[HN Gopher] Establishing Twitter's Presence in Africa
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Establishing Twitter's Presence in Africa
Author : kpetermeni
Score : 55 points
Date : 2021-04-12 17:42 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.twitter.com)
| seriousquestion wrote:
| > Twitter's mission is to serve the public conversation
|
| How's that going, would you say?
| barbazoo wrote:
| I know it's pessimistic but that's what I thought as well. This
| post isn't about the Twitter service becoming available I know,
| but still, starting a presence there will probably increase
| usage which in turn will probably add a couple of countries to
| the "divided by social media" list.
| qznc wrote:
| Deploy "Sort by Controversial"?
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-controversial/
| barbazoo wrote:
| Meaning?
| dang wrote:
| Please don't post unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments here.
| Perhaps you don't owe $BigCo better, but you owe this community
| better if you're participating in it.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| _Aligned with our existing WFH policies, we look forward to
| welcoming and onboarding our new team members remotely so that we
| can make an immediate impact while we explore the opportunity to
| open an office in Ghana in the future.
|
| Why Ghana?
|
| As a champion for democracy, Ghana is a supporter of free speech,
| online freedom, and the Open Internet, of which Twitter is also
| an advocate._
|
| I'm impressed with how much they have thought about some of the
| logistics here. If you are running a business and trying to learn
| how to grow bigger, this is something to pay attention to and
| contemplate.
| f1refly wrote:
| I'm more impressed how anyone can write that last sentence and
| not die of laughter. Twitter - the bastion of online freedom
| and free speech. Whoevers brainchild this is perfected mental
| gymnastics to mastery.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| I'm a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and rape. I
| routinely speak on such topics in order to educate people and
| try to advocate for survivors, among other things.
|
| I am routinely accused of being "a rape apologist."
|
| I have no idea if Twitter is really a bastion of online free
| speech or not. But I do know that if you do anything
| meaningful in this world, people will drag you for it and one
| of the most common attacks is to claim you are doing the
| exact opposite of your intentions, whether that is true or
| not.
| sneak wrote:
| Twitter censors both what you are allowed to post (far in
| excess of what is legally prohibited), but, more
| importantly (and the reason I left after a dozen years on
| the platform) they censor search, too, deciding for
| themselves that they know better than you regarding what
| you should be allowed to read.
|
| Twitter espousing free expression is sort of like Google
| espousing privacy. It's farce, plain and simple.
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| A lot of people seem to think this is bad because it looks like
| colonialism. I think that's a bad take. Indeed there's an evil
| history of western exploitation of Africans. That consists of
| territorial conquest, slavery, stripping of natural resources.
|
| Every country that managed to get out of poverty did it by moving
| up the value chain from subsistence farming to eg. textile
| manufacturing to eg. electronics.
|
| Here, Twitter is hiring knowledge workers and paying them a good
| wage. They aren't enslaving anyone. Ghana is growing a middle
| class, entering the tech industry, and will be able to enjoy a
| bigger share of the wealth created in the global economy. It's
| great news.
| karpierz wrote:
| > Every country that managed to get out of poverty did it by
| moving up the value chain from subsistence farming to eg.
| textile manufacturing to eg. electronics.
|
| Yes, but they also built domestic industries which had its
| gains taxed and used to improve the nation. Doesn't work as
| well when an international corporation books all of the profits
| overseas.
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| Twitter's operating margin in 2020 was 1% (in previous years
| it was negative). Most of its revenue went to compensating
| employees. Governments can make a lot more money taxing
| Twitter's payroll than they can by taxing its profits.
| munk-a wrote:
| There is a lot of tax revenue to be had - but we still
| can't excuse the elephant in the room which is that tech
| companies avoid taxes like nobodies business since the tax
| code still isn't well suited to actually evaluating how
| they earn money.
| sneak wrote:
| They still haven't figured out how to avoid payroll
| taxes, however. This argument is a red herring, as it
| usually focuses exclusively corporate income taxes and
| ignores the multitude of other taxes corporations have to
| pay to conduct business.
