{"id":2577,"date":"2022-01-26T20:48:58","date_gmt":"2022-01-26T19:48:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/2022\/01\/26\/how-facebook-took-over-the-internet-in-africa-and-changed-everything-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2022-01-26T20:48:58","modified_gmt":"2022-01-26T19:48:58","slug":"how-facebook-took-over-the-internet-in-africa-and-changed-everything-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/2022\/01\/26\/how-facebook-took-over-the-internet-in-africa-and-changed-everything-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"How Facebook took over the internet in Africa \u2013 and changed everything &#8211; The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"cfbc967f0983488262956e73eca9483a\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3859091246952232\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- blok -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3859091246952232\" data-ad-slot=\"1334354390\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n\n<\/div>\n<p>Western users are logging off, but across the continent the social media company is indispensable for everything from running a business to sourcing vaccines. How did it become inescapable?<br \/>Last modified on Fri 21 Jan 2022 15.31 GMT<br \/><span class=\"dcr-114to15\"><span class=\"dcr-1jnp7wy\">B<\/span><\/span><span class=\"dcr-o5gy41\">adri Ibrahim is a Sudanese comic artist and the founder of the Abbas Comics empire. His strips are quirky and irreverent, poking fun at the Sudanese military and encouraging civic activism. One recurrent character is a hapless but wise cat called Ghadanfar, a sort of Garfield meets Snoopy protagonist, who finds himself on the wrong end of misunderstandings with neighbourhood felines and humans. It is all rendered in colloquial dialect and is dry, funny and often poignant. So popular has the comic become that Ibrahim is regularly commissioned to do private work, rendering Ghadanfar in different guises \u2013 as a bashful groom on a wedding invitation card, for example.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The majority of this work comes through <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/facebook\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Facebook<\/a>, where his comics have about 19,000 followers. \u201cI ran the page for about a year,\u201d Ibrahim says. By then, it had become its own<strong> <\/strong>community, and now he does not need to spend much time maintaining it. During the launch period, Ibrahim spent a lot of time \u201cposting regularly and engaging with comments\u201d and also \u201csending the page to everyone I know\u201d. Freelance work came through those comments. \u201cPeople and businesses would send me a message through the page, looking for an artist. Sometimes they ask for one of my comic characters to use for a product.\u201d He can\u2019t imagine how he would have launched his artistic career without Facebook.<br \/>The social network has two benefits for businesses \u2013 not only in <a href=\"https:\/\/viewer.gutools.co.uk\/world\/africa\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Africa<\/a>, but for all emerging markets. The first is ease of access. \u201cEverybody has Facebook,\u201d Ibrahim tells me from his studio in Khartoum, where he is still working late at night. \u201cEverybody knows how to use it. Most of my audience is in Sudan and they can share my content easily.\u201d The second benefit is its analytics function. Ibrahim can see who shares his content and how it spreads, and make decisions about how to increase his business. But, for many people, Facebook is not only indispensable but unavoidable.<br \/>Across Africa, Facebook <em>is<\/em> the internet. Businesses and consumers depend heavily on it because access to the app and site are free on many African telecoms networks, meaning you don\u2019t need any phone credit to use it. In 2015, Facebook launched <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2016\/aug\/01\/facebook-free-basics-internet-africa-mark-zuckerberg\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Free Basics<\/a>, an internet service that gives users credit-free access to the platform. Designed to work on low-cost mobile phones, which make up the vast majority of devices on the continent, it offers a limited format, with no audio, photo and video content. Over the past five years, Free Basics has been rolled out in 32 African countries. Facebook\u2019s ambition does not end there. Where there are no telecoms providers to partner with, or where infrastructure is poor, the company has been developing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2015\/oct\/05\/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-internet-access-africa\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">satellites<\/a> that can beam internet access to remote areas. This plan, however, was set back in 2016, when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/2016\/sep\/01\/mark-zuckerberg-spacex-explosion-africa-internet\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">a rocket powered by Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX exploded, destroying an AMOS-6 satellite on board that Facebook had intended to launch<\/a> and, through it, lease internet connectivity in partnership with the Eutelsat, a French satellite company.<\/p>\n<p>Internet access in Africa is overwhelmingly via mobile phones; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statista.com\/statistics\/748549\/africa-households-with-computer\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">only about 8% of African households have a computer<\/a>, whereas phone ownership hovers at around <a href=\"https:\/\/www.brookings.edu\/blog\/africa-in-focus\/2019\/04\/12\/figure-of-the-week-gap-in-universal-mobile-phone-and-internet-access-in-africa\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">50%<\/a>. Half of mobiles are online, but not via billed plans. The majority of data users are pay as you go, and sometimes own multiple sims to switch between cost-effective plans. When the data they have purchased runs out, Facebook is still there.