So What If “African Stream” is Spreading Anti-West Propaganda?
The US De-platformed “African Stream,” a Pan-African Digital Media Organization, for Being “A Kremlin Propagandist” Funded by RT–Russia Today
On 13th September, Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State, accused “African Stream (AS),” a Pan-African digital media organization, of being a Kremlin propagandist. He said,
“RT also secretly runs the online platform African Stream across a wide range of social media platforms. Now, according to the outlet’s website, “African Stream is” – and I quote – “a pan-African digital media organization based exclusively on social media platforms, focused on giving a voice to all Africans both at home and abroad.” In reality, the only voice it gives is to Kremlin propagandists.”
RT, formerly known as Russia Today, is Russia’s English-language news channel, which operates on free-to-air channels and the Internet.
24 hours after Blinken’s press briefing, YouTube de-platformed African Stream, and 72 hours later, Meta (Instagram, Facebook, and Threads) removed all its pages. It’s been three weeks since, and African Stream remains de-platformed.
As of 1st October, TikTok had also banned the media platform; Google had blocked it from its services (Gmail and Drive), and Stripe, the financial services provider behind X, had it blacklisted.
Now, I’m not an African Stream loyalist who will swear up and down that Russia does not fund the media organization. I don’t know enough to make a conclusion and haven’t seen any evidence proving or disproving the claim. However, so what?
So what if Russia is funding the African Stream?
Does the United States think Africans are too stupid to determine whether African Stream’s content serves Africa’s interest or is Russian propaganda? Even if it is propaganda, hasn’t the US also spent decades spewing propaganda through its pro-US media?
Nobody came to the conclusion that America is the all-perfect, kind, and generous benefactor on their own. A lot of deliberate work went into that. The United States has an entire agency (the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) dedicated to broadcasting the US agenda outside the United States.
The agency is an arm of United States diplomacy, and the primary goal of USAGM-affiliated media is to present the United States to foreign audiences in a positive light.
USAGM thus administers:
Voice of America (VOA): a media network that broadcasts all over the world, and especially Africa
Radio Free Asia: A radio network that broadcasts in Asia
Radio Sawa: A radio station targeting the Middle East
Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty: radio broadcast based in Europe
Alhurra: Satellite television targeting the Middle East
Radio and Television Marti: Television and radio network targeting Cuba
Radio Farda: A radio station based in Iran
If the US can put this much work into propaganda reaching audiences outside America, why can't Russia?
That does not mean I am a Russian proponent. Russia is equally a cancer in the continent. Yes, the country markets itself as a paragon of anti-colonialism, but history books tell a different story.
In 1897, Lieutenant Grigorii Chertkov led a delegation to Ethiopia in the guise of establishing a diplomatic mission. The actual mission sanctioned by the Russian Emperor, Nicholas II, was to find a way to bring Ethiopia into the Russian imperial fold through colonization.
One of Lieutenant Grigorii’s rules, often repeated to his crew, was, “Remember, you are white, a man of the superior race.” (You can read all about Russia’s mission to Ethiopia in this archive, but please use Google Translate because it is in Russian).
So this is not about defending Russia. It is about the shameless, over-handed puppet master tendencies of the United States. Do you know what a puppet master does? They covertly control. The US has decided they have the right to covertly control what 1.3 billion people thousands of miles away think.
That is rage-inducing, and it should piss you off. Africans have the right to listen to extreme sides of whichever argument and determine what to think for themselves. More than that, for every African Stream, which may be a bit anti-west, there is an African Insider or the New African Channel that provides nuanced and balanced analyses.
The idea that Africans cannot discern the difference between pro-African content and propaganda is honestly hypocritical. It also carries with it racial undertones–this belief that Africans are not smart enough to think for themselves.
On X, after the news broke of African Stream’s de-platforming, the consensus was that Africa needs its own spaces.
So, the question becomes, do you think that's an achievable goal?
When Elon Musk first introduced subscriptions on Twitter (X), Rebecca Enochong, a leading tech entrepreneur in the continent and the founder of AppsTech, had an interesting take.
She noted that many in Africa could not afford it, which would only result in US/Europe-based account recommendations. In turn, those on the continent would miss out on local and relevant accounts and community discussions.
Someone suggested the solution many are recommending now—build social networks for Africans by Africans.
This was her response:
The solution is not creating geographical silos but keeping the global conversation going. Without content generated by millions in the Global North and South, Twitter would have no more value than those new apps created in the US for the alt-right or alt-left.
-Rebecca Enochong
Is that concern still valid today? If so, how will Africa build social platforms for Africa and by Africans while achieving the value generated by global perspectives and conversations?
On the other hand, Russia has prioritized homegrown solutions, and this has worked for them. Instead of Google, most Russians use Yandex. In 2022, after Russia blocked Meta and Twitter, most Russians shifted to VK (a Russian social media platform).
In China, the story is the same. Most popular US-based social platforms are blocked in the country.
If Russia and China are anything to go by, it is also possible for African spaces to be outside the reach of the long American arm. However, it will require a lot of goodwill from Africans.
As of 2024, there are two social media spaces built by and for Africans—Circo, launched in July this year, and Umojja, launched in 2021.
Both platforms have yet to gain notoriety on the continent, but maybe that’s an excellent place to start. What do you think? As an African, would you shift from TikTok and Meta to Circo?
I will be honest; I do not know, but I am willing to find out. As such, I already have a Circo account.
P.S. Should I contact the founders of Circo and Umojja and request an interview for a more in-depth conversation about this? Let me know in the comments.
Thank you for reading Africa: Not an Afterthought, where we lead the conversation on how Africa can leverage Tech, Trade (AfCFTA), regional integration, and pan-Africanism to build a continent that is no longer an afterthought.
Feel free to:
Yes! Go for it, I think an interview would be useful for enriching this conversation!
"Africans have the right to listen to extreme sides of whichever argument and determine what to think for themselves." The think for themselves bit would allow us to make our own economic choices and that's why Africans are still colonised, neo-colonised. We should not be allowed to make our own choices, because then we will enrich ourselves and foreigners will "lose access". If ever Pan-Africanism and African-controlled nuclear weapons were necessary, it is now.