| karpierz wrote:
| I should be clearer. I don't mean corporate taxes, I mean
| capital gains. Ghanaian engineers will produce intellectual
| capital for Twitter, whose value will be primarily sent
| back to the United States.
| Ekaros wrote:
| On other hand those engineers get wages which are taxed
| and spend on local economy. So I think that side is
| positive, even if intellectual capital is moved. Now if
| local market share will be lost to big international
| companies, that is certainly negative for a country.
| elefanten wrote:
| They also get experience, exposure and connections that
| they can leverage to grow the local economy over the
| course of their careers.
| Hackbraten wrote:
| It would be nice if Twitter's presence helped kindle domestic
| entrepreneurship in the long run.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| When countries get excluded from trading with the West and from
| accessing western tech, it does great harm to them. (e.g. the
| history of trade embargoes against Iran, something which is a
| serious problem for both the country and anyone from there
| wishing to leave and move elsewhere)
|
| Self exclusion isn't necessarily a better thing. It's
| complicated to actually remedy this history.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Embargoed countries can end it whenever they feel like:
| simply get a democratic government in place.
| babelfish wrote:
| If that were true, we'd have embargoed the UAE and
| countless others. The United States leverages embargoes for
| the sake of capital, not democracy.
| noxer wrote:
| Daily reminder that slavery existed in Africa for a long time
| and was not something the western people brought there.
| dang wrote:
| " _Eschew flamebait. Don 't introduce flamewar topics unless
| you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated
| controversies and generic tangents._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| Are you trying to claim that westerners importing millions of
| slaves from Africa didn't result in millions of Africans
| being enslaved? Do you think the slave market doesn't respond
| to market forces?
|
| Buying a slave is morally equivalent to enslaving someone in
| the same way that hiring a hitman is morally equivalent to
| murdering someone.
| gotoeleven wrote:
| I think his point is that africa did and does continue to
| have a very robust domestic slave market.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. It's
| not what this site is for.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| noxer wrote:
| There is no flamewar. Its just a common misconception
| about well know historical facts.
| noxer wrote:
| Parent post implied that westerners brought slavery to
| Africa which is historically wrong but commonly believed.
| There was no attempt to justify or evaluate anything.
|
| >Buying a slave is morally equivalent to enslaving someone
| in the same way that hiring a hitman is morally equivalent
| to murdering someone.
|
| Well, there are different kind of slaves. For example debt
| slave, someone in the western world would go to prison
| potentially being used for cheap labor as well. In Africa
| back then such a person would likely be "owned" until the
| debt is paid off. Buying someone in this context surely
| isn't morally equivalent as enslaving someone assuming the
| same "contract" is applied an the slave is able to pay off
| the debt and be free again.
|
| Also what if someone buys a salve that would otherwise
| become a human sacrifice (common in Africa at that time).
| Assuming ofc that the human sacrifice didn't happen and
| wasn't simply done with another slave instead. Pretty sure
| westerner in Africa significantly reduced humans sacrifices
| maybe by buying slaves but more likely by enforcing laws
| against it.
|
| We really cant know what the intentions of all the people
| at the time where but without context Schindler also bought
| Jews for cheap labor that's a fact but doesn't give the
| context to morally judge.
| Grieving wrote:
| If that growing middle class becomes dependent on westerners
| for employment, they will become westernized. Colonization can
| be extremely 'peaceful'.
| 1986 wrote:
| Ghana is a former British colony (Gold Coast) that gained
| independence in 1957, it is already highly westernized,
| certainly in Accra (where I have to assume Twitter GH is
| going to be based - maybe Kumasi?). I'm firmly anti
| colonialist but I don't think this is that at all.
| [deleted]
| filleduchaos wrote:
| It's very interesting to me that the people who get paid
| frankly obscene amounts of money to build tech are suddenly
| full of concern when people in the developing world also have a
| chance to make said obscene amounts of money.
