mmhhh...talk of technology controlling society.
I can't parse this one, sorry.
I got wind of this in a tweet. Someone tweeted the link as "watch Google watching governments watch Google watching you" But my question is why no data exits from African governments. It certainly is NOT because there is not content out there that is offensive to us! Recently, our attention was called to a blog of guy named Harris Kupperman. adventuresincapitalism.com This fellow had written not just lies about Abidjan and Côte d'Ivoire, but was giving this as professional investment advice. So we hyped up a campaign, among individuals. The blog was posted midnight April 7th and by the next day, the blog was off! I think he got more than his fair share of citizen activists giving him a backlash. I have posted my reply and his reply below. ================= ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Harris Kupperman <hkuppy@pracap.com> Date: Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 9:33 PM Subject: RE: Ask Kuppy comment on No Investment Is Worth Dying For.... To: Nnenna <nnenna75@gmail.com> Nnenna, I am writing an investment guide. A how to? I want this to be factually accurate. The events that happened to me were accurate. I seem to have bungled a bit of the history. I took the article down until I could correct it?so your comments are greatly appreciated. Just because someone is elected, that doesn?t mean he?s popular?look at our last president here in the US. I did not realize that Citibank did not have a building there. I did see the logo prominently displayed on at least one building. My main mistake is in regard to the gun shots/damage to the city downtown. I will correct that. It looked run down, but not blown down. My error. Some of the locals had told us the damage was caused by the military and I did not ask specific enough questions about that. I have not been back since November 2007 and I haven?t followed current events as closely as I should have, but my understanding is that things continue to improve and that I was right to go and look there for investments (many have done well) but was inexperienced on Africa and scared thoroughly to be held at gunpoint by semi-official looking people. I do not know if they were officially military/police or some other paramilitary group. Ivory Coast just seemed like semi-organized chaos to me. I?m sure if I spent more time there I would have felt more comfortable, but I was just scared out of town?and I lived for 5 years in New Orleans which is one of the most dangerous places in the world. Thanks for your comments. I am revising the piece. HK From: kuppy@adventuresincapitalism.com [mailto:kuppy@adventuresincapitalism.com] Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 5:36 AM To: kuppy@adventuresincapitalism.com Subject: Ask Kuppy comment on No Investment Is Worth Dying For.... And you wrote this on April 7, 2010? Three years later? Is that the time it took you to find these pictures? I am not Ivorian but I have been here since 1998. So every single 'trouble' I saw. If it is Laurent Gbagbo you refer to as the French-backed President, then you are more than 100% wrong. If you also think he is unpopular, then you did forget that he WON elections. CITIBANK does not have any building in Abidjan. The share the same building opposite Pyramide with Swiss Embassy. Below it is a pharmacy. There is not a single building in Plateau that has gun shots. The only places where guys where shot in 2002 were military buildings. In 2004, there was an incident between the youth and the French army. That happened at hotel Ivoire. There was not any kind of looting around there. Oh, by the way, the Annual Meeting of the African Development Bank is taking place in that hotel later this year. Its renovation is finished. They are now painting the outside. I run a consultancy here. I can say it might not be a smooth as the people would want it, but it is certainly nothing near what you are saying.. I will suggest you delete the blog. Post: No Investment Is Worth Dying For.... ============================================== Nnenna Nwakanma | Founder and CEO, NNENNA.ORG | Consultants Information | Communications | Technology and Events | for Development Rue des Jardins, Près de Ste Cecile | Tel: 225 27144 | Fax 224 26471 Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire (+225) | http://www.nnenna.org | nnenna@nnenna.org Your multi-lingual development and event partners across Africa.