they came out but when one sees the role that companies like Cambridge Analytica played in shaping the outcome of elections in different parts of the world , then we must come to terms with the fact that indeed there are new sheriffs in town and they are those platforms that can influence regime changes in nations .
Why are they more dangerous than anything that has ever come before ? Because of their subtle nature . They remind me of the popular story about how to boil a frog . If you put the frog in boiling water , it will jump out immediately . If however you put it in cold water and then gradually increase the temperature , that frog will die enjoying what was killing it . By the time it realizes that this was a death trap it would be too late .
This is exactly what social media and the big tech companies have done . We love them . We cannot imagine a world without them . We constantly ask ourselves how we survived before them . If care is not taken , we like the frog will only discover after it is too late that they have taken over our nations and that our governments serve at their pleasure .
What about Africa deciding to float its own big tech and social platforms ? What about a massive investment in the creation of our own platforms ? After all the Chinese did it . Imagine a class where social media presence is taught in schools where the next generation is taught about analytics , algorithms and everything that goes along with being a giant in the tech and social media space .
We are talking about free trade in Africa but we still have problems with migration . It is easier for a British passport holder to enter some countries than it is for other Africans . When we however create our own platforms we will have developed a new level of power .
What nuclear capability was in the 80s is what social media capability is today - a force that can cripple nations . When nations like Pakistan and North Korea were developing their nuclear capability people made noise but today they are respected and they have a voice at the high table . If North Korea did not have nuclear capabilities they would probably have gone the way of Libya a long time ago .
No African nation was bold enough to
With such power if the internet decides to turn on a small country what do you think they can do to that country ? Ok let me be more specific . Can the entire African continent stand up to the tech giants of today ? Are we not playing a very risky game as a continent ? We thought colonization was bad but we fail to realize that digital colonization will be worse .
challenge the powers that be in the 80s where nuclear power was concerned . Isn ' t that sad . That not one nation on the continent was bold and gutsy enough to advance a nuclear power agenda .
We have another opportunity today to truly gain our independence . Until we have the liberty to shape the perceptions of the world concerning us we are not yet truly independent . The battle between the lion and the hunter is always in favor of the hunter until the lion begins to tell its stories . We are not truly independent as long as someone else can shut off our voices .
We have governments that have embarked on massive infrastructure projects and this is laudable . However we must remember that being strategic is not necessarily being populist . There are strategic things that governments need to do that will enhance populism at later dates . When countries like North Korea and India and Pakistan were pursuing their nuclear agendas it was not necessarily the most populist thing to do . There are those that would argue that what the country needed was food and not a nuclear capability . When countries were embarking on space programs the same argument could be true .
However there are some things that give nations bargaining power and that is what these nations saw . By embarking on these programs , they gained a level of respect and their voice was finally being heard on the global stage . When they talked , the world listened . Such is the power that can be developed if Africa sees the potential of social media and big tech in driving a movement for true and absolute independence .
One truth that we however need to be aware of is the fact that a person who has been empowered by the old will resist the new . Many have been empowered by the analog and so digital becomes a threat to their feeling of importance . This happens for different reasons . First is the fact that it forces the people of power from an earlier world to either submit to a new order or to position themselves to unlearn in order to relearn .
The greatest role of the leader in the digital age is learning . We need to understand two very important things about the world as it is today . First is the fact that if you are over fifty years of age , you are considered ancient . The rate of change around you has been so fast that it takes so much effort to keep up . Think of it , just as you were getting a hang of one new thing then you hear it is now old and that people have moved elsewhere . It ' s really hard work to keep up .
Secondly the things you spent a lot of money to learn are things that a new generation does by default . We spent money to learn how to use computers yet there is another generation that learnt computers through playing games . There is no way we can compete with such people .
I remember an incident that happened nearly a decade ago . I was watching TV with my daughter who was a teenager then and suddenly my phone rang . It was at a very crucial point of the program we were watching and there is no way I was going to get up to pick the phone or even get distracted .
My daughter however told me to go ahead and pick it that she would pause what I was watching . I told her it was live television and not a DVD ( Who remembers what those are ?). She laughed hysterically and told me to go ahead . She said that she would even rewind to the exact place where I was once I was done with the phone . Again I insisted that it was live TV and not a DVD . She laughed
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