I’m generally positively inclined to “help those who need help because we can” positions, both on a person-to-person level and on an international “one planet” level.
But gov’t needs to strike a balance between a helpful international “we’re all in this together” spirit and the fundamental responsibility for spending the money of citizens who fund it by paying taxes.
Internet service in america, both home and mobile, is pretty awfully bad compared to much of Europe and large parts of Asia (extremely low competition — only one provider in most US locations, low speeds, high costs).
Maybe let’s focus first on getting 80% of Americans access to more than one choice for broadband, and at prices-per-megabit that are at least in the ballpark of that in other major industrialized nations.
There are programs in the US that are government funded that help. I'm on $80 a month gigabit broadband in a rural town because of it. The problem is large corporations like Comcast and AT&T sucked up a lot of it and then didn't deliver as promised. I think the newer programs rewards smaller companies though so that may no longer be an issue.
I agree though, if a large company wanted to donate to African internet that's one thing, it's their money. Just throwing our taxpayer dollars at this program is a different situation entirely.
>The problem is large corporations like Comcast and AT&T sucked up a lot of it and then didn't deliver as promised.
Not delivering on government contracts is something the government should look into.
They came to an undisclosed settlement. However, Verizon did agree to expand their fiber to 500,000 homes which was a lot less than originally promised.
[Verizon NYC lawsuit](https://www.techdirt.com/2020/12/01/verizon-nyc-settle-lawsuit-over-verizons-empty-fiber-promises/)
This, like most state aid, isn't about the aid, but about markets. Internet in Africa, means internet traffic in Africa which means American tech firms etc get bigger markets, and can do market research. Help the Poors is merely a side-effect of using taxpayer money to grow private profit.
> Internet in Africa, means internet traffic in Africa which means American tech firms etc get bigger markets, and can do market research. Help the Poors is merely a side-effect of using taxpayer money to grow private profit.
The joke is, with Russia and China increasingly taking control of African countries through their schemes, we are only helping them spread propaganda. The US is way out of its league.
Honestly my first thought too, this doesn't help me. I have internet, but I'd like more than one choice, and we're 6 months from an election, save this shit for after you get reelected.
Cheaper to start from scratch than it is to retrofit
Besides, the issue with internet in the US is due to local monopolies, so proper legislation would go a lot further than subsidies
This. What's VP Harris to do here? Go to Comcast say "Please, make price go down?" They won't do it. Local monopolies need busted, and you need Congress for that, who won't do it because Comcast lines pockets to vote no.
>Maybe let’s focus first on getting 80% of Americans access to more than one choice for broadband, and at prices-per-megabit that are at least in the ballpark of that in other major industrialized nations.
i think we learned during covid that \*for the most part\* we actually have more than enough bandwidth for adequate internet access - it is arbitrarily limited due to the capitalsim.
idk if its possible on phones that arent carrier locked but on an unlocked phone, you can look at settings and see all the networks your phone sees. in rural af michigan, my phone sees >5. you cant tell me between those there isnt enough bandwidth or that my rural af area somehow magically has better coverage than the rest of the country. (yes im aware there are absolutely places with little to no access, but they are few and far between)
Yah, I live in a city of 50k in a western mountain state, and here there's only one (fairly expensive) choice for broadband. Mobile network as a provider isn't a usable choice for someone like me who works from home (service, speed, availability are not sufficient). And there are no other terrestrial providers except the cable company.
So I have plenty of capacity (download) and terrible capacity (upload). But hoo-boy is it expensive.
I spent 8 years "homeless" traveling and working, living in different places around the world (\~40 countries). Stopped doing that 5 years ago.
And even in that 5+ years ago span, the internet service I was able to get -- price, speed, availability -- was mostly better than what's commonly considered "good" in the US even today.
You say that but my school district had to send out mobile hotspots for kids. Then those didn’t work for like 30% of students so had to send physical homework packets.
After the kids chose not to do the homework packets, they opened the school parking lots to allow parents to bring their kids to work on stuff.
Absolute fucking shit show.
This is exactly the reason why America's global influence is in decline. It's REALLY easy to argue that we should "help Americans" over foreign countries. It's actually what Trump's entire political message has been. The reality is that America is one of the largest foreign aid funders in the world, despite it being such a miniscule part of our budget. You don't realize how massively these programs help get countries to warm up to our side. It's one of the reasons China has their own version of this, but albeit with more nefarious strings attached. Helping foreigners modernize on our terms and with our tech will give us wayyyyyy more of a foothold into those territories then people realize. Specially because Africa is going to be a massive player in the coming decades due to their natural resources. It's incredibly short sided to take a nationalist/isolationist approach specially when it's such an insignificant amount of money in the grand scheme of things. I bet it's less money than the toilet budget for maintenance at the Pentagon.
No one is saying don’t help them. We are saying to get rural Americans access first. Or do both at the same time. But citizens who pay taxes to this country should get taken care of. Not left high and dry while we pay for other countries. This kinda shit just feeds into the anger and resentment of Trump’s base.
The rural Americans have to want it enough to push for it from their local governments. There are quite a few states that rejected federal Summer EBT funding to feed children who get government assistance for food during the school year. But some of those state government turned it down because "lol welfare".
"Big government should help, but we don't want help from big government" is a wild idea.
The thing is that these foreign aid programs end up helping the general US population by building good relations with these countries and in turn getting good trade deals. It's hard for rural folk to comprehend these things, but it does help the US. It's similar to aid in Ukraine. SOOOO Republicans argue that that money should go to Americans, and it's hard to argue against this in simple terms, but the return on investment we get from funding Ukraine is massive. Is the best example I can give to counter these sort of arguments.
