The internet is something so many of us take for granted but africa is still behind other regions in terms of online quantitative easing now some of the big tech firms are racing to bridge that gap but at what cost what happens when the same Company Controls the content and its delivery this is inside story. Hello im come out santa maria from video chatting to working from home one thing that is keeping us all going during this lockdown is a good Internet Connection think about when the online world became part of your everyday life and how transformative it was ordering banking educating building a business all from your computer and then from your phone but in africa into. 20 only 4 in every 10 people has access to the internet and so tech firms are seeing an opportunity they want to develop the internet infrastructure there for example facebook and google teaming up with Telecommunications Firms to build cables under the sea project which i aim to connect to the continent to the middle east and europe facebooks is called to africa it would connect 23. 00 countries with 37000 kilometers of cable a call almost to the circumference of the entire planet. I make no mistake the demand is there the economist founded 2016 that mobile usage in Subsaharan Africa was actually more widespread than electricity so no surprise there are many tech firms racing to get some parts of that market Chinas Huawei for example announced last year it was launching a 5 g. Network and 2 data centers in south africa microsoft launched its 1st Engineering Centers in kenya and nigeria last year theyre hurting African Developers to customize their apps for the local market and in a wage and web browser developer opera has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Artificial Intelligence for africans just in the past 2 years. Well it is the power of the internet which brings our 3 guests to us today on skype. California sorry mag of the c. E. O. Of connect safely dot org an internet safety privacy and Security Organization in Johannesburg South africa. Founder of the energy decoupled ization company and also a Clean Technology entrepreneur and in ads out of ethiopia may be a bit careless the c. E. O. Of internet Experts Network and a warm welcome to all 3 of you whether you like Mark Zuckerberg or not whether you agree with facebook and what he does back in 2013 he said that free basic Internet Access was actually a human right there in johannesburg let me start with you do you agree with that and do believe. Absolutely proves that. You. Going to need. Them to be able to exit well the initial. Then and im doing the critical conditions. He he simply must. Know who. He is somebody not. Today larry maggot and only thought from you as well about that i mean. So many people over the world cant do their job without the internet i cant live day to day without the internet do we now consider if i buy a human rights i think it is a very human right is certainly should be human right an issue of course it should be global to that extent Mark Zuckerberg is absolutely right but it also and i dont mean this necessarily just respectful but it is reminiscent of u. S. And european imperialism in the sense that it is a western country a very wealthy or a western company very wealthy American Company going in and laying cable and providing content to the crew the question is not simply whether it happened that should happen but who is in charge and whether theres any connection between the actual connectivity and the content itself and if thats the case if there is content control then it becomes very problematic well get more into that in a moment just a quick thought from many yet because they now and. As well i think what larry said there was so important this idea of the sort of western colonialization feel to it and that is what i suspect people in africa will be wary of yes they want the internet bus history teaches them about what can happen when other countries come in. You know actually from from the point of human rights yes getting internet Internet Access must be one of one of their eyes for any in your mom in this planet at this time and in africa we havent go thats been if it for a long time so getting the access to the internet for all citizens of africa must be human rights the concerns regarding the night vision yes that is very critical but i think i think us learned a lot from the past call of my visions so im sure we can take that run to your Internet Access. As only team from its one of the 2 them area tell me what internet life is like for you anything im just interested to know when you use your tablet or your computer for anything for skype like were doing now or for anything i mean whats the reliability like at the moment in 2020 how how much can you rely on it. Purely from the comparison of material internet history you know when upgrades 5 years 10 years ago its much much better much there are there there is a lot of Development Expansion up and weeds and infrastructure but when it is compared with other world it specially. The western world and even the more developed economies in africa we have a lot to catch up not the main reason is because a Single Service provider states on some order interpret there is no competition for the quality or service is not its not good so really i believe it is is an issue there are a lot of these connections down times and you dont get its support immediately from the subs provider so but with the current progress in the country are happening up the Telecom Industry we hope this this is a temporary ok so whats interesting as marriott describes there is a maybe a substandard service there better than it was obviously and that is despite the fact that the African Union usa id African Development Bank World Bank theyve all been putting millions into infrastructure for so long. Maybe ill ask me about this maybe it needs a Specialized Company like a google or a facebook to come in this is what they do and its not just throwing money at a problem its coming in with a specific project and in this current. Reality development when we like it or not he is not the result of a little. To establish he just didnt know of this he. Is not until then