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One day, perhaps, people will pause in their celebration of Koos Bekker’s genius, to ask whether the Tencent investment liberated Naspers from its apartheid legacy, or built on a culture of media collaboration with repression, taking it digital and global
Did decades as a pillar of the apartheid propaganda machine represent a weight the new Naspers had to overcome, or a set of competences in collaboration that served it well as the Chinese state built the machinery of algorithmic authoritarianism, helped by companies like Tencent?
South Africans, anxious about the ANC’s fascination the with Chinese model, should look to the vastly deeper relationship between the country’s most important media company a sector of the Chinese system enmeshed in wholesale censorship and surveillance.
Here’s just one example, from @citizenlab detailing censorship on Wechat: citizenlab.ca/2019/07/cant-p…
Here’s another: amp.scmp.com/news/china/art…
To bring it full circle, let’s visit Xinjiang, where the Chinese government has perfected a form of electronic apartheid beyond the wildest dreams of Verwoerd, and Wechat is along for the ride: wired.com/story/inside-c…
Plus ça change. Turns out apartheid may have taught South Africa’s managerial class a thing or two about working with repressive powers and turning a profit.
At very least, Naspers ought to get more scrutiny in the global discussion around tech, rights, and the information ecosystem, and less gauzy celebration. Ends.