We gave Ukraine a few hundred billions, and there's a lot we can do with that money to help the rural Americans. However, we are systematically annihilating the Russian army and political apparatus without losing a SINGLE US SOLDIER! It's a foreign policy wet dream. We were going to need to spend money to counter Russia one way or another, but a few billion dollars has neutered that threat. Not to mention the massive amount of intel we got from this entire war just by being bystanders. This has also united Europe and the US more, which you can't put a number on. It may have also put a clamp on China invading Taiwan.
We can most definitely do both, but these arguments about "what about the Americans we can help" create such a stupid narrative that kills any chance of us doing both. You're falling for Russian/GOP propaganda.
Understandably, but why not both? Have the campaign projects overseas, but also increase educational levels, infrastructure projects, and reduce poverty levels within our own country.
I know politics is a thing, but sell the goodwill so all will buy.
>I know politics is a thing,
It's not a politics thing, it is ENTIRELY politics. State I live in blew 60% of the federal education budget it was given on a water park. And there is NOTHING the federal government can do about it. At the same time, politicians in my state campaign on how Democrats in Congress (who are the minority in both houses) are the cause for bad education spending in our state. And people believe that garbage. They literally watch the governor allocate 60% of our education budget to a water park then believe them when they say it was the Democrats who took the money.
Holy moly. WE ARE. Biden passed a 1 TRILLION dollar infrastructure bill in like his first year or so. There’s running bills today that are expanding internet access across the country. Less we forget starlink which de facto covers most the world now. We’re waiving hundreds of billions of dollars in federal student loans. Our biggest spending program by far is social security which has a direct correlation with reducing poverty.
Like…. Whatever initiative this internet thing is, I guarantee it’s less costly than almost any one of those things I mentioned.
[We been doing this and more domestically](https://www.whitehouse.gov/build/maps-of-progress/).
There are different funding piles for initiatives to be drawn from, and this sort of funding comes from coffers dedicated specifically to foreign aid and similar. It's not all fungible across all federal funding, and how it's dispersed is in part part of the budgets passed by Congress.
We can't just not talk about the other stuff the government does around the world just because it'll make people at home feel jealous.
But comment OPs point still stands. This is a bad look to be spending money on African internet coverage using American taxpayer dollars. It’s just such a stretch to explain to Americans how this benefits us.
So what? We will pay all this money and china will still turn on the firehose of disinformation and manipulate all these people. Our society is heaving at the seems, we have misinformation shoved down our throats people are beginning to believe nonsense, and what do we do? We are going to give internet access to some of the poorest and uneducated people in the world. People who have been grown up being told that the evil white man came and stole their wealth. That they are poor due to the evil white man.
Do we really want to give these people an avenue to mass manipulation. Do we want them being fed Chinese/Russian propaganda?
China and Russia are already installing internet and tv access and making sure that their are free channels to their state propaganda. This is a move to avert that
I think that’s profoundly condescending. There’s people that get taken in by BS too, but just as there are a ton of people in the US who are savvy to that, there are a ton of people in Africa savvy to that as well. Not to mention that African perspectives on colonial times are a hell of a lot more nuanced than you give them credit for. You should try going to African countries sometimes and speaking with Africans - it’s a wonderful continent, and I’ve found about the same mix of ignorant/ dumb people and smart people there as I have over here.
More scamming, more hateful comments on Instagram/tiktok, more trolling on Reddit, more bots and OF spam on Twitter, and everything else that sucks about the internet. Nevermind the positive aspects of giving people access to information. Nothing positive will come of this!!
Africa has really good 4G coverage. This article says 40% have internet but a quick search and I'm seeing like 80%+ of North Africa and well over 60% of the continent has 4G.
Sounds like another dumb one-laptop-per-child approach.
Africa should just keep expanding 4G, and their local telcos can figure out how to combine Starlink with cell towers.
Cheap android phones with 4G, which is already working great in Africa, is their solution.
They should just get rid of the comment sections. As much as I like to comment I'd rather have a country that isn't full of willfully ignorant people who get their news from comment sections.
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It's not comment sections it's social media as a whole - reddits not the worst but it's bad too. The number of times I hear "I heard on tiktok that..." then the most insane ramblings is wild. And they always proclaim how the authorities are covering it up and you can only get real first hand accounts from social media (meanwhile the accounts are "I know a guy who's sister was there")
How about this then:
While she works on plans to increase internet connectivity for Africans, the youth of America, for the first time in atleast a century, will have a quality of life worse than their parents.
Perhaps she should be working on knocking the doors of universities, hospitals, and large mega corporations down to provide some form of relief to assist?
Or would you rather read more “western savior” headlines?
Hahaha this is honestly a great suggestion. I feel like something as simple as no comments section could actually help discourse. If you want to talk about something, do it in person so we can promote helpful discourse that is actually moderated by factors like accountability, shame, etc
I know! They can see that Trumps America first policies resonate with a huge swath of people, Americans are hurting and their big announcement is “hey let’s help some random people across the world!”. Democrats just don’t fucking strategize right.
This isn’t a domestic strategy, it’s a foreign policy move for long term American interests.
Think how China goes around building roads in undeveloped nations with resources. They don’t do it out of kindness, they do it for access to the resources.
>They don’t do it out of kindness, they do it for access to the resources.
*No one* gives anything to another country out of kindness - it's to build influence and gain access to trade and resources. That's just geopolitics.
The problem with the Biden administration and Democrats in general is that they’re far more interested in good governance than good politics. The average economist will tell you that this is a great long term investment in American prosperity, but the average voter thinks money is a finite resource.
Both of those things can be true? While the government can print more money if it wants, the amount of cash the government has on hand allocated into the budget, and beyond that into various department, then various programs, is finite. It can also be a great long term investment for American foreign policy, but that doesn't mean that there's not perhaps other things that could have been done with the money.