|
| Suddenly everyone is an expert on colonialism and international
| relations.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't post flamewar comments to HN. It's not what this
| site is for.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| spoonjim wrote:
| There are a lot of Ghanaians in Silicon Valley (relative to other
| African countries). I wonder how many of them will take this
| opportunity to move back home. One problem though is at least
| right now you'd be tied to one employer.
| true_religion wrote:
| A lot might. Thanks to covid a lot of Ghanaians simply returned
| home to work remotely. The embassy even suggested it was the
| best course of action.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| This is generally how startup ecosystems start, though, with
| knowledgable people leaving established companies and hopefully
| starting up or contributing new ones.
| S53Vflnr4n wrote:
| Twitter infects Africa.
| cirgue wrote:
| The utter absence of self awareness on the part of Twitter is
| really impressive. Like it took either enormous brass balls,
| monumental stupidity, or enthusiastic self deception to write and
| stand behind that press release. Twitter exists to make money
| from ad revenue and has consistently demonstrated zero credible
| concern for any objective that isn't furthering that interest.
| CynicusRex wrote:
| "Then you have these tone-deaf millionaires going around
| imposing their preferences, like Twitter's Jack Dorsey and
| Jay-Z investing 500 bitcoin toward bitcoin development in
| Africa which will supposedly empower its population. Vested
| interests anyone?"
| --https://www.cynicusrex.com/file/cryptocultscience.html
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| Was kind of surprised they didn't pick a place like Kenya
| (Nairobi is a huge international hub). The reasons for Ghana seem
| great, but again, wasn't the first choice I thought they might
| make!
| drngxn wrote:
| Digital colonialism
| nicbou wrote:
| To me, it seems preferable to the alternative: a brain drain
| towards a few tech hubs in the West.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| Yeah, much better for them to not hire any people in Africa and
| just have their product there! /s
| [deleted]
| kristjank wrote:
| Yup, we definitely need to have one of the biggest groupthink
| platforms instated in one of the most unstable regions of the Old
| World. Great job, guys! /s
| hyperrail wrote:
| Microsoft has has software development centers in Kenya and
| Nigeria for a couple years now. [1] I'm glad to see other western
| tech companies moving into sub-Saharan Africa. Hope it's a trend
| - at MSFT we had some success there!
|
| [1] https://news.microsoft.com/en-xm/features/furthering-our-
| inv...
| numbsafari wrote:
| Looking at the top 3 US Public Cloud providers, Microsoft has a
| lot to be proud of [1]. I think Microsoft's old-line
| enterprise/government software business has given them a sales
| lead over the others, but they've also made big capital
| investments here in local infrastructure.
|
| I think there's a massive, missed opportunity to build
| renewable-resource powered data centers to drive the compute
| tasks needed elsewhere, investing in local talent and
| infrastructure at the same time.
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/numbsafari/status/1357404669123981314
| curiousmindz wrote:
| In South Africa too. They even have two Azure Data Centers,
| there.
| aberkowitz wrote:
| From what I hear, Microsoft has been extremely active in hiring
| tech and skilled workers in Kenya this year. Really hoping they
| keep it up!
| vmception wrote:
| I think worldwide that this entire discussion about Africa is too
| reductive.
|
| Like, even here the title and the African director are writing
| about the African community but referring to an improving sector
| within Ghana.
|
| This in turn has the rest of us continuing to talk about Africa
| in an unnuanced and defensive or unproductive way.
|
| A regional data center serving the African continent is
| establishing presence in Africa. This would be the same standard
| as other infrastructure projects in other continents.
|
| A hiring practice or office in a city in one country is
| establishing a presence in that country. This would be the same
| standard as other company expansions in other countries.
|
| I think this is a humble ask, as people are excited about
| attention to the African continent and integration to the global
| growth community, however there are very many hurdles towards a
| unified African market and I don't really think thats the focus
| or most productive goal. It is a fiction to refer to it as such
| for a place with 50 to 100 regional markets, almost infinite
| permutations with their own problems and benefits.