<br \/>Western users are deleting their accounts for a variety of reasons, among them the platform\u2019s record on privacy, its contribution to political volatility by designing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/2021\/10\/05\/1036519\/facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen-algorithms\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">algorithms that prioritise disagreement and friction<\/a>, and its staleness as a user experience. Younger users prefer shorter, more transient content, as on TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat. According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2021\/oct\/10\/frances-haugen-takes-on-facebook-the-making-of-a-modern-us-hero\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">whistleblower Frances Haugen\u2019s testimony to the US Senate<\/a>, the company is aware of its stagnating growth in certain places and demographics. \u201cFacebook understands that if they want the company to grow, they have to find new users,\u201d she told senators. An internal Facebook <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2021\/oct\/08\/i-might-delete-it-facebooks-problem-with-younger-users\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">document<\/a> refers to a decline in younger users in \u201cmore developed economies\u201d. In much the same way that tobacco companies <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2017\/jul\/12\/big-tobacco-dirty-war-africa-market\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">migrated<\/a> their efforts to emerging markets once the potential elsewhere was diminished by landmark lawsuits, regulation and awareness raising, so is Facebook focusing on new pastures.<br \/><span class=\"dcr-114to15\"><span class=\"dcr-1jnp7wy\">I<\/span><\/span><span class=\"dcr-o5gy41\">n 2020, as the pandemic began, I found my movements on the African continent limited for months at a time \u2013 for instance, in Egypt during an airport shutdown and a strict sunset curfew. My Facebook account \u2013 a relic of younger days and old online habits \u2013 became essential if I wanted to contact businesses, find phone numbers, order food and even hunt down tips for securing vaccines. The links I followed inevitably ended up in variations of a \u201cJoin Facebook to comment\/message\/contact\u201d page. In the end I reluctantly reactivated my account.<\/span><br \/>The timeline I returned to was a virtual Marie Celeste, a tumbleweed of posts from friends and relatives who had also long left the site, but never bothered to delete their accounts, which had become prey to viruses and phishing. Yet, Facebook was soon my most used social media app. <br \/>Mona Amin had the same experience. When she moved from the US to Kenya in 2017, Facebook was inescapable. Settling down in a new country that didn\u2019t have the infrastructure she was accustomed to meant that everything from finding places to rent to sourcing furniture happened via Facebook. For someone whose last interactions on Facebook had been to like people\u2019s photos from a night out, the new interface was overwhelming and unwieldy. \u201cI didn\u2019t even know how to use it any more,\u201d she says. \u201cBut it is useful, and there are a lot of people still on there. Or they\u2019ve rejoined.\u201d<br \/>To users in volatile economies with disrupted supply chains, Facebook isn\u2019t just useful, it is vital. Balqees Awad lives in a remote part of the Sudanese capital Khartoum, a city that has witnessed political instability and food and fuel shortages over the past three years. One closed Facebook group in particular has been a lifeline \u2013 helping her to secure bread and petrol. \u201cWhen a bakery receives a bread delivery, or a petrol station replenishes its fuel, someone always posts in the group. They even tell us when there is heightened police presence in certain areas. Security patrols sometimes pick up people for no reason and extort or detain them.\u201d Members are vetted before they are allowed entry into the group to ensure they are trustworthy sources of information, and not gathering intelligence to report to jittery security and police forces.<br \/>Awad buys her data, as she buys almost everything else, including her food, electricity and gas, in small, pre-paid quantities. She doesn\u2019t pay a single bill at the end of the month apart from rent. \u201cThe \u2018small small economy\u2019,\u201d is what we call it,\u201d says Nanjala Nyabola, a Kenyan writer and advocate. This describes the \u201ckadogo economy\u201d in Kenya, where commodities are sold in the smallest possible unit \u2013 one banana, one piece of bread, one ounce of flour, one megabyte at a time. Small is the way it has to be for much of sub-Saharan Africa \u2013 not just for ease of budgeting, but because <a href=\"https:\/\/thefintechtimes.com\/top-african-challenger-banks-helping-the-unbanked-through-mobile-services\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">a large section of the population is unbanked<\/a>, so the direct debits required for contracted phone services are not an option.<br \/>But, even when markets are more sophisticated, Facebook still maintains a strong grasp on business owners and users. Amina Rashad runs Glow, a Cairo-based business that provides healthy meals, nutrition programmes and juices. She started the company from her home in 2017 and simultaneously set up a Facebook and Instagram page. \u201cIt\u2019s what made my business,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was my virtual store for such a long time.