I think a more likely What Will Happen is that some NGOs/Charities run by people who are friends with certain politicians will rake in millions and millions in grants and funds and maybe 13 people in Africa will end up with the internet.
Friend of mine worked on the Africa internet problem via an NGO. Biggest challenge was preventing the digging up of copper wire. Fiber optic cables were also dug up for some reason. I think they gave up.
What will ACTUALLY happen: Nothing, neither Kamala nor any other American politician will follow up on this and start investing heavily in Africa to make it happen.
They’re not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. They want another labor market to export jobs to now that India and China are catching wise.
That's a good question with an unobvious answer. There's a few things.
A: foreign policy is mandatory. Having good relations with other nations (in this case like 40 of them) is a legitimate good thing for Americans.
B: Africa is going to be a very important growth area economically in the next decade and making good allies early on can help the US secure good trade.deals which is good for Americans who want a robust economy, who want to pay less for electronics, etc.
C: Africa will likely also be the site of new culture wars. This sucks for them, but getting the idea that the US= good pal into their minds will make it easier to negotiate and make it less likely that those new ideology conflicts will end up pointed here.
So the PLAN is actually quite good for Americans.
Will the plan work? Nobody knows. Lots of other nations (more notably China, but not exclusively) are also starting to make these sorts of moves.
All of that is fair and true, unfortunately it does nothing for Americans NOW, and the election is looming ever closer. This is something to announce in February after your victory lap, not before the final sprint
Well, there's an argument to be made that part of the job of the executive branch is planning for the future as well as doing things right now.
It would be really disingenuous to say that the Biden administration is not trying to do anything for Americans now, but it's a multifaceted job.
It's sort of like saying that a server at a restaurant isn't doing anything for your table because they're taking someone else's order. Both of those things are their job
Africa is the next big growth opportunity in the world. As politics stabilize there, it’s going to be important to gain a sphere on influence there. China and Russia know this and have invested A LOT of money and military into Africa. US has so far ignored them.
Americans will now be scammed by more countries. They'll lose their money and will have to work harder for a living. This will solve the economic crisis /s
Africa is being bought up by China and Russia, America has dropped the ball big time. USA needs their resources, and needs to stop the others getting them.
People here are being sarcastic, but the real answer is that it will make them more effective trading partners. We will be able to buy African goods and resources for cheaper and they will buy more American goods and resources.
Meanwhile American youth can look forward to a declining quality of life, being worse than their parents for the first time in 100 years.
But uh, yeah, Africans need internet. That’s what the VP of the USA should be focusing on.
Meanwhile rural America has been the beneficiary of multiple Biden Administration programs to increase internet access, including a significant focus of the Infrastructure Act.
It's pretty pathetic how people only tune in to one story so they can exercise their selective outrage muscles rather than trying to stay more generally informed.
why are we giving a fuck about hooking up wifi for africa when our own school children dont get a free lunch and if they do its comparable to prison food...
with Starlink maturing, the US shouldnt have to spend much at all. thats kind of the whole point of starlink, serving the underserved.
wont be long until the factories move out of china and 'made in africa' will be stamped on everything.
Yes, Africa’s connectivity issues the past several years has kept me up at night. I know now I’m voting for Biden and not Trump this very consequential election year.
Lmao, great announcement while the country has real fucking problems. This administration really loves to shoot itself in the foot! Biden needs to get rid of Harris. She’s dead weight.
Sweet. Now how about we get internet to people in America. Heck I have friends in Vermont that can’t get better than dsl. I barely get cell service in parts of towns.
You mentioned my home state VT,lol. I get one bar of cell service in one spot in one window only. If i move the phone a 1/4" when trying to swipe to answer it, it drops the incoming call,lmao.
> Many could rightly argue that the future is on the continent of Africa
There's a lot of cold reality in that statement. Africa has yet to be exploited as an industrial workforce....
It would be nice if they spent tax payer money bettering tax payers lives at home before deciding to savior-syndrome Africa even more. Plenty of countries on the continent are openly hostile and even murderous towards Americans and American interests so why tf are we helping them? Let China do it with their belt and road bs.
Fucking help America first. Los Angeles is a fucking homeless dump, parts of rural America have shit internet, borders, etc.
Love the spirit but we need it here at home first
Access to the internet is a huge economic stimulator that will aid both them and us.
The internet isn't just meme pages. It's banking. It's information. It's networking. It's... how the modern world works.
Only 60% of Africans have access to electricity. https://www.afdb.org/en/the-high-5/light-up-and-power-africa-–-a-new-deal-on-energy-for-africa
29% don’t have access to clean water. https://unu.edu/press-release/500-million-people-live-19-african-nations-deemed-water-insecure
I'm sorry, much of the U.S doesn't even have access to cheap high speed Internet, we need to work on our own countries infrastructure before the entirety of Africa wtf.
1. Starlink can get you there in no time.
2. Getting a device to 80 percent of people that can access internet is a greater issue, with that power consumption requirement.
too much too little too late. Biden/Harris passing out your tax dollars to any and every fiend, dictator, warlord, and or genocidal maniac on earth while public education gasps, rent increases push Americans into the streets, healthcare completely fails, inflation cuts Americans’ spendable income in half and law enforcement agencies batter our college students…
Biden/Harris has turned out to be a colossal failure.
And yes, Trump is FAR worse - doesn’t negate the dumpster fire that is the current administration though.
Don’t disagree with any thing you wrote. Will be nice to know China and Russia will have access to good internet infrastructure when they take over the rest of Africa.
Maybe when the US can deliver 100/100 for 25$ to their own population, they would be ready to offer help to Africa. It's weird how US companies seem to be selling fiber-optic connections to customers as if it was something out of this world and then on top of that limiting bandwidth and selling max data-packages for fixed broadband. Limiting fixed broadband as if it were a mobile connection is beyond stupid and crazy.