| kaladin_1 wrote:
| The comments on the thread surprises me. Some seem to imply that
| this a negative development.
|
| Whereas in Africa here people are happy for this development.
|
| I can assure you that the only eyebrows raised are so because
| every country feels Twitter should have come to theirs. This is
| big win for Ghana. In fact, many Nigerians are chastising their
| government at the moment for not being able to attract Twitter
| due to their instability and corruption
| throwawaysea wrote:
| I understand Twitter is already accessible to African users, and
| this blog post is about expanding Twitter's employment presence
| in Africa. That said, I really don't want to see Twitter or other
| Western technology companies extend their tentacles further into
| Asia or Africa. The immense influence these Silicon Valley
| companies have in shaping public conversation and culture
| threatens all other cultures and diversity of thought globally.
| The adoption of Twitter amounts to digital colonization, a
| vehicle for cultural globalization that homogenizes societies in
| the shape of American progressive culture.
|
| I really find Twitter's blog post to be deceptive and tone deaf.
| For example consider this:
|
| > As a champion for democracy, Ghana is a supporter of free
| speech, online freedom, and the Open Internet, of which Twitter
| is also an advocate.
|
| Twitter heavily censors moderates and conservatives in America on
| any controversial topic that is current - whether that is
| COVID-19, or gender identity, or immigration, or whatever else.
| Africa is a lot more conservative than Silicon Valley and holds
| very different viewpoints on life, morality, ethics, law,
| politics, etc. Is Twitter going to censor African users and steer
| their speech as well? If so how can it possibly claim to be an
| advocate for free speech at all?
|
| Another problematic statement:
|
| > We still have much to learn but we are excited to listen,
| learn, and engage. Public conversation is essential to solving
| problems, building shared ideas, and pushing us all forward
| together.
|
| When has Twitter ever listened to those who think differently
| from its employee base? I don't think Twitter has listened or
| learned at all, even in the US where it is reasonable to expect
| that they would understand their user base better and cater to
| all viewpoints better. Instead, their playbook seems to be to
| impose the worldview of their employees and vocal activists on
| the entire planet. Whether intended or not, the effect of
| Twitter's adoption in other nations is propagandist, and I find
| it to be as repulsive as physical colonization.
|
| I hope users in Africa are alert enough to realize that they
| should use a local platform, or at least one that is more
| honestly in favor of free speech, rather than one originating
| from Silicon Valley. European leaders are already waking up to
| the existential threat Western influence poses to their culture
| (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/09/world/europe/france-
| threa...), and China was of course well ahead of other nations in
| seeing the threat of cultural erasure coming from America.
| Africa, a continent on the rise and on a path towards global
| prominence, should be similarly wise.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Good for them, that is pulling money from big companies. To local
| economies with minimal spending of natural resources. Sometimes
| you have to work with evil to do good for local community. I just
| hope they have sense not get too involved on platform itself.
|
| Reasonable out-sourcing can be pretty good for a country. I just
| hope Twitter doesn't steal market share from local companies with
| this...
| cblconfederate wrote:
| > Ghana is a supporter of free speech, online freedom, and the
| Open Internet, of which Twitter is also an advocate
|
| Well this sounds great, maybe Ghana will teach twitter their
| values. Sounds like a great move overall
| tacker2000 wrote:
| Hooray to the next woke "mission" trying to "save" the "doomed"
| continent!
| dang wrote:
| Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN, or use the site
| for ideological battle. We're trying for something else here.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| munk-a wrote:
| I honestly got absolutely none of that sentiment reading their
| press release - it reads just like "Twitter is opening a new
| office in Mexico to specifically support spanish language
| speakers - we chose Mexico as it has recently been appointed as
| the lead on the central american economic council..."
|
| I think you're reading too much into Africa when a much simpler
| explanation is that Ghana isn't a country you can paint as "a
| developing African nation" - it's a stable country[1] with a
| rapidly growing middle class and low CoL.
