The Digital War for the Information in Africa: Global Capitalism in the Continent with Google, Facebook, IBM & Microsoft

Abstract

The climate of privatization and liberalization of the eighties and nineties in Africa paved the way for some of the most important conglomerates of African media to plant the first seeds of the transnational corporate plan. At the same time, the liberalizing tsunami of this time favored the current scenario in which multinationals move without regulatory frameworks in the continent. This is the case of the giants of telecommunications who have been installed for years in Africa foreseeing that exponential and vaunted aphorism from the liberal sectors: “Africa grows. And the future is there”. A growth, however, without development. The dominant narrative of companies like Microsoft, IBM, Google or Facebook is that they intend to connect millions of people, however, with this article we will try to draw other links, especially after the scandals of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica in electoral processes, which will help to understand this dynamic that would be inserted in a war for the control of international and global information. A “warlike conflict” that has one of its main scenarios and laboratories in the African continent.

Keywords

• filantropía
• Internet
• democracia
• brecha digital