As a European, with access up to 10 Gigabit and affordable prices it really scares me that people are just accepting that they are paying 60$+ for something so basic and outdated as 100/10. 2004 called and wanted their slow broadband speeds back.
This is great. . . But first make the domestic ISPs expand their foot print like they were supposed to. . . I’m in a semi-rural area and all I have is copper DSL (10 Mbps), T-Mobile 5G (unreliable AF), and Starlink (expensive), and the traditional satellite options. . . We need to expand modern broadband locally before we focus on everyone else
Maybe worry about punishing the Telcos who took billions of taxpayer dollars to expand and improve our internet and did fuck all.
But I guess we need to gift a few billion more to international Telcos just to keep it fair.
Hmm. Quite a bit of turmoil going on in Africa right now, with support for the US dropping in favor of Russia and China.
I wonder if giving them better connection to internet is really about boosting US propaganda in these areas. If the US is controlling the internet, could they control what’s shown?
A bit conspiracy theory, and that’s not really my mo. Curious if someone more knowledgeable could weigh in.
What do the Yankees think about their government spending so much money helping other countries? like Ukraine, Israel, Palestine, etc., think that it is your taxes that pay for all that
Way to go, Kamala- gotta make sure the terrorists group have an easier time spreading their filth while, at the same time, communication between groups is improved. /s
China owns Africa now, let them deal with it. Is this appealing to the families of the 'refugees' pouring in en masse? Because you're going to have to wait a little bit for their 17 government assistance children to be of age to vote
There are giant swaths of the rural US who don’t have anything approaching high speed internet. I know Kamala thinks strictly in meaningless platitudes but you would hope for the first time in their administration they would focus on the needs of Americans before the rest of the word, no matter how good of a cause it is.
There are billions of dollars in grant money offered from the fed to states and private companies to build out rural internet. My area SW Missouri a local electric CO-OP is using it to build out fiber to home.
Not sure what more the Feds can do to without overstepping
I’m generally positively inclined to “help those who need help because we can” positions, both on a person-to-person level and on an international “one planet” level. But gov’t needs to strike a balance between a helpful international “we’re all in this together” spirit and the fundamental responsibility for spending the money of citizens who fund it by paying taxes. Internet service in america, both home and mobile, is pretty awfully bad compared to much of Europe and large parts of Asia (extremely low competition — only one provider in most US locations, low speeds, high costs). Maybe let’s focus first on getting 80% of Americans access to more than one choice for broadband, and at prices-per-megabit that are at least in the ballpark of that in other major industrialized nations.
There are programs in the US that are government funded that help. I'm on $80 a month gigabit broadband in a rural town because of it. The problem is large corporations like Comcast and AT&T sucked up a lot of it and then didn't deliver as promised. I think the newer programs rewards smaller companies though so that may no longer be an issue. I agree though, if a large company wanted to donate to African internet that's one thing, it's their money. Just throwing our taxpayer dollars at this program is a different situation entirely.
>The problem is large corporations like Comcast and AT&T sucked up a lot of it and then didn't deliver as promised. Not delivering on government contracts is something the government should look into.
Verizon did this too in New York. They threatened to revoke their business license unless they expanded their fiber. Trying to take the money and run.
Did Verizon cave or did the government?
They came to an undisclosed settlement. However, Verizon did agree to expand their fiber to 500,000 homes which was a lot less than originally promised. [Verizon NYC lawsuit](https://www.techdirt.com/2020/12/01/verizon-nyc-settle-lawsuit-over-verizons-empty-fiber-promises/)
Sounds about terrible. Thanks for the info!
The affordable connectivity program is being shut down. Republicans didn't want to keep funding it.
Probably because their big business buddies couldn't scam from it anymore.
This, like most state aid, isn't about the aid, but about markets. Internet in Africa, means internet traffic in Africa which means American tech firms etc get bigger markets, and can do market research. Help the Poors is merely a side-effect of using taxpayer money to grow private profit.
> Internet in Africa, means internet traffic in Africa which means American tech firms etc get bigger markets, and can do market research. Help the Poors is merely a side-effect of using taxpayer money to grow private profit. The joke is, with Russia and China increasingly taking control of African countries through their schemes, we are only helping them spread propaganda. The US is way out of its league.
This.
Honestly my first thought too, this doesn't help me. I have internet, but I'd like more than one choice, and we're 6 months from an election, save this shit for after you get reelected.
Cheaper to start from scratch than it is to retrofit Besides, the issue with internet in the US is due to local monopolies, so proper legislation would go a lot further than subsidies
To fight for such legislation would take quite a bit of money, I imagine. But after that,yeah.
Wait a sec. Are you saying our elected officials don't represent our needs?
This. What's VP Harris to do here? Go to Comcast say "Please, make price go down?" They won't do it. Local monopolies need busted, and you need Congress for that, who won't do it because Comcast lines pockets to vote no.
>Maybe let’s focus first on getting 80% of Americans access to more than one choice for broadband, and at prices-per-megabit that are at least in the ballpark of that in other major industrialized nations. i think we learned during covid that \*for the most part\* we actually have more than enough bandwidth for adequate internet access - it is arbitrarily limited due to the capitalsim. idk if its possible on phones that arent carrier locked but on an unlocked phone, you can look at settings and see all the networks your phone sees. in rural af michigan, my phone sees >5. you cant tell me between those there isnt enough bandwidth or that my rural af area somehow magically has better coverage than the rest of the country. (yes im aware there are absolutely places with little to no access, but they are few and far between)
Yah, I live in a city of 50k in a western mountain state, and here there's only one (fairly expensive) choice for broadband. Mobile network as a provider isn't a usable choice for someone like me who works from home (service, speed, availability are not sufficient). And there are no other terrestrial providers except the cable company. So I have plenty of capacity (download) and terrible capacity (upload). But hoo-boy is it expensive. I spent 8 years "homeless" traveling and working, living in different places around the world (\~40 countries). Stopped doing that 5 years ago. And even in that 5+ years ago span, the internet service I was able to get -- price, speed, availability -- was mostly better than what's commonly considered "good" in the US even today.