\u201d She took orders via Facebook messenger and a WhatsApp widget embedded in the Facebook and Instagram page. Once the business took off, she was able to diversify the way she received orders, building a website and an app, both of which take orders and payments. An affluent clientele base means that her customers are more likely to use a bank. Egypt\u2019s e-commerce infrastructure has developed rapidly over the past decade, particularly in the food and grocery delivery sector, which helps the capital\u2019s growing middle class save time and hassle in a sprawling, densely populated and traffic-congested city.<br \/>But there are still limitations that send Rashad back to social media, where orders are taken manually and paid for on delivery. The company\u2019s website and app payments system is hosted on a shared platform, rather than a proprietary one, a common arrangement that is cost-effective for a growing business. But, despite the volume of orders that now comes from the website, and the relatively low cost of automating payments, shared platforms come with less control when things go wrong \u2013 such as provider servers going down, or when there is a need for urgent site maintenance.<strong> <\/strong>\u201cThere is a highly personalised element to the product,\u201d says Rashad, so she is happy to remain in an orders ecosystem that is less anonymous, \u201cso we can go back and check details, answer questions, check allergies.\u201d<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2016\/aug\/01\/facebook-free-basics-internet-africa-mark-zuckerberg\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Facebook presents its free internet initiatives in Africa as philanthropy<\/a>, but they are also likely to be a way for the company to reposition itself,<strong> <\/strong>as users log off in the west and log on elsewhere. There is growing awareness in the global south that Facebook\u2019s overtures may have sinister implications. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2016\/may\/12\/facebook-free-basics-india-zuckerberg\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Free Basics was effectively banned in India in 2016<\/a>, after an outcry that the initiative violates the rules of net neutrality, the principle that all content and applications should be enabled by internet service providers. According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2017\/jul\/27\/facebook-free-basics-developing-markets\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">research by Global Voices<\/a>, Facebook\u2019s actions constitute \u201cdigital colonialism\u201d, where it \u201cis building this little web that turns the user into a mostly passive consumer of mostly western corporate content\u201d.<br \/>These consumers aren\u2019t always passive. The concentration of users on Facebook in some African countries has had some positive outcomes in terms of facilitating free speech and civic activism in nations where oppressive regimes have a tight grip on the public space. \u2018There\u2019s no doubt in my mind,\u201d says Nyabola, \u201cthat social networks have been useful for political discourse and for organising in countries where there is no free speech.\u201d After a military coup in Sudan last October, the army cut off internet services, but some users still managed to find ways to livestream protests on Facebook. While reporting on the coup and its aftermath, I found myself, again, familiarising myself with Facebook\u2019s functionalities.<br \/>The platform\u2019s neglect of moderation means that armed militias and authoritarian regimes also abuse the platform for their own propaganda ends, not to mention the trolling and personal attacks that take place, just like anywhere else. CNN reported, in October last year, that Facebook <a href=\"https:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2021\/10\/25\/business\/ethiopia-violence-facebook-papers-cmd-intl\/index.html\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">knew it was being used to incite violence<\/a> in Ethiopia and did not act. There has also been a \u201cfailure to invest in language, in understanding local context\u201d, Nyabola says. \u201cFacebook\u2019s Africa office opened in 2015. The first Amharic-speaking content moderators were hired in 2019. It\u2019s not a small thing that less than 100 people are working on content moderation in Ethiopia.\u201d And Amharic is only one of more than 80 languages spoken in Ethiopia. <br \/>While Facebook in Africa remains broadly unpoliced, the platform\u2019s benefit to the voiceless will be drowned out by those who are louder and more powerful. In the meantime, for small businesses and users alike, Facebook is unavoidable. The company may be in a fight for its life in the west, as calls for regulation grow louder and cloud its prospects. But in Africa and other regions in the global south, Facebook\u2019s economic, political and social influence almost guarantees it a second life.<br \/><em>Some names have been changed.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2022\/jan\/20\/facebook-second-life-the-unstoppable-rise-of-the-tech-company-in-africa\">source<\/a><\/p>\n<!--CusAds0-->\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Western users are logging off, but across the continent the social media company is indispensable for everything from running a business to sourcing vaccines. How did it become inescapable?Last modified on Fri 21 Jan 2022 15.31 GMTBadri Ibrahim is a Sudanese comic artist and the founder of the Abbas Comics empire. His strips are quirky [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"googlesitekit_rrm_CAow1sXXCw:productID":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-classe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2577\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}