{"id":23512,"date":"2026-02-09T12:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T10:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/eu-threatens-temporary-measures-to-stop-meta-blocking-ai-rivals-from-whatsapp\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:34:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:34:17","slug":"eu-threatens-temporary-measures-to-stop-meta-blocking-ai-rivals-from-whatsapp","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/eu-threatens-temporary-measures-to-stop-meta-blocking-ai-rivals-from-whatsapp\/","title":{"rendered":"EU threatens temporary measures to stop Meta blocking AI rivals from WhatsApp"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">The European Commission said on Monday that it has sent a statement of objections, or charges, to Meta over violation of the bloc&#8217;s rules and intends to impose interim measures to prevent serious and irreparable harm to rivals, mirroring moves by Italy&#8217;s competition watchdog in December.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">&#8220;We must protect effective competition in this vibrant field, which means we cannot allow dominant tech companies to illegally leverage their dominance to give themselves an unfair advantage,&#8221; EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera said in a statement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">&#8220;That is why we are considering quickly imposing interim measures on Meta, to preserve access for competitors to WhatsApp while the investigation is ongoing and avoid Meta&#8217;s new policy irreparably harming competition in Europe,&#8221; the statement added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":23513,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-23512","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"European Union (EU) competition regulators have threatened to stop Meta Platforms from blocking artificial intelligence rivals from its WhatsApp messaging service while it investigates suspected abuse of a dominant position by the United States tech giant","published_date":"2026-02-09 00:00:00","news_description":"European Union (EU) competition regulators have threatened to stop Meta Platforms from blocking artificial intelligence rivals from its WhatsApp messaging service while it investigates suspected abuse of a dominant position by the United States tech giant","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26455,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23512\/revisions\/26455"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=23512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}