i believe. When we ought to do that. And. You know im reminded. Greatly. You come in. And. We look at this as a great opportunity to build in trust and to generate revenue. Even though. Thats what is expensive. Its enough to. Warrant. An indirect way in which. The information is in the continent and. Find. Out how you want to deploy it and. So we need to understand and. And across the continuity of the. Point isnt breaking even a framework that ensures that why you cant. Stand it infrastructure. And number and. Not in front 10. And not. As a means of generating and create an Economy Development in the continent so that its not just a market of consumers. So then larry how does this how does this facebook project in particular to africa project how does that fit into what. Hes talking about joint venture has about africa being involved is this just a case of facebook saying ok were going to do this were going to put all this cable around the whole continent and connect it up and then well how does it work. No i think if they write that it has to be a joint ventures not only from the technical side obviously bringing in local companies in every region in every country if possible but also from the education and social side working with Civil Society and n. G. O. S in the countries to ensure that there minimizing misinformation to ensure that internet safety is being protected and people are being educated on the proper use of the internet my own organization connect safely dot org actually does work with facebook im on their Safety Advisory Board and we have expanded the board over the last several years to include people from around the world and we do need to include africa as well to make sure that people are are getting that the infrastructure but also having local organisations that are helping people use it appropriately and that also includes making sure that its under local control that while facebook is certainly welcome to provide the cables thats great there needs to be programming and content and policing if necessary happening at the local level just want to remember were talking about this facebook plan the as we say to africa the tables im remembering as well larry a project a google project a few years ago when they had launching balloons or something of africa that were going to yeah what happened to that. Theyve been filming the project over the years balloons there is also satellites of course and even low flying airplanes that have been tested so yes there have been plenty of projects and of course if internet dot org that facebook launched in 2013 very similar to what were talking about here except that it got into trouble because again there was some content control they were bringing basic internet but if there was not Net Neutrality which meant that the content was to define extent being regulated by facebook so theres been a lot of projects involving some interesting technologies as often also involving finish the policy question and which ultimately are what people have to resolve ok gentlemen weve talked mostly in the 1st off this program about the the infrastructure literally the pipes here im interested in also what goes through the pipes the content maybe at let me come to your is there not a concern that if facebook is putting this much into the infrastructure that it could have potentially too much power and that its all about facebooks continent going through it gives them a way to promote more and more of their continent i guess in the way that people fear the Chinese Company and their infrastructure yes i think we also seem not to laugh. A lot of unnecessary experiences from the console facebook recently. And of course the content on our heart of the particular influence and the governments and the citizens. We dont especially the government or not to. Buy nonsense that the benefits of. Access to such tone danes versus the benefits of the citizen specially from local content point of view look at companies that produce the look on content should be encouraged and incentivize to generate their. Content instead of just spending on external funding for. I dislike like facebook so it it there must be a balance it is just for me to be honest i prefer to give the advantage of the infrastructure from from battle facebook and google for africa more than the contin theyre bringing in because the cost of infrastructure indirectly in the media and even in africa its so expensive not only medium class people can have Internet Connection most people cannot afford to have basic Internet Connection because of the costs to the infrastructure when there are so many carriers across africa that price will go down then more people will start to have the connectivity that in the very most important parts more than in the. Terms of just out of interest. I read anecdotally that actually fewer than 13 percent of africans use facebook but that a lot like most around 200000000 whatsapp uses come from africa im just interested to know from you. About you know what people are using it for and why Something Like whatsapp and mobile banking and all such things are so popular that. Mobile banking is not that strong unity about yet but in neighboring countries like kenya and they say theyre very very huge and famous and even egypt as opening up for access to messaging Services Like whats up and i got written in providers. It is a very important that says for while banking for Small Businesses very busy daily very services and so on so so thats more why bunking and that that he said is you know of many in africa thats driven by a systems engineer. For money can you say well come back to you in johannesburg 2 things which im thinking of here about well the product of having better Internet Access i think we all agree its a great thing but it will lead to more free speech more democracy which again its a good thing but i suspect also theres a lot of leaders in africa who it wouldnt like that and would be wary of giving their people that much ability and a stronger ability to speak up but if you have absolutely split one come up. Now today in a number of countries know the. Concerns very strong concerns. And manipulation. In various forms including in the