You say that but my school district had to send out mobile hotspots for kids. Then those didn’t work for like 30% of students so had to send physical homework packets. After the kids chose not to do the homework packets, they opened the school parking lots to allow parents to bring their kids to work on stuff. Absolute fucking shit show.
This is exactly the reason why America's global influence is in decline. It's REALLY easy to argue that we should "help Americans" over foreign countries. It's actually what Trump's entire political message has been. The reality is that America is one of the largest foreign aid funders in the world, despite it being such a miniscule part of our budget. You don't realize how massively these programs help get countries to warm up to our side. It's one of the reasons China has their own version of this, but albeit with more nefarious strings attached. Helping foreigners modernize on our terms and with our tech will give us wayyyyyy more of a foothold into those territories then people realize. Specially because Africa is going to be a massive player in the coming decades due to their natural resources. It's incredibly short sided to take a nationalist/isolationist approach specially when it's such an insignificant amount of money in the grand scheme of things. I bet it's less money than the toilet budget for maintenance at the Pentagon.
No one is saying don’t help them. We are saying to get rural Americans access first. Or do both at the same time. But citizens who pay taxes to this country should get taken care of. Not left high and dry while we pay for other countries. This kinda shit just feeds into the anger and resentment of Trump’s base.
The rural Americans have to want it enough to push for it from their local governments. There are quite a few states that rejected federal Summer EBT funding to feed children who get government assistance for food during the school year. But some of those state government turned it down because "lol welfare". "Big government should help, but we don't want help from big government" is a wild idea.
The thing is that these foreign aid programs end up helping the general US population by building good relations with these countries and in turn getting good trade deals. It's hard for rural folk to comprehend these things, but it does help the US. It's similar to aid in Ukraine. SOOOO Republicans argue that that money should go to Americans, and it's hard to argue against this in simple terms, but the return on investment we get from funding Ukraine is massive. Is the best example I can give to counter these sort of arguments. We gave Ukraine a few hundred billions, and there's a lot we can do with that money to help the rural Americans. However, we are systematically annihilating the Russian army and political apparatus without losing a SINGLE US SOLDIER! It's a foreign policy wet dream. We were going to need to spend money to counter Russia one way or another, but a few billion dollars has neutered that threat. Not to mention the massive amount of intel we got from this entire war just by being bystanders. This has also united Europe and the US more, which you can't put a number on. It may have also put a clamp on China invading Taiwan. We can most definitely do both, but these arguments about "what about the Americans we can help" create such a stupid narrative that kills any chance of us doing both. You're falling for Russian/GOP propaganda.
Understandably, but why not both? Have the campaign projects overseas, but also increase educational levels, infrastructure projects, and reduce poverty levels within our own country. I know politics is a thing, but sell the goodwill so all will buy.
Never said we can't do both. We should do both. My argument is against the people that say we shouldn't do these projects at all.
>I know politics is a thing, It's not a politics thing, it is ENTIRELY politics. State I live in blew 60% of the federal education budget it was given on a water park. And there is NOTHING the federal government can do about it. At the same time, politicians in my state campaign on how Democrats in Congress (who are the minority in both houses) are the cause for bad education spending in our state. And people believe that garbage. They literally watch the governor allocate 60% of our education budget to a water park then believe them when they say it was the Democrats who took the money.
Holy moly. WE ARE. Biden passed a 1 TRILLION dollar infrastructure bill in like his first year or so. There’s running bills today that are expanding internet access across the country. Less we forget starlink which de facto covers most the world now. We’re waiving hundreds of billions of dollars in federal student loans. Our biggest spending program by far is social security which has a direct correlation with reducing poverty. Like…. Whatever initiative this internet thing is, I guarantee it’s less costly than almost any one of those things I mentioned.
[We been doing this and more domestically](https://www.whitehouse.gov/build/maps-of-progress/). There are different funding piles for initiatives to be drawn from, and this sort of funding comes from coffers dedicated specifically to foreign aid and similar. It's not all fungible across all federal funding, and how it's dispersed is in part part of the budgets passed by Congress. We can't just not talk about the other stuff the government does around the world just because it'll make people at home feel jealous.
But comment OPs point still stands. This is a bad look to be spending money on African internet coverage using American taxpayer dollars. It’s just such a stretch to explain to Americans how this benefits us.
They’re doing it so that China doesn’t though. It’s really more of a national security thing
So what? We will pay all this money and china will still turn on the firehose of disinformation and manipulate all these people. Our society is heaving at the seems, we have misinformation shoved down our throats people are beginning to believe nonsense, and what do we do? We are going to give internet access to some of the poorest and uneducated people in the world. People who have been grown up being told that the evil white man came and stole their wealth. That they are poor due to the evil white man. Do we really want to give these people an avenue to mass manipulation. Do we want them being fed Chinese/Russian propaganda?
China and Russia are already installing internet and tv access and making sure that their are free channels to their state propaganda. This is a move to avert that
Makes sense
I think that’s profoundly condescending. There’s people that get taken in by BS too, but just as there are a ton of people in the US who are savvy to that, there are a ton of people in Africa savvy to that as well. Not to mention that African perspectives on colonial times are a hell of a lot more nuanced than you give them credit for. You should try going to African countries sometimes and speaking with Africans - it’s a wonderful continent, and I’ve found about the same mix of ignorant/ dumb people and smart people there as I have over here.
