[kictanet] Introducing Facebook Africa Public Policy Team to KICTANet

Tue Jan 12 11:56:59 EAT 2016

Hi Ebele,

Many thanks for your feedback and welcome back, i think you have
answered most of my questions even though i was looking for success
stories or feedback on some of the initiatives Facebook has engaged in
Kenya Specifically and East Africa by extension. However, we are happy
to hear what is happening in other Regions in Africa, West, North,
Central and South since the information provides great insights.

Best Regards

On 1/11/16, Ebele Okobi <ebeleokobi at fb.com> wrote:
> Good morning!
> What exactly do you mean when you say community initiatives? And when you
> say region, do you mean all of Africa, or East Africa, or Kenya?
> I’ve previously described the Continent-wide plans related to connectivity
> (not Free Basics-the ones related to infrastructure connectivity)-is that
> what you mean?
> Or are you talking about things like child online safety, developer
> engagement, online violence against women, our politics and government
> trainings, our SMB engagement, the Africa Innovation Challenge—all
> described/announced on earlier threads-or are referring to something else?
> And when you say impact, it’s hard to know what you mean, given that
> everything we are doing across Africa is brand new or scoped for 2016. We
> launched our first ever office in an African country in June of 2015, and
> the head of the office started in September.
>
> Perhaps the best thing for me to ask is-do you have any
> thoughts/recommendations? Happy to hear about them!
>
> I will say, however, that I strongly believe that the best way that a
> company contributes to a community is by offering a product that is useful,
> by being an ethical business that upholds human rights standards, by
> treating employees fairly, etc. And I think every company can always get
> better at those things, including Facebook. That said, I do think that
> Facebook provides an unparalleled platform to connect people to ideas and
> people they care about, and I also think that the potential Facebook has to
> support community values like political engagement, transparency, education,
> health, good governance, and economic empowerment for small business across
> all of our respective countries is truly revolutionary.
>
> But grateful for specifics, per questions above!
> Best, Ebele
>
> [Description: Description: Description: cid:image001.png at 01C8F888.8FCCE630]
>
> Ebele Okobi | Head of Public Policy, Africa
> m. +44 (0) 771 156 1315
> 2 Stephen St | London | W1T 1AN
> ebeleokobi at fb.com
>
>
>
> From: Barrack Otieno
> <otieno.barrack at gmail.com<mailto:otieno.barrack at gmail.com>>
> Date: Monday, January 11, 2016 at 4:41 PM
> To: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
> <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>>
> Cc: Ebele Okobi <ebeleokobi at fb.com<mailto:ebeleokobi at fb.com>>
> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Introducing Facebook Africa Public Policy Team to
> KICTANet
>
>
> Interesting to hear the other side of the coin. Ebele, would you mind
> sharing any ongoing Community iniatives conducted by facebook  in our region
> and the impact?
>
> Thank you
>
> On Jan 11, 2016 6:12 PM, "Ebele Okobi via kictanet"
> <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>>
> wrote:
> Hello, All!!!
>
> I’m back from annual leave, which I spent running after (and barely keeping
> up with) the three active, insatiably curious and insanely opinionated small
> people that my husband I made.  I’m happy to be back at work to have easier
> conversations. ;-)
>
> So-I think that reasonable people can absolutely differ on how they feel
> about Facebook’s campaign to get Indian users to engage in the policy
> conversation about Free Basics and zero rating. From Facebook’s perspective,
> it was an attempt to engage the very people who would be most affected in
> the debate, and to get them to participate. Again, I certainly think that
> people can disagree on whether/how people should have been directly
> engaged.
>
> BUT. Facebook did NOT orchestrate a distributed denial of service attack
> against TRAI, and insinuating that this is the case, per the original
> article posted here means the writer doesn’t have an understanding of what
> DDOS attacks actually are. For info, please see
> here-http://www.digitalattackmap.com/understanding-ddos<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.digitalattackmap.com_understanding-2Dddos&d=CwMFaQ&c=5VD0RTtNlTh3ycd41b3MUw&r=ArvepG4_wcNu_X9xi3nb_Xa9WsGLVfmK6mwPdVONOTE&m=GR2D5B3xjkNTPICmNLI-A81qbfL1zkq8fWzS36z-7-A&s=ed7K58EJ32Xx4WmB2sDk-qXhWwms8m9Bieb8DK0ojK4&e=>/
>  or here-
> https://www.stateoftheinternet.com/faq-what-is-ddos-denial-of-service-attacks-definition.html<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.stateoftheinternet.com_faq-2Dwhat-2Dis-2Dddos-2Ddenial-2Dof-2Dservice-2Dattacks-2Ddefinition.html&d=CwMFaQ&c=5VD0RTtNlTh3ycd41b3MUw&r=ArvepG4_wcNu_X9xi3nb_Xa9WsGLVfmK6mwPdVONOTE&m=GR2D5B3xjkNTPICmNLI-A81qbfL1zkq8fWzS36z-7-A&s=iuGHSfh-gLJljejH0L61KoKlx83Gp9rBREY_DfElfXI&e=>.
>
> DDOS attacks are technical attacks that overwhelm a target by building
> networks of infected computers, known as ‘botnets’ and then spreading
> malicious software through emails, websites and social media. Once
> infected, these machines can be controlled remotely, without their owners'
> knowledge, and used like an army to launch an attack against any target.
> Some botnets are millions of machines strong. Botnets  generate huge floods
> of traffic, by sending more connection requests than a server can handle, or
