Globalization

Facebook Makes Push Into Africa Social-media giant

helps provide link to internet in remote sections of Uganda

BvAT.DnNDRA Wuarn

GULU, Uganda-A Prominent red sign welcoming visitors to this remote and dusty agricul- tuml city makes the announce- ment in capital letters:'firis is now a 4G zone."

That is thanks in Part to Facebook Inc., which, along with Indian telecom giant Bharti Airtel Ltd.'s Ugandan unit and Mauritius-based Bandwidth & Cloud Senrices Grcup, laid nearly 50O miles of fiber-optic cable across the iso- lated northwest of this East Af- rican nation. The Project, be- grur in early 2OL7 and completed at the end of the year, has expanded the regiont network capacity, Providing faster internet access to an area with some three million people, many of whom live in towns still haunted bY memo- ries of the three-decade insur- gency led by Joseph Konyb Lord's Resistance ArmY.

The Ugandan cablg the larEl- est terrestrial network Face- book has helped construct in Africa, is part of what the so- cial-media giant describes as a broader push to connect the approximately 3.8 billion Peo- ple around the world who are still without internet service. The move comes as Facebookt user growt} slows in develoPed markets such as the U.S. and Europe.

The Menlo Parh Calif,-based company's presence on the continent remains small com- pared with other regions. It has 131 million monthly active us- ers from sub-Saharan Africa's approximately 1.06 billion pop- ulatio& nearly all ofwhom ac- cess the platform via a mobile phone. In Uganda along the Po- tential for erowth is substan- tiat just 42% of approximatelY 43 million Ugandans have a mobile phong according to the Groupe Speciale Mobile Associ-

Requesting Friends Facebook users in sub-saharan Africa are growing quickly as more people buy mobile phones and internet connections speed up'

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central impediment to eco- nomic growth and that remov- ing barriers to commerce and trade should create more oP- portunities for consumers to spend.

Facebook, which declined to comment on the cost of t}te Ugandan cable, says its Africa

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ation. Alphabet Inc.'s Google also has invested in fiber-optic cable in the country's caPital, I(ampala.

Critics say Facebookt ven- twes in lessdeveloped markets could undermine net neutralitY bv channeling tafEc to its own pladorm and away from com- petitors. An earlier effort bY Facebook to exPand internet access in the developing world faltered in 2016, when India's telecommunications regulator effectively banned the comPanY from offering free access to a low-data version of Facebook and selectedwebsites and aPPs.

Meanwhile, governments across Africa-including in Uganda-are rolling back inter- net freedoms and cracking down on social media.

In July, Uganda imPosed a tax on social-media use, which its president of 32 Years, Yow- eri Museveni, blames for spreading "fake news" and gos-

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including Airtel, block social- media sites until a tax of 200 Ugandan shillings (5 cents) a day is paid. Companies and an- alysts said the tax could mean poorer consumers wiII lose ac- cess to the internet.

Analysts saythe lack of con- nectivity on the continent is a

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strategy takes a long view. 'Ifs not a PhilanttroPic ven-

ture. Ifs a strategic investment with a long-term goal," said Ebele Okobi, Facebookt direc- tor of Africa Public PolicY.'We see this as an enabler of our business, not as a waY to gain advantages."

Dexter Thillien, a London- based analYst with Fitch Solu- tions, said Facebook, conscious of the risks, is still testing the waters in Aftica. "It's where they can make the least moneY, at least right now," he said.

The word "Africa'' appears just once in Facebook's 2017 annual report, to inform read- ers that the continent is in- clude4 along with the Middle East and Latin America, under its'Rest of World' desi8nation

Still, on the ground in north' western Uganda, which hosts about a million refugees from conflicts in neighboring South Sudan and the Democratic Re- public of Congo, the fiber effort has been cheered.

Duniya Aslam Khan, Public information officer for the United Nations Refirgee AgencY, said improved connectivity has made a big difference in run- ning the sPrawling camps in the region. ReflEees are better able to connect with familY members back home, take on- line courses an4 of course, join Facebook.

"ConnectivitY was a huge problem," she said.'Tm sPeak- lng to you from mY 3G mobile data which was not Possible a year ago."

Beyond logistical drallenges, Facebook must also manage political risks, including those ioncerning its resPonsibilitY for the content on its Plafform. The company has come under fire for its handling of hate speech and misinformation in countries with few other sources ofinternet access, such as Myanmar. A U.N' rePort in August criticized Facebook for allowing leaders in the country to post content that investiga- tors said inflamed ethnic vio- lence against the RohingYa mi- nority, a conflict the U.N. has deemed a genocide.