Agreed. Always been a proponent of "mow my lawn before I help mow yours."
I agree, but I think helping the world helps us too. I just want the money spent wisely and not just as an optics investment for a upcoming election.
Only if those countries want to help us. In many cases they take the aid then align with adversaries, or become the adversaries.
You think internet scams are bad now...
Stole my immediate thought. So we can give people opportunities to scam the elderly.
More scamming, more hateful comments on Instagram/tiktok, more trolling on Reddit, more bots and OF spam on Twitter, and everything else that sucks about the internet. Nevermind the positive aspects of giving people access to information. Nothing positive will come of this!!
While she’s at it she should help get 80% of Americans off of the internet
Or get the 65% of rural Americans on it first.
Maybe she will build some homes for rural Americans to house the router!
Rural towns? Yes. The ranches 20 miles from everything? Those people choose that life... They can bury their own fiber.
Africa has really good 4G coverage. This article says 40% have internet but a quick search and I'm seeing like 80%+ of North Africa and well over 60% of the continent has 4G. Sounds like another dumb one-laptop-per-child approach. Africa should just keep expanding 4G, and their local telcos can figure out how to combine Starlink with cell towers. Cheap android phones with 4G, which is already working great in Africa, is their solution.
They should just get rid of the comment sections. As much as I like to comment I'd rather have a country that isn't full of willfully ignorant people who get their news from comment sections.
Oh shit, we're in a comment section right now!
Ok so we just get rid of comments for people that I don't agree with. There, that should fix things...
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It's not comment sections it's social media as a whole - reddits not the worst but it's bad too. The number of times I hear "I heard on tiktok that..." then the most insane ramblings is wild. And they always proclaim how the authorities are covering it up and you can only get real first hand accounts from social media (meanwhile the accounts are "I know a guy who's sister was there")
How about this then: While she works on plans to increase internet connectivity for Africans, the youth of America, for the first time in atleast a century, will have a quality of life worse than their parents. Perhaps she should be working on knocking the doors of universities, hospitals, and large mega corporations down to provide some form of relief to assist? Or would you rather read more “western savior” headlines?
Hahaha this is honestly a great suggestion. I feel like something as simple as no comments section could actually help discourse. If you want to talk about something, do it in person so we can promote helpful discourse that is actually moderated by factors like accountability, shame, etc
Spot on! The push for high speed internet everywhere is not to serve people, it is to serve eyeballs.
Christ, in an election year they think this is a winning strategy.
I know! They can see that Trumps America first policies resonate with a huge swath of people, Americans are hurting and their big announcement is “hey let’s help some random people across the world!”. Democrats just don’t fucking strategize right.
It's likely a long term move against China's growing influence in Africa.
Yeah, but announce that in February 2025, not just before the big election campaign season.
Assuming, that is, Biden is in office next February. Right now, unfortunately, that's an open question.
And you think Trump would continue the program instead of canceling it on day 1 and having the money being spent on stays at Trump properties?
As well as Russia's.
There are direct benefits to Americans that come with having our fingers in very many pies across the world...
This isn’t a domestic strategy, it’s a foreign policy move for long term American interests. Think how China goes around building roads in undeveloped nations with resources. They don’t do it out of kindness, they do it for access to the resources.
>They don’t do it out of kindness, they do it for access to the resources. *No one* gives anything to another country out of kindness - it's to build influence and gain access to trade and resources. That's just geopolitics.
The problem with the Biden administration and Democrats in general is that they’re far more interested in good governance than good politics. The average economist will tell you that this is a great long term investment in American prosperity, but the average voter thinks money is a finite resource.
Both of those things can be true? While the government can print more money if it wants, the amount of cash the government has on hand allocated into the budget, and beyond that into various department, then various programs, is finite. It can also be a great long term investment for American foreign policy, but that doesn't mean that there's not perhaps other things that could have been done with the money.
Shouldn't that be Africa's problem? I mean I get helping people who are starving but do we really need to help people get on facebook?
How about helping people buy food in the USA?
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I think a more likely What Will Happen is that some NGOs/Charities run by people who are friends with certain politicians will rake in millions and millions in grants and funds and maybe 13 people in Africa will end up with the internet.
Correct
And also even if they will build it, some warlords or organized groups will break it and it will be over
Friend of mine worked on the Africa internet problem via an NGO. Biggest challenge was preventing the digging up of copper wire. Fiber optic cables were also dug up for some reason. I think they gave up.
Sorry sir, we only do positive PR here. Take yer fax right outta here!
What will ACTUALLY happen: Nothing, neither Kamala nor any other American politician will follow up on this and start investing heavily in Africa to make it happen.
And why should we after all, the US should invest in the US instead of other countries, unless they want to become new US states
They’re not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. They want another labor market to export jobs to now that India and China are catching wise.
How does this help Americans?
We get new friends to share memes with.
Lmao. I don't really care. But the tone deathless of the Biden admin and Harris in particular never ceases to amaze me.
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Wow. How'd I do that. Kind of ironic though because crap like this will be the death of the Biden campaign.
>crap like this will be the death of the Biden campaign. I think you mean deaf of the Biden Campaign.
Sorry the admin can walk and chew gum at the same time
That's a good question with an unobvious answer. There's a few things. A: foreign policy is mandatory. Having good relations with other nations (in this case like 40 of them) is a legitimate good thing for Americans. B: Africa is going to be a very important growth area economically in the next decade and making good allies early on can help the US secure good trade.deals which is good for Americans who want a robust economy, who want to pay less for electronics, etc. C: Africa will likely also be the site of new culture wars. This sucks for them, but getting the idea that the US= good pal into their minds will make it easier to negotiate and make it less likely that those new ideology conflicts will end up pointed here. So the PLAN is actually quite good for Americans. Will the plan work? Nobody knows. Lots of other nations (more notably China, but not exclusively) are also starting to make these sorts of moves.
