The truth shall set you free. Or something like that

The Digital Alarmist

Through much of the 20th century, whenever people took to the streets to try to overthrow the government in place, their principal targets were usually State-run TV and radio stations. These days, such a tactic would not work in most countries since broadcast facilities are no longer a State monopoly. When it comes to print media, the situation is a little different. Since privately-run print media have coexisted with State-owned print media for decades, it was usually the State that tried to shut down or censor private newspapers.

In this era of digital media, agencies and techniques for the control of communication channels have changed, irrespective of whether a crisis situation is involved or not. Over the last 10 years, over 2,000 local newspapers have been forced to shut down across the US simply because the advertising monies they were relying on for continued operation were diverted to Facebook and Google. A significant percentage of internet users obtain their information through Facebook and Twitter rather than dedicated professional news sources such as digital newspapers or cable news channels.

It has been reported that Apple was paid over $2 billion by Google and Facebook so that they would be the default settings on iPhone and iPad. Two or three companies should not dictate to the rest of the world what news items are important, where they emanate from, and how news is actually reported. This lack of diversity in viewpoints does not bode well for democracies. Social media and search engine companies aren’t the only culprits. Telecommunications companies are to blame, perhaps even more so.

Between the 16th and 19th centuries, Spain colonised all of Central and South America except Brazil; they colonised Equatorial Guinea in Africa as well. Today, while Spain may not physically occupy these countries, a single Spanish company, Telefonica, controls much of Latin America’s telecommunications space, except in Honduras and Bolivia.

Likewise, France colonised 15 countries in North, West and Central Africa up until the mid-1960s, but it did not relinquish control of their electronic communications industry even after that. Orange, the France-based telecom operator, is one of the principal mobile communications companies in these former colonies.

As for Britain, the UK-based Vodafone Group owns significant stakes in the mobile communications market in its former colonies, which includes India, Egypt, Ghana, South Africa, Mozambique, and Tanzania.

AT&T and its subsidiary Western Electric, being the sole providers of telephone service and telephonic equipment in the US once, essentially controlled all electronic communication until AT&T was broken up in the mid-1970s. Fifty years on, we now have AT&T and two other companies controlling the communications ecosphere in the US.

Though net neutrality and data privacy rules are strongly enforced in the European Union, EU-based internet service providers (ISP) do not follow these rules in their former colonies. ISPs routinely offer customers special rates for airtime and data bundles through Facebook-owned WhatsApp; ditto for customers using Amazon Prime.

While ISPs have the power to rein in Big Tech, they rarely do so since they find themselves subject to being controlled by the internal politics of the countries in which they operate. During the 2011 Arab Spring uprising, per Egyptian government orders, Vodafone switched off services when protests against the Cairo government began but switched them back on to send pro-government text messages to its subscribers. To add to the hypocrisy, Vodafone first took credit for advertising demonstrations against the government but later reversed its stance. In the US, AT&T was the single largest combined donor to Republican members of Congress who sought to aid Donald Trump in his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

To quote from Apple’s policy document, “We believe in the critical importance of an open society in which information flows freely, and we’re convinced the best way we can continue to promote openness is to remain engaged, even where we may disagree with a country’s laws.” Meaning? Censorship is fine as long as it does not impact company profitability? Amazon-owned Washington Post’s motto: “Democracy dies in darkness”. Light a candle. You can order one through the Amazon website. As if you didn’t know.