'DELETING AFRICAN STREAM, BUT NOT BBC?'

Africans across the continent and worldwide are outraged about tech giants banning African Stream across YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok and Gmail. In this video, Seun Kuti, musician, singer and Pan-Africanist organiser with @MOVEMENTOFTHEP1 (on X) (and son of revolutionary African music icon Fela Kuti) spoke up about the hypocrisy of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken claiming African Stream is ‘secretly run’ by RT.

How can the United States denounce African Stream for supposedly ‘attempting to influence US elections’ and allegedly representing ‘foreign interests’ when BBC and CNN are allowed to spread information designed to influence African audiences?

The BBC and Voice of America (VOA) are state-funded media that explicitly promote pro-British and pro-US interests, respectively. BBC says it aims to ‘reflect the United Kingdom, its culture and values to the world.’ Voice of America (VOA) is even more explicit in its mission. The US Agency for Global Media states on its website, ‘The long-range interests of the United States are served by communicating directly with the peoples of the world by radio.’ 

So, BBC can work to spread British values, and the US can create worldwide radio programmes to serve US interests, but Africans are not allowed to have a media platform that works for African interests? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Video credit: @bigbirdkuti on IG, @realseunkuti on X