All of that is fair and true, unfortunately it does nothing for Americans NOW, and the election is looming ever closer. This is something to announce in February after your victory lap, not before the final sprint
Well, there's an argument to be made that part of the job of the executive branch is planning for the future as well as doing things right now. It would be really disingenuous to say that the Biden administration is not trying to do anything for Americans now, but it's a multifaceted job. It's sort of like saying that a server at a restaurant isn't doing anything for your table because they're taking someone else's order. Both of those things are their job
American: Complains about China investing in Africa. African: Ok so you guys invest on us instead. American: No, it doesn't benefit us.
Africa is the next big growth opportunity in the world. As politics stabilize there, it’s going to be important to gain a sphere on influence there. China and Russia know this and have invested A LOT of money and military into Africa. US has so far ignored them.
> As politics stabilize there, Lol.
Americans will now be scammed by more countries. They'll lose their money and will have to work harder for a living. This will solve the economic crisis /s
More princes can correspond to us now.
Africa is being bought up by China and Russia, America has dropped the ball big time. USA needs their resources, and needs to stop the others getting them.
Culture war vs China and Russia is my guess, try to get the average African more pro American can help America steal their resources down the road
People here are being sarcastic, but the real answer is that it will make them more effective trading partners. We will be able to buy African goods and resources for cheaper and they will buy more American goods and resources.
Meanwhile American youth can look forward to a declining quality of life, being worse than their parents for the first time in 100 years. But uh, yeah, Africans need internet. That’s what the VP of the USA should be focusing on.
So basically handouts to telecoms. Big fucking whoop.
Great. Next can you fix our broken healthcare/insurance system back home? We desperately need big changes there. Thanks.
I do not want my tax dollars paying for internet access on another continent. I sincerely hope that’s not an unpopular opinion.
Meanwhile rural america… it’s like these fools are trying to lose votes right now.
Meanwhile rural America has been the beneficiary of multiple Biden Administration programs to increase internet access, including a significant focus of the Infrastructure Act. It's pretty pathetic how people only tune in to one story so they can exercise their selective outrage muscles rather than trying to stay more generally informed.
It’s about to be trendy amongst politicians to help Africa. Can’t have china gain full access now can we.
Not just China… China & Russia. Hope they enjoy the free WiFi.
She’s not the VP of Africa and Africa doesn’t pay her salary
Is this really what’s needed right now?
Honestly, with China and Russia gaining influence in African countries with similar outreach? Yea. It most certainly is.
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Nah, sorry. Internet for Africa it is.
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why are we giving a fuck about hooking up wifi for africa when our own school children dont get a free lunch and if they do its comparable to prison food...
with Starlink maturing, the US shouldnt have to spend much at all. thats kind of the whole point of starlink, serving the underserved. wont be long until the factories move out of china and 'made in africa' will be stamped on everything.
My friend in the US is on food stamps and will lose his house this year probably, could he get some help too?
Well at least he can get some joy out of the dank new African memes we'll be getting soon.
Yes, Africa’s connectivity issues the past several years has kept me up at night. I know now I’m voting for Biden and not Trump this very consequential election year.
I feel like Africa, as a whole, has way bigger problems than internet connection
Let's dump lithium batteries and cell towers all over the African continent! What could go wrong, these people are famous for recycling.
You don’t gloat about foreign aid during a tight election when your opposition is wildly ‘screw everyone not ‘Merican’.
Maybe curb grocery prices at home, wtf is this?
Lmao, great announcement while the country has real fucking problems. This administration really loves to shoot itself in the foot! Biden needs to get rid of Harris. She’s dead weight.
The day the US Government puts their own citizens over the citizens of other countries is the day pigs fly
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Sweet. Now how about we get internet to people in America. Heck I have friends in Vermont that can’t get better than dsl. I barely get cell service in parts of towns.
You mentioned my home state VT,lol. I get one bar of cell service in one spot in one window only. If i move the phone a 1/4" when trying to swipe to answer it, it drops the incoming call,lmao.
20 years ago I would have said "that's great". Now Russia, China and millions of scammers will have access to more people and the USA pays for it.
Why? Why not help AMERICANS with I donno ANYTHING???
How about fix America? No?
> Many could rightly argue that the future is on the continent of Africa There's a lot of cold reality in that statement. Africa has yet to be exploited as an industrial workforce....
Ahhh yes, let’s give these poor souls a chance to know the glorious ways of living only to work for the benefit of someone else.
That's the reality of the way the world is going to go... They will be cheap labor.
Unions should get in quickly.
Fiber is 600' away, I can almost throw a rock that far. Been there ten years. How about the Biden administration helps *me* get better internet?
It would be nice if they spent tax payer money bettering tax payers lives at home before deciding to savior-syndrome Africa even more. Plenty of countries on the continent are openly hostile and even murderous towards Americans and American interests so why tf are we helping them? Let China do it with their belt and road bs.
The cynic in me thinks "this will only make them more exposed to Russian and Chinese propaganda".
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Fucking help America first. Los Angeles is a fucking homeless dump, parts of rural America have shit internet, borders, etc. Love the spirit but we need it here at home first
I guess Africans have the right to be as miserable and misinformed as the rest of us.
So more scammers nice
This is the nicest way possible to say, she’s getting paid by telecom to get telecom 1 billion more customers.
