Manlio Dinucci
Many industries and service companies are failing or downsizing due to the lockdown and subsequent crisis. Instead, there are those who have gained from all this. Facebook, Google (YouTube owner), Microsoft, Apple and Amazon - writes The New York Times - «they are aggressively making new bets, since the coronavirus pandemic has rendered them almost essential services ". All these "Tech Giants" (Tech giants) they are from the United States.
Facebook - no longer defined as a social network but an "ecosystem", which also includes WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger - passed i 3 billions of monthly users. It is therefore not surprising that, in full coronavirus crisis, Facebook launches project for one of the largest submarine cable networks, the 2Africa: long 37.000 km (nearly the maximum circumference of the Earth), it will surround the entire African continent, connecting it to the north to Europe and to the east to the Middle East.
The interconnected countries will initially be 23. Starting from Great Britain, the network will connect Portugal before starting its circle around Africa through Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, Gabon, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar, Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, Djibouti, Sudan, Egypt. In this last stretch, the network will be connected to Oman and Saudi Arabia. then, across the Mediterranean, it will arrive in Italy and from there to France and Spain.
This large-capacity network - explains Facebook - will constitute «the pillar of a huge expansion of the Internet in Africa: economies flourish when there is a widely accessible Internet for businesses. The network will allow hundreds of millions of people access to broadband up to 5G ". This, In summary, the official motivation of the project. One datum is enough to question it: in sub-Saharan Africa they have no access to electricity 600 million of people, equivalent to over half of the population.
What will the broadband network serve then?? To link those African elites who represent their interests in countries richer in raw materials more closely to the parent companies of multinationals, while the comparison with China is growing, which is strengthening its economic presence in Africa.
The network will also serve other purposes. Two years ago, in May 2018, Facebook has established a partnership with the Atlantic Council (Atlantic Council), influential "non-partisan organization", based in Washington, which "promotes US leadership and commitment in the world, together with allies ". The specific purpose of the partnership is to ensure «the correct use of Facebook in elections all over the world, monitoring disinformation and foreign interference, helping to educate citizens and civil society ".
What is the reliability of the Atlantic Council, particularly active in Africa, it can be deduced from the official list of donors who finance it: the Pentagon and NATO, Lockheed Martin and other war industries (including the Italian Leonardo), ExxonMobil and other multinationals, the Bank of America and other financial groups, the Rockefeller and Soros Foundations.
The network, that will connect 16 African countries a 5 European NATO allies under US command and a 2 US allies in the Middle East, it will be able to play a role that is not only economic, but political and strategic. The "Forensic Digital Research Laboratory" of the Atlantic Council, through Facebook, will be able to communicate every day to the African media and politicians which news is "false" and which "true". Facebook's personal information and tracking systems may be used to monitor and target opposition movements. The long band, also in 5G, it can be used by US and other special forces in their operations in Africa.
In announcing the project, Facebook stresses that Africa is "the least connected continent" and that the problem will be solved by its 37,000 km of cables. They can be used, But, as a modern version of the old colonial chains.
(the poster, 16 June 2020)