O.N: We have 155 million monthly active users in sub-Saharan Africa. Africa is very important to Facebook. What we want for the continent, and particularly for the French-speaking sub-Saharan region, is to continue investing, continue providing the highest quality service with the same standards as in other markets, and continue developing relationships with various partners and stakeholders.
A.N: We are very aware that French-speaking sub-Saharan Africa and the continent in general are home to a very young population, and that it is this population that uses platforms such as Facebook the most. The potential is therefore real.
Furthermore, as a technology and innovation company, Africa represents a promising market in that, with all the opportunities and challenges it presents, it is fertile ground for innovation. For this reason, particularly in the French-speaking part of the continent, we have invested in connectivity to promote internet access, the fundamental pillar of digitization, but also in capacity building, because the continent has a very strong human capital base. If the younger generation is trained to use our communication platform and the internet in general, there will be significant benefits in terms of innovation.
There are still many digital deserts on the continent. As a web giant, what role do you play in improving connectivity in Africa?
A.N: We are aware that if platforms such as Facebook want to thrive in Africa, the need for connectivity must be met. This is particularly true in French-speaking Africa, where more than 60% of the population remains without internet access. We therefore see this as an opportunity to forge partnerships with operators and governments to address this challenge. There will be no "miracle" solution, but we are developing several to connect Africa:
- The Free Basics solution, available in 30 African countries, which we are developing in partnership with mobile operators to promote access for all to a selection of internet services, especially in developing countries affected by the digital divide.
- We are also testing other more innovative solutions, including Wi-Fi hotspots and a solar-powered drone solution for internet access (Aquila).
- Finally, we know that the most reliable way to connect people is still fiber optics, which is why we are also investing in the construction of this infrastructure.
O.N: At Facebook, we want to bring the world closer together, and to achieve this mission, we first need internet access. On the African continent, as everywhere else, the internet must be accessible to all. We are therefore developing innovative, flexible, and tailored solutions, including Express WiFi, which allows us to develop connection points to extend internet coverage. This program is already available in Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, and Tanzania and has been made possible through partnerships, because the challenge of internet access on the continent is one that we must tackle collectively.
At a time when fake news is proliferating on the internet, what initiatives are being put in place to combat this phenomenon?
A.N: Fake news has no place on Facebook. We are a platform for communication and interaction. It is a great responsibility for us to ensure the integrity of the information circulating on our platform. Fake news is a complex problem that requires a multi-stakeholder approach. To address this, we are developing partnerships with third-party content verification organizations such as Africa Check. This solution is available in several African countries, including Nigeria, Senegal, and Cameroon. We have also extended this fact-checking program to local languages such as Yoruba, Swahili, and Wolof to be as close as possible to the communities and the content they have access to.
When we talk about fake news, it also implies digital education: it is necessary to train people in digital uses. To this end, we organize training sessions across French-speaking African countries and beyond, dedicated to journalists, civil society actors, and influencers, to discuss how to analyze information circulating online, tips for detecting fake news, and the importance of having an engaged and responsible online presence. We are also developing tools to detect false information previously identified by fact checkers. Finally, we have strengthened our content moderation procedures. In 2018, we revealed for the first time that our algorithms enabled us to remove 600 million fake accounts. This figure rose to nearly 2 billion in the first half of 2019.
O.N: Beyond fake news, every day, Facebook teams have to make the difficult decision of whether or not to allow content to remain online based on our Community Standards. This is a sensitive issue that requires complex judgments. We have therefore chosen to share the responsibility for this arbitration by announcing the creation of an external oversight board, which will be empowered to review some of our most difficult content decisions. It will be made up of independent experts from a variety of backgrounds, both disciplinary and geographical, and external to Facebook.
What measures are you taking to help businesses on the continent take advantage of digital technology?
A.N: We believe that the digital economy has the power to unlock the region's economic growth potential, and we have made it one of our priorities. In May 2019, we expanded our Boost with Facebook
program to six French-speaking African countries (Senegal, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Benin, DRC, Guinea). The aim is to train 10,000 African entrepreneurs, microbusinesses, and SMEs in digital marketing tools by 2020.
O.N: We also actively listen to, support, and collaborate with the tech community in sub-Saharan Africa, both with startups and developers through Developer Circles
. This program creates synergies within developer communities around the use of Facebook and other digital platforms to code and develop features and products. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the most Facebook developer circles in the world, with 52,000 members. This demonstrates the undeniable vitality of the tech ecosystem on the continent.