released so frequently that many programmers struggle to keep up, creating anxiety that they may fall behind colleagues who adopt the latest technologies more quickly.

For some, the speed of change has produced a sense of workplace paralysis, where the constant arrival of new AI capabilities makes it difficult to settle on stable workflows or long-term development practices.

The pressure is also changing work habits.

Many developers say AI has significantly increased expectations around productivity, encouraging longer working hours as programmers attempt to maximize the advantages offered by increasingly capable coding assistants.

Ben South, a serial entrepreneur and former Vice President at Postmates, captured that mindset in his response to Holz’s post.

“Even an hour of rest feels like a ton of productivity lost,” South wrote.

As coding assistants reduce the time required to complete software projects, they also raise expectations about how much work can be accomplished in a single day. But that dynamic is said to carry risks of creating an environment where efficiency gains translate not into shorter working hours but into greater pressure to produce even more.

For technology companies, the discussion raises questions that extend beyond software engineering. The long-term success of AI in the workplace may depend not only on how much it improves productivity but also on whether workers can use powerful tools without experiencing sustained mental fatigue or burnout.

However, the conversation sparked by Holz suggests that the industry’s next challenge may not be building more capable AI models. It may be designing workflows that allow humans to benefit from those systems without sacrificing the focus, creativity, and mental energy that have long defined effective software development.

Oil prices rose on Tuesday after reports that Iran attacked commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, renewing concerns about the security of one of the world’s most important energy shipping lanes and highlighting the fragile state of the interim peace agreement between Washington and Tehran.

International benchmark Brent crude futures for September delivery rose 1.2% to $72.85 a barrel, trimming earlier gains, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for August delivery gained 1% to $69.26 a barrel after settling at its lowest level since February 27 in the previous session.

The gains followed an Axios report, citing two unnamed U.S. officials, that Iran fired at least two missiles at commercial ships navigating the Strait of Hormuz on Monday evening. According to the report, the vessels sustained significant damage, although no casualties were reported.

Separately, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), a British maritime security monitoring agency, said it had received reports of an incident about eight nautical miles east of Limah, Oman. The agency said a tanker travelling southbound was struck by an unidentified projectile, triggering a fire onboard. No injuries were reported.

The reported attack has renewed concerns over the stability of the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to global markets. Roughly one-fifth of the world’s seaborne oil supply passes through the strait, making any disruption a significant risk to global energy markets.

The incident comes only weeks after the United States and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at ending nearly four months of conflict. Although the agreement temporarily eased tensions, indirect negotiations concluded last week without producing meaningful progress toward a permanent peace settlement.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday warned that Washington and Tehran would either reach a lasting agreement or the United States would “finish the job,” reviving the possibility of military action against Iran.

Analysts said the latest developments illustrate how quickly geopolitical risks can return to the forefront of energy markets.

“The situation around the Strait of Hormuz remains unsettled. But as we have argued since March, both sides should ultimately have an interest in containing the conflict,” Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg, wrote in a research note published Friday.

He said President Trump is likely seeking lower oil prices ahead of the November 3 congressional midterm elections, while Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have an incentive to pursue sanctions relief that would strengthen the country’s finances.

Beyond the immediate security concerns, the crisis has sparked broader debate over the future governance of strategic maritime routes. Recent reports indicate that Iran and Oman, which border opposite sides of the Strait of Hormuz, have proposed a framework to the United States that would allow the two countries to jointly administer the waterway and collect administrative fees from vessels using the passage.

Under last month’s memorandum of understanding, commercial shipping is guaranteed safe and unrestricted passage through the Strait of Hormuz for a 60-day period. After that, Iran and Oman are expected to negotiate with other Gulf states on the future administration of the corridor in accordance with international law and the sovereign rights of coastal states.

The proposal has unsettled energy traders and shipping companies because it raises the possibility that similar arrangements could eventually emerge at other critical maritime chokepoints.

One area drawing particular attention is the Strait of Malacca, the narrow waterway between Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore that serves as the primary shipping route linking East Asia with the Middle East and Europe.

Janiv Shah, vice president of commodity markets at Rystad Energy, said investors have become increasingly concerned that if Iran succeeds in imposing some form of transit charges in Hormuz, similar ideas could gain traction elsewhere.

“I think part of the reason here is, if we see a potential toll booth with Iran, sort of, enacting upon the Strait of Hormuz, that something similar could be enacted on others, and of course, the most important from a volume metric perspective is … the Strait of Malacca,” Shah told CNBC’s Squawk Box Europe.

He noted that any attempt to implement such a system would likely take considerable time because of the strategic importance and complexity of the route.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the Strait of Malacca handled 29% of global maritime oil flows during the first half of 2025. Crude oil accounted for just over 70% of shipments through the corridor, with refined petroleum products making up the remainder.

Stretching roughly 900 kilometers, the strait provides the shortest maritime route between East Asia and both the Middle East and Europe, making it one of the world’s busiest commercial waterways.

However, maritime experts have downplayed concerns that tolls could realistically be introduced there. Earlier this year, Indonesia’s Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa suggested imposing charges on ships using the Strait of Malacca before later withdrawing the proposal.

Legal experts note that such a move would violate international law, which guarantees freedom of navigation through straits used for international transit.

The issue was addressed this week when Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto and Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong reaffirmed their commitment to maintaining the free and uninterrupted passage of vessels through the Strait of Malacca following talks in Jakarta.

Hunter Marston, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Sydney-based Lowy Institute, noted that while the Strait of Malacca is unquestionably one of the world’s most critical maritime choke points, it differs fundamentally from the Strait of Hormuz because of the regional security framework governing it.

He pointed to the Malacca Straits Patrol, a joint maritime security arrangement involving Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand, as a key factor ensuring the continued openness of the waterway.

“The arrangement benefits all parties as well as the global economy. Without this institution, the Malacca Strait would be just as vulnerable to capricious closure as the Strait of Hormuz,” Marston said in a June 23 analysis.

Analysts at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said Iran’s recent actions have demonstrated how control over a major maritime choke point can significantly enhance a country’s geopolitical leverage.

They warned that similar concerns extend to Asia, particularly regarding the Strait of Malacca and the Taiwan Strait, both of which are central to global trade and energy supplies.

“Iran’s efforts to control and toll traffic through the Strait of Hormuz have renewed fears that states could try to do the same to the Malacca Strait. China’s threats to use force against Taiwan have also put the Taiwan Strait at the epicenter of one of the world’s most high-stakes geopolitical hotspots,” CSIS analysts said in a report published July 1.

The think tank added that while alternative shipping routes exist, if either waterway is disrupted, rerouting cargo would increase transportation costs, extend delivery times and add further pressure to global supply chains and energy markets.