<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div>Listers</div><div><br></div><div>As a follow up to my post last night here's another article this time from the New York Times on Facebook's complicated dance with Regulators across the world, its avowed defense of the principle of the Internet without borders and fight against Balkanization and its continued focus to add more and more users.</div><div><br></div><div>I've taken the liberty to extract a particularly interesting part that focuses on Kenya.</div><div><h4 class="story-subheading story-content" data-para-count="18" data-total-count="14628" style="line-height: 1.8125rem; font-weight: 300; margin: 33px 0px 14px 60px; max-width: none; width: 540px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The Play for Kenya</span></h4><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="320" data-total-count="14948" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 60px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 540px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Blocked in China and troubled by regulators in Europe, Facebook is trying to become “the internet” in Africa. Helping get people online, subsidizing access, and trying to launch satellites to beam the internet down to the markets it covets, Facebook has become a dominant force on a continent rapidly getting online.</span></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="73" data-total-count="15021" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 60px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 540px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But that has given it a power that has made some in Africa uncomfortable.</span></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="256" data-total-count="15277" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 60px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 540px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Some countries have blocked access, and outsiders have complained Facebook could squelch rival online business initiatives. Its competition with other internet companies from the United States and China has drawn comparisons to a bygone era of colonialism.</span></p>Read on from the beginning:-</div><div><br></div><div><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/17/technology/facebook-government-regulations.html?emc=edit_ta_20170918&nl=top-stories&nlid=65658228&ref=headline">https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/17/technology/facebook-government-regulations.html?emc=edit_ta_20170918&nl=top-stories&nlid=65658228&ref=headline</a></div><div><br></div><div>This global conversation on the benefits and threats of Big Tech in a world seemingly in conflict with itself reminds me again of the declaration by John Perry Barlow, <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">American poet, essayist and cyberlibertarian political activist:-</span></div><div><br></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b><em style="word-wrap: break-word;">Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of the Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.</em><br style="word-wrap: break-word;"><em style="word-wrap: break-word;">- John Perry Barlow, A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, 1996</em></b></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I daresay citizens the world over are caught between the proverbial rock and hard place.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div>I would also encourage listers to read the book:-</div><div><br></div><div>WORLD WITHOUT MIND - The Existential threat of Big Tech by Franklin Foer.<br><br><div><div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.294118); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.231373);"><b>Ali Hussein</b></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.294118); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.231373);"><b>Principal</b></span></div><div><b style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Hussein & Associates</b></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">+254 0713 601113 </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></div><div><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Twitter: @AliHKassim</span></p><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font></font></span><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Skype: abu-jomo</span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">LinkedIn: <a href="http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim" target="_blank">http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim</a></span></p><font><br></font></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit." ~ Aristotle</span></div><div><br></div><div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.294118); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.231373);"><br></span></div>Sent from my iPad</div></div></div></body></html>