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India’s Influencers Still Struggle Years After TikTok Ban

By Asma Hafiz with Anuj Srivas Choreographer Sahil Kumar found fame showcasing folk dances on TikTok, but his profile has been dormant since the video he posted four years ago supporting India's decision to ban the platform.

ByteDance Shuts Down Free African Messaging App That Failed to Challenge WhatsApp

Chinese tech firm ByteDance shut down its three-year-old multimedia messaging app LetsChat earlier this month, a rare defeat for the social media giant that hoped the platform would take off among Africa’s ballooning youth population. In contrast to TikTok, ByteDance’s short ...

Insider Explains Why Exploitative Videos Exposed by BBC Will Continue to Flourish Unless Chinese Government Bans Them

Just as the algorithms on U.S. digital media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are all optimized to display the most outrageous, inflammatory content in pursuit of higher engagement, the same is true in China. The so-called "blessing videos" featured in ...

TikTok’s Chinese Parent Company Targets African Teens With New Messaging App

Bytedance, parent company of the enormously successful social video app TikTok, launched a new mobile messaging app that targets Africa's huge teen market. The new app will combine music and messaging features with an eye on displacing the current market leaders ...

New Study Reveals the Breadth of China’s Diplomatic Use of Social Media and How Chinese Messaging is Amplified

China's use of U.S. social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook is a relatively new phenomenon that started in earnest around the end of 2019 and gathered speed through 2020. As such, there's been little research conducted into the breadth of Chinese engagement on these platforms and ...

Analysis from Cobus van Staden

Confusing Developments in “Development”

This week I’m in Brussels, where I took part in a workshop on how the EU should shape its development strategy in response to China’s global influence.
I have joked in the past that it feels like I’ve attended this same ‘EU, Africa, and External Development Partners’ conference for ten years straight. 

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CNN Ran a Story on Big Tech Expanding in Africa That Didn’t Mention a Single Chinese or European Company

CNN International broadcast a report over the weekend purportedly about "how big tech is expanding in Africa" yet the story only mentioned five major U.S. tech companies and not one from either Europe or Asia. This is somewhat odd given that ...

Community Leader Testified Before South Africa’s Equality Court That Anti-Chinese Speech Brought Back Memories of Apartheid

Community leaders from The Chinese Association (TCA) in South Africa appeared in court yesterday in Johannesburg to testify against 12 individuals who allegedly posted racially charged anti-Chinese comments. The case dates back to 2017 after the television documentary show Carte Blanche ...

China to Challenge Facebook’s Libra With Its Own Cryptocurrency and Africa Could be Huge Potential Market

A quick follow-up from the story we shared yesterday about how the dominance of Chinese mobile phone companies in Africa could create a "walled garden" that would exclude Facebook's proposed cryptocurrency Libra. Now, CNBC reports that the Chinese government is expediting the development of ...