|
| Post soviet collapse eastern europe had a lot of highly trained
| folks and extremely low CoL so Microsoft and other folks moved
| into that area aggressively - Ghana looks like it's the next
| good market to go into aggressively.
| xyzzy21 wrote:
| Even the Western world would be better off without Twitter.
| Expanding its cancer to Africa seems like Crime Against Humanity
| at this point.
| nicbou wrote:
| Why?
| 1337biz wrote:
| It's so sad but I feel the same. The world would be better off
| without Twitter. There is no platform that catalysts fringe
| insania as much as Twitter. It leads to the mainstreaming of
| extremist options as these don't stay any longer in their gated
| black holes.
| ronsor wrote:
| Welp. Africa is doomed now.
| [deleted]
| aberkowitz wrote:
| I spent a year in Ghana in 2017, and I had the pleasure of
| meeting numerous software engineers and tech entrepreneurs who
| were doing extremely high quality work for 1-2k USD / month (if
| they were lucky). Having companies like twitter on the African
| continent will provide massive economic opportunity, and social
| mobility.
| theodric wrote:
| 1-2k/mo will get you a Dutch person, too. Those are not bad
| wages.
| munk-a wrote:
| Under 2k/mo translates to an annual earnings around 12-15k
| (when you account for employee overhead) which is somewhere
| between 6.15-7.69/hr - even if we allow for the full 2k to be
| an actual employee earning you're still only looking at
| 11.79/hr which isn't nothing but is still absolute peanuts
| for software developers in euros. I guess, going by median
| salary, you'd probably be able to snag two devs in Belarus[1]
| for that much?
|
| 1. https://www.payscale.com/research/BY/Job=Software_Develope
| r/...
| gambiting wrote:
| As my first programming job as a junior in UK just few years
| ago I was paid PS18k/year, so PS1500 a month(so about 2K
| USD).
|
| That's for a very fresh out of uni junior outside of London
| though. You'd struggle to find someone willing to work for
| that nowadays.
| zokier wrote:
| Very much doubt that. Glassdoor has average base pay for SW
| engineer in Amsterdam at $61k/year
| https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/amsterdam-software-
| engine...
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| Any recommendations on places to visit and stay for someone
| thinking of spending a few months in Africa to better
| understand the region? Likely this summer/fall (Ghana, Cote
| d'Ivoire, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Ethiopia are high on my list as
| I've done minimal traveling in the region outside the south).
| filleduchaos wrote:
| If you'd like to visit Lagos, shoot me an email (me at
| [username] dot com) and I can send you some tips/places you
| might be interested in.
|
| (I think the weirdest tip I have about Lagos is that it's
| actually a decent whale-watching spot. We get humpback whales
| in particular from May-ish to September-ish, much more in the
| latter months.)
| aberkowitz wrote:
| You could honestly spend a month in any of those countries,
| and barely scratch the surface of all the cultures, people,
| and ecosystems. I would highly recommend Ghana as a base, due
| to its stability, infrastructure, and low corruption. If you
| send me an email (link in profile), I'd be happy to connect
| you with interesting people in most of the countries you
| listed as well as Kenya.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| Thanks for the offer, I'll send you an email shortly!
| true_religion wrote:
| Depends on what you want to do. There are waterfalls,
| national parks, mini safaris, night clubs, beaches, culinary
| festivals and art events. There is always something going on.
| dang wrote:
| All: please don't post snarky and/or unsubstantive comments and
| please don't post in the flamewar style. None of that is what HN
| is for. It's tedious, and it leads to repetitive, lower-quality
| threads.
|
| Perhaps you don't owe $BigCo better, but you owe this community
| better if you're participating in it.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Yeah, I deleted mine. IDK what is it about Twitter that goads
| me into speaking Snarkish. Distrust WRT their intentions? The
| general atmosphere of the place?
