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Flashmag November 2019 www.flashmag.net
Nowadays, while netizens complain about the lack of confidence they have