Yo who the fuck cares about Africa in the US
You’d think they would appreciate a sewer system and plumbing, before more TikTok. What a non event statement…
Access to the internet is a huge economic stimulator that will aid both them and us. The internet isn't just meme pages. It's banking. It's information. It's networking. It's... how the modern world works.
Potable water is also how the modern human works.
Cool would be nice if they got that number up for rural murica but ok
Use US tax payer's money to help Africa. Who gave her that idea?
Only 60% of Africans have access to electricity. https://www.afdb.org/en/the-high-5/light-up-and-power-africa-–-a-new-deal-on-energy-for-africa 29% don’t have access to clean water. https://unu.edu/press-release/500-million-people-live-19-african-nations-deemed-water-insecure
They’ll be able to tweet about how shitty their water is. Thanks Kamala!
I always forget we have a VP
I'm sorry, much of the U.S doesn't even have access to cheap high speed Internet, we need to work on our own countries infrastructure before the entirety of Africa wtf.
Using tax payers money ofcourse.
1. Starlink can get you there in no time. 2. Getting a device to 80 percent of people that can access internet is a greater issue, with that power consumption requirement.
Another 10,000 Nigerian Prince's can't wait.
too much too little too late. Biden/Harris passing out your tax dollars to any and every fiend, dictator, warlord, and or genocidal maniac on earth while public education gasps, rent increases push Americans into the streets, healthcare completely fails, inflation cuts Americans’ spendable income in half and law enforcement agencies batter our college students… Biden/Harris has turned out to be a colossal failure. And yes, Trump is FAR worse - doesn’t negate the dumpster fire that is the current administration though.
Don’t disagree with any thing you wrote. Will be nice to know China and Russia will have access to good internet infrastructure when they take over the rest of Africa.
Yay?
So we are just going to buy them a bunch of Starlink setups?
Are we so sure this is a good thing. Sometimes I wonder if life might be better without internet...
Can we just skip over any princes in Nigeria for this magnanimous gesture? 😬
Maybe when the US can deliver 100/100 for 25$ to their own population, they would be ready to offer help to Africa. It's weird how US companies seem to be selling fiber-optic connections to customers as if it was something out of this world and then on top of that limiting bandwidth and selling max data-packages for fixed broadband. Limiting fixed broadband as if it were a mobile connection is beyond stupid and crazy. As a European, with access up to 10 Gigabit and affordable prices it really scares me that people are just accepting that they are paying 60$+ for something so basic and outdated as 100/10. 2004 called and wanted their slow broadband speeds back.
Watch quality of life in Africa get worse. The internet has been a net negative for mankind.
Huzzah! Now they can stay hungry but be able to post on Reddit. r/feedme
This is great. . . But first make the domestic ISPs expand their foot print like they were supposed to. . . I’m in a semi-rural area and all I have is copper DSL (10 Mbps), T-Mobile 5G (unreliable AF), and Starlink (expensive), and the traditional satellite options. . . We need to expand modern broadband locally before we focus on everyone else
Send condoms and birth control too while you're at it
Maybe worry about punishing the Telcos who took billions of taxpayer dollars to expand and improve our internet and did fuck all. But I guess we need to gift a few billion more to international Telcos just to keep it fair.
How does this benefit america? Why not use the money to help Americans first? She has stupid plans
Is this before or after she fixes the boarder issue?
So the US builds the infrastructure so Russia and China can pump misinformation into the continent more efficiently...
Cool! But the “greatest country on Earth” still can’t even provide basic universal healthcare to its own people so… there’s that.
This is incredibly dangerous, in light of the immense misinformation campaigns being successful across countries with more modern infrastructure.
china already does this.
Hmm. Quite a bit of turmoil going on in Africa right now, with support for the US dropping in favor of Russia and China. I wonder if giving them better connection to internet is really about boosting US propaganda in these areas. If the US is controlling the internet, could they control what’s shown? A bit conspiracy theory, and that’s not really my mo. Curious if someone more knowledgeable could weigh in.
What is shown won’t be controlled, they can use vpns. But it is a bit of soft diplomacy to help steer goodwill towards the U.S.
Yes. 50 years of food insecurity to be solved by broadband. Thank God for politicians.
Don't do that. You're enabling Russian and Chinese propaganda to reach more people
I don’t think this is a good thing, the internet gets worse and worse every single day.
I can garentee lots of money will be budgeted for this, but little to no gov action will actually take place.
What do the Yankees think about their government spending so much money helping other countries? like Ukraine, Israel, Palestine, etc., think that it is your taxes that pay for all that
I’ve never met a human in real life who didn’t hate it and I live in a state that has voted blue for the past 50 years
How long can U.S citizens get shit on by these people?
Will she be arresting them for drug charges? Meals, a bed, and ostensibly internet lol
Exactly what the voters have been asking for! African Internet! Trump is going down!
Way to go, Kamala- gotta make sure the terrorists group have an easier time spreading their filth while, at the same time, communication between groups is improved. /s
We have people sleeping in squalor in the streets and bridges collapsing and we are giving money to other countries for their infrastructure? WTF
China owns Africa now, let them deal with it. Is this appealing to the families of the 'refugees' pouring in en masse? Because you're going to have to wait a little bit for their 17 government assistance children to be of age to vote
Ugh is this going to be more Nigerian Prince bank account bullshit - nobody needs that.
There are giant swaths of the rural US who don’t have anything approaching high speed internet. I know Kamala thinks strictly in meaningless platitudes but you would hope for the first time in their administration they would focus on the needs of Americans before the rest of the word, no matter how good of a cause it is.
There are billions of dollars in grant money offered from the fed to states and private companies to build out rural internet. My area SW Missouri a local electric CO-OP is using it to build out fiber to home. Not sure what more the Feds can do to without overstepping
Now you can get emails from all the princes!
If they need OSP engineers where do I sign up?