|
| Around 2009 (the failed Iranian Green Revolution), social
| networks felt on the side of freedom. Nowadays they fill me
| with negativity.
| Fellshard wrote:
| > Twitter's mission is to serve the public conversation
|
| And in the first several words, they've already lied through
| their teeth. It is very clear that Twitter's primary desire is to
| steer and shape conversation. One look at the 'passive voice'
| editorializing of their 'trending' feed is all it takes to
| confirm that.
| zokier wrote:
| I don't agree with you, but "steering and shaping" could very
| well be construed "to serve the public conversation". Nothing
| in that servitude implies passive impartiality.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN. It's not what
| this site is for.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| Fellshard wrote:
| Given the primary link was to a Twitter press release, I
| think it is fair to address the supporting claims the release
| makes. Not intending to flame or provoke.
| dang wrote:
| I wouldn't describe the GP as "addressing claims". It's
| denunciatory rhetoric, which is the flamewar style we don't
| want here. Thoughtful critique is something quite
| different, and would be fine.
| kgin wrote:
| Can you give an example, I'm not sure I understand
| dsg42 wrote:
| Really great move by Twitter. There's lots of amazing programmers
| in African countries like Ghana and Nigeria, but not enough
| employers are taking advantage. I suspect Twitter will be the
| first of many companies to start hiring in the region.
| bogomipz wrote:
| >"To truly serve the public conversation, we must be more
| immersed in the rich and vibrant communities that drive the
| conversations taking place every day across the African
| continent."
|
| So they correctly acknowledge that those communities are already
| engaged in conversations. How does encouraging these same folks
| to Tweet at each other improve upon the way they are already
| conversing? Twitter seems to have appropriated the word
| "conversation" the same way Facebook has done for the word
| "friend". That is to say completely redefined it to suit their
| own business objectives.
|
| I'm glad they're hiring in Africa. There's tons of really smart
| people there doing interesting things. It's also a very young
| place per capita. Why couldn't they just say as much though and
| leave it at that? Instead they decided couch the whole thing in
| this cringeworthy bit of "noblesse oblige."
| rgovostes wrote:
| Because Twitter has really elevated the level of conversation in
| the West.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't be snarky. It's against the site guidelines
| because it's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is
| for.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| qmarchi wrote:
| For all of the snark that is coming from other commenters, I'm
| excited to see more engineering talent being pulled to more
| diverse locations than "the Bay Area" and the rest of the US.
| Technology and Engineering is not limited to one or two
| countries, and having a presence in a place the is missing
| opportunity seems like a win.
|
| Admittedly, Twitter is not my first choice of employer, but it
| could've been worse. Could've been Facebook.
| peytn wrote:
| I can't find any engineering job postings on their careers site
| with the location "Ghana Remote." Hopefully those roles are
| coming soon.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| As am I. The product is already available on the continent.
| It'll be great to have locals providing input on shaping it for
| the local environment and giving their perspective. Plus,
| hopefully high paying jobs!
| TwelveNights wrote:
| HN has always felt rather US-centric and IMO it really reflects
| in the response that this type of news gets.
|
| For Twitter, increasing its international presence and talent
| pool is a big win. The community stands to benefit in the
| opportunities the tech giant can provide.
| brobdingnagians wrote:
| Totally agree with this. I think it will help develop the
| capital and talent to accelerate more new tech startups in
| Africa. Developers with more money and more experience with
| large projects will mean that some of them will go on to
| start their own companies, sometimes as competing companies,
| that will focus on local needs and culture.
| coldtea wrote:
| Yeah, if Africa lacked something it was Twitter
| noofen wrote:
| I wonder why they didn't go with "How Twitter is Colonizing
| Africa"
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Africans already have access to twitter, they're on the same
| Internet as everyone else.
|
| This post is about hiring in Africa; if they're getting the
| negative effects already they may as well try and get the
| positive benefits, like high paying multinational jobs, out
| of it.
| [deleted]
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(page generated 2021-04-12 23:02 UTC)