Communications Minister Says SA Can't Rely on the West for Social Media Apps, New Mxit Needed

• Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, the Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies says it is high-time Mzansi created its own social media platform
• Ntshavheni says Mxit's success is proof that the country has developers capable of successful social networks
• She has called on the government to support developers so that South Africa can stop depending on the West for apps like Facebook

JOHANNESBURG - The newly-appointed Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies Khumbudzo Ntshavheni seems to have a simple solution to future Facebook outages in South Africa.

Ntshavheni has suggested that Mzansi needs its own social media platform, similar to the once-popular app Mxit.

She highlighted that the recent blackout from Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram, is a clear indication that the South African government should be investing in its own platforms, according to a report by Fin24.

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Ntshavheni has called for developers to be supported in creating apps so that South Africa no longer relies on the West for key-communication apps.

The Communications' Minister added that the state technological entity Sita is working with the Department of Science and Innovation to create South African social media platforms.

According to The South African, Ntshavheni went on to say the years of success Mxit had in the country is clear evidence that the country is capable of creating its own platforms.

In July 2013, Mxit had a total of 7.4 million active users and 6.3 million of the users were from Mzansi. The platform was shut down in 2015 after its subscribers dropped to just under 1.5 million.

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“Zucks to be you”: Nandos finally reacts to Facebook outage, South Africa’s response may leave you surprised

Briefly News previously reported that if there's one thing we can always rely on, Nando's is constantly there with witty jokes and cheeky punchlines when something major happens.

Now, they have finally responded to the social media outage which saw Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram unavailable for close to six hours. However, the response from Mzansi may shock you.

These platforms are owned collectively by Mark Zuckerberg, so naturally, the eatery poked fun at the internet entrepreneur. The post was shared on 5 October and has close to 300 retweets and over 2 000 likes.

It is cleverly captioned:

"You don’t have social media updates to prove it? Zucks to be you! #InternetShutDown."

Source: Briefly News