outcomes. Even experience of cambridge and. Then find us close to him. Not just in his military. Indeed theres a tremendous complexity for this information as it is misinformation to. Let us know what it does mean he has the money. Weve got to. Strengthen not only of african. Civil society that it has a full is. Going to do so in. Exodus to implement it not only. Solution of media but. 90. K. 12 education. From various points in the. Conscious mind. That can that Internet Connectivity can substantially improve peoples. Nonevents and absolutely larry magid is there a potential here for almost a 3 way clash between governments between the outside corporates the facebooks and the googles and then the local companies who are supposed to be part of the whole. Infrastructure and actually the people as well as a 4 way crash potentially yeah its a 4 way clash and of course there are other powers that be whether theyre local or international that might want to use the internet for either good or negative thing that i think that the point. It was just made about misinformation is very important if you think about here in the United States where of course weve had the internet for a great period of time weve seen some things over the last few years which have been very disturbing in terms of how it with used by forest 1st of all foreign powers to in full and Fair Election and how the president has used the internet to rally his forces and his troops in ways that have not always been positive and so weve got a great force which can be used for good but i think that when its coming into an area of the local citizens need to think very hard and very carefully about how its implemented again Consumer Education is so important campaigns about Misinformation Campaign through people understand that the internet is going to bring you media and content which is not necessarily trusted and thats different from the media that people may have been used to from church arrest you know broadcast so and cable in another form so its important that it be accompanied by an Education Program and that Education Program be multistakeholder not just be the government not certainly not just the companies but multistakeholder if involved in making sure people understand how to use it appropriately and certainly not to believe everything you see online quiets do you think and i think you said before that youve actually served as a president visor to facebook do you think they take that seriously enough and any other tech company that they realize they have to be very much part its not just a case of all of put the infrastructure in place and then let it do its thing. Oh no they take it very seriously and there is a there is a group within facebook a safety group and a Privacy Group to take this very seriously now i cant say that every single employee is doing the right thing 100 percent of the time but i can say that people who are tasked with this and not only take information seriously but are very conscious of making sure this is a global effort i mean again as an american representative the Safety Advisory Board i have colleagues from around the world and they are growing in terms of the developing world to make sure the 5th and just a western approach but we think about it from it from an International Perspective allowing the local n. G. O. S you the important education they need to be done gentlemen were starting to run down the clock now so i just got a final thought i want to put to all of you and thats well it goes back to my original thought which was about the internet being a right to people a human right i think we all agree that it probably is but what Education Health care all these other things electricity we pointed out before that more people are using mobile phones in africa than theyve got electricity. In. There are actually more important things to be putting money into right now before Internet Connectivity or could Internet Connectivity help those things. Out say Internet Connectivity how its all all verticals where it is a creation without the internet its difficult to be quality education hence internet is very important for all kinds of remotes the more telly kelly has Services Using the limits of doctor seen ive got media. To to serve maybe as many people as possible using internet as an activity as a technology. Transportation but all kinds of activities government Government Services all are being dependent on internet so i would say investing on on the internet means investing poem on on Everything Else that is required for the Economy Development of the country climbing ive got a little bit of time left so ill leave the final word with you your thoughts on well what comes 1st as i said those basic things like water and education and health or do we go big picture and look at what can be achieved with other things come up and think then odds are mutually exclusive. Indeed its an exodus. In. The region. And so from the. Issue of. And some of that speaks to the importance of the. Results is that im coming. To on. Business and. And so much of 600000000 africans in Subsaharan Africa. And interests. Then it becomes difficult for them to 40. Opportunities and benefits of connectivity and. Also need to be engaged and to engage the International Conference as they come into the continent to ensure. A certain. Amount of education an extension of education and health care in the update when theres 3 and a lot. Of them think well gentlemen this has been a very smart and interesting conversation and not a single scot drop out throughout the whole 25 minutes which writes a very happy is also the internet must be all right there larry maggie. Can you write in johannesburg and many a big. Thank you will. And to you as well river and however youre watching thanks for taking the time with us if youve got a nice strong Internet Connection then use it head to the shows section at aljazeera dot com you can visit our home page there watch this episode or any previous ones if you like also facebook which weve been talking about facebook dot com forward slash a. J. Inside story for more discussion at a. J. Inside story on twitter and a. J. 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