After a research done by the Internet society, there was a discovery that despite the fact that Africa has had more access to mobile and technology; internet adoption has still not caught up. It was found that most people did not see the point of joining social media either because of language barrier or because there was lack of relevant homegrown content. While Mark Zuckerberg was in Nigeria he talked about making Facebook more accessible in Nigeria and added that more African languages would be added to the social media platform. These new additions are to make it easier for Africans to be part of the social network.
Currently Facebook has four African languages; Hausa, Somali, Kiswahili and Arabic on its network. Nigeria has been said to top the leagues table of Facebook users in Sub-Saharan Africa, with more than 15 million users followed by South Africa and Kenya. One of the other things that Mark Zuckerberg wants to add in Africa is easy internet access. He stated that communication is key in order for Africa to also develop faster. Unfortunately Mark Zuckerberg’s plan to install high speed internet in Africa was disrupted by an unnamed rocket that Facebook had planned to use in Africa. The internet was meant to help many African entrepreneurs with their businesses and so that Africans could be well connected to the rest of the world. But despite the setback Mr. Zuckerberg mentioned that they have developed other technologies that will help such as Aquila that will help people stay connected.
Facebook may not make most of its profits from Africa but the idea is that Africa does not lag behind as the world becomes digital. The fact that many African’s now use Facebook as a business platform has helped a lot of African’s. It is well noted that Africa still has a lot of room to develop and interrelate even within the continent. Adding more African languages will ensure that other African countries especially rural populations can log into a social network and not be left out.