> having computers send the victim huge amounts of random data to use up the
> target’s bandwidth.
>
> That is not, at all, what happened in India, and the fact that citizens sent
> both pro and con messages to policy makers seems, to me, to be exactly what
> we want citizens to do-engage with policy makers. In my view, even if they
> sent messages to TRAI saying no to Free Basics, that’s a win, because it’s
> citizens engaging in policy issues, and making their views known. Using the
> Interwebs and social media. ;-)
>
> So, again-fine to disagree with FB asking citizens to engage, but completely
> factually incorrect to say that TRAI was DDOSed. Words mean things, and
> that’s not what DDOS means.
>
> Happy new year, all-we really look forward to engaging with and learning
> more from this community in 2016!!
>
> Best, Ebele
> [Description: Description: Description: cid:image001.png at 01C8F888.8FCCE630]
>
> Ebele Okobi | Head of Public Policy, Africa
> m. +44 (0) 771 156 1315<tel:%2B44%20%280%29%20771%20156%201315>
> 2 Stephen St | London | W1T 1AN
> ebeleokobi at fb.com<mailto:ebeleokobi at fb.com>
>
>
>
> From: kictanet
> <kictanet-bounces+ebeleokobi=fb.com at lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:kictanet-bounces+ebeleokobi=fb.com at lists.kictanet.or.ke>>
> on behalf of Ali Hussein via kictanet
> <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>>
> Reply-To: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
> <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>>
> Date: Sunday, January 10, 2016 at 12:25 PM
> To: Ebele Okobi <ebeleokobi at fb.com<mailto:ebeleokobi at fb.com>>
> Cc: Ali Hussein <ali at hussein.me.ke<mailto:ali at hussein.me.ke>>
> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Introducing Facebook Africa Public Policy Team to
> KICTANet
>
> Even more important are the serious allegations of how Facebook is
> influencing public participation. One of these being a deliberate DDOS
> attack on the regulators website.
>
> Ali Hussein
> Principal
> Hussein & Associates
> +254 0713 601113<tel:%2B254%200713%20601113> / 0770906375<tel:0770906375>
>
>
> Twitter: @AliHKassim
>
> Skype: abu-jomo
>
> LinkedIn:
> http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__ke.linkedin.com_in_alihkassim&d=CwMFaQ&c=5VD0RTtNlTh3ycd41b3MUw&r=ArvepG4_wcNu_X9xi3nb_Xa9WsGLVfmK6mwPdVONOTE&m=X5jGnb8ciKQV_7MhlV7WiX9LVsPm_uvdbcY38tRwRds&s=xwlLOdIblQQIc_KYDNwDlGBBrYAKdcUvsZ_-ENs_04M&e=><https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__ke.linkedin.com_in_alihkassim&d=CwMFaQ&c=5VD0RTtNlTh3ycd41b3MUw&r=ArvepG4_wcNu_X9xi3nb_Xa9WsGLVfmK6mwPdVONOTE&m=X5jGnb8ciKQV_7MhlV7WiX9LVsPm_uvdbcY38tRwRds&s=xwlLOdIblQQIc_KYDNwDlGBBrYAKdcUvsZ_-ENs_04M&e=>
>
> Blog:
> www.alyhussein.com<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.alyhussein.com_&d=CwMFaQ&c=5VD0RTtNlTh3ycd41b3MUw&r=ArvepG4_wcNu_X9xi3nb_Xa9WsGLVfmK6mwPdVONOTE&m=X5jGnb8ciKQV_7MhlV7WiX9LVsPm_uvdbcY38tRwRds&s=PlWEiH903VXZabYNBqwXuQoqsaGj5cIya8osx2-r4pY&e=>
>
> "Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what
> no one else has thought".  ~ Albert Szent-Györgyi
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On 10 Jan 2016, at 2:08 PM, Mwendwa Kivuva via kictanet
> <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>>
> wrote:
>
>
> In December the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India suspended Free Basics
> in India pending the results of its public consultation.
>
> Will free basics be allowed in India? We will know the verdict at the end of
> the month.
>
> http://www.economist.com/news/business-and-finance/21685292-critics-argue-mark-zuckerbergs-generosity-cover-landgrab-facebooks-free-internet?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/facebooksfreeinternetprogrammehitsaroadblockinindia<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.economist.com_news_business-2Dand-2Dfinance_21685292-2Dcritics-2Dargue-2Dmark-2Dzuckerbergs-2Dgenerosity-2Dcover-2Dlandgrab-2Dfacebooks-2Dfree-2Dinternet-3Ffsrc-3Dscn_tw_te_bl_ed_facebooksfreeinternetprogrammehitsaroadblockinindia&d=CwMFaQ&c=5VD0RTtNlTh3ycd41b3MUw&r=ArvepG4_wcNu_X9xi3nb_Xa9WsGLVfmK6mwPdVONOTE&m=X5jGnb8ciKQV_7MhlV7WiX9LVsPm_uvdbcY38tRwRds&s=7lHadaJGLaQl7-IHj5OUtsBYRnbcqKR8K2b_ulYXQm4&e=>
>
> On Dec 4, 2015 6:20 PM, "Mwendwa Kivuva"
> <Kivuva at transworldafrica.com<mailto:Kivuva at transworldafrica.com>> wrote:
>
> On Dec 4, 2015 3:25 PM, "waudo siganga via kictanet"
> <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>>
> wrote:
>>
>> This looks useful. Kivuva/Hussein please comment. Looks like schools can
>> be able to access useful content without what the Bamba people call
>> "kunyanyaswa na kukatwakatwa kila mwezi"
>
> Dr. Waudo, I'm between travels and responding is a little bit difficult, but
> I will at the next opportune time. I only want to appreciate the great work
> FB team in Africa has done, especially with community outreach and
> communication like this.  It is very commendable.
>
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> people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and
> regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT
> sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and
> development.
>
> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors
> online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth,
> share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do
> not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
>

-- 
Barrack O. Otieno
+254721325277
+254-20-2498789
Skype: barrack.otieno
http://www.otienobarrack.me.ke/