![]() ![]() When she moved from the US to Kenya in 2017, Facebook was inescapable. Yet, Facebook was soon my most used social media app. 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. In the end I reluctantly reactivated my account. The links I followed inevitably ended up in variations of a “Join Facebook to comment/message/contact” page. My Facebook account – a relic of younger days and old online habits – became essential if I wanted to contact businesses, find phone numbers, order food and even hunt down tips for securing vaccines. In 2020, as the pandemic began, I found my movements on the African continent limited for months at a time – for instance, in Egypt during an airport shutdown and a strict sunset curfew. In much the same way that tobacco companies migrated 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. An internal Facebook document refers to a decline in younger users in “more developed economies”. “Facebook understands that if they want the company to grow, they have to find new users,” she told senators. According to whistleblower Frances Haugen’s testimony to the US Senate, the company is aware of its stagnating growth in certain places and demographics. Younger users prefer shorter, more transient content, as on TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat. ![]() Western users are deleting their accounts for a variety of reasons, among them the platform’s record on privacy, its contribution to political volatility by designing algorithms that prioritise disagreement and friction, and its staleness as a user experience. When the data they have purchased runs out, Facebook is still there. The majority of data users are pay as you go, and sometimes own multiple sims to switch between cost-effective plans. ![]() Half of mobiles are online, but not via billed plans. Internet access in Africa is overwhelmingly via mobile phones only about 8% of African households have a computer, whereas phone ownership hovers at around 50%. This plan, however, was set back in 2016, when a rocket powered by Elon Musk’s SpaceX exploded, destroying an AMOS-6 satellite on board that Facebook had intended to launch and, through it, lease internet connectivity in partnership with the Eutelsat, a French satellite company. Where there are no telecoms providers to partner with, or where infrastructure is poor, the company has been developing satellites that can beam internet access to remote areas. Over the past five years, Free Basics has been rolled out in 32 African countries. 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. In 2015, Facebook launched Free Basics, an internet service that gives users credit-free access to the platform. Businesses and consumers depend heavily on it because access to the app and site are free on many African telecoms networks, meaning you don’t need any phone credit to use it. But, for many people, Facebook is not only indispensable but unavoidable.Īcross Africa, Facebook is the internet. Ibrahim can see who shares his content and how it spreads, and make decisions about how to increase his business. Most of my audience is in Sudan and they can share my content easily.” The second benefit is its analytics function. “Everybody has Facebook,” Ibrahim tells me from his studio in Khartoum, where he is still working late at night. The social network has two benefits for businesses – not only in Africa, but for all emerging markets. Sometimes they ask for one of my comic characters to use for a product.” He can’t imagine how he would have launched his artistic career without Facebook. “People and businesses would send me a message through the page, looking for an artist. Freelance work came through those comments. During the launch period, Ibrahim spent a lot of time “posting regularly and engaging with comments” and also “sending the page to everyone I know”. ![]() By then, it had become its own community, and now he does not need to spend much time maintaining it. “I ran the page for about a year,” Ibrahim says. The majority of this work comes through Facebook, where his comics have about 19,000 followers. ![]()
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