Campaigning on the election trail has been forced to take a back seat will the president ial candidates ever hit the road and so their brand of politics to americans before the vote follow the u. S. Elections on a just. The internet is something so many of us take for granted but africa still lags behind other regions in terms of online connectivity 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 in 2020 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 same project which i aim to connect the continent to the middle east and europe facebooks is called to africa it would connect 23 countries with 37000 kilometers of cable equal 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 there are hurting African Developers to customize their apps for the local market and an agent 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 maggot 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. In johannesburg let me start with you do you agree with that and do believe. Absolutely proves it can be. Going to need. To be able to exit well the initial. No im not doing the critical conditions. He he simply must. Know how. He. So maybe not. Today larry maggette an early 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 and 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 and 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 internets for all citizens of africa must be human rights the concerns regarding bill and i didnt yes that is very critical but i think i think us learned a lot from the pascola my visions so im sure we can take that run to your Internet Access. I was 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 if 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 reads and infrastructure but when it is compared with other warded specially. The western world and even the more developed economies in africa we have a lot to catch up neither of the main reason is because a Single Service provider states on some order into a crowd there is no competition for the quality or service is not its not good story and our ability 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 or hopping up the Telecom Industry we hope this this is a temporary ship 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 DevelopmentBank 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 their current. Reality to implement when we launch it or not is not the result of the little requirement to establish a lot of these he. Is. Now only. When we want to do that. What. You know im reminded. Of. You coming on. 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. Point isnt really. Very much that ensures that why you cant. Stand that infrastructure. Transmission. And number and. Not in front 10. And not. Even to use it as a means of generating creates an Economy Development in the continent so that is not just a market of consumers. So then larry how does this how does this facebook project in particular the 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 you have a right to 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 many if not become tier 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 constant going through it gives them a way to promote more and more of their content i guess in the way that people fear the Chinese Company and their infrastructure yes i think we are also seeing local. Lots 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 have especially the government response to. Bonds 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 of content should be encouraged and incentivize to generate their. Content instead of just spending on external funding from. Everest like like facebook so 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 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 and more people will start to have the connectivity that in the very most important parts more than. Cancer were 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 the what people are using it for and why Something Like whatsapp and mobile banking and all such things are so popular that. When banking is not that strong unity about yet but in neighboring countries like kenya and bayside 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. This is a very important part says for while banking for Small Businesses very busy daily very services and so on so all 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 they will 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 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 and even experience of. And. Then fund the budget and. Not just in his military. Indeed theres a tremendous complexity for this information as it is misinformation to. Let us know what it does the president is that i think we ought to indeed strengthen not only of african. Civil society that it has a will is. Going to do so and. Indeed exist to implement it not only. Solution of media but. 90. 9 k. 12 education. From various points. Of the conscious mind. That can that Internet Connectivity can substantially improve peoples. Its not immense 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 your thing 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 private figure to take this very seriously no 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 alec tricity weve pointed out before that more people are using mobile phones in africa than theyve got electricity. In. Theyre 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 hallums internet is very important for all kinds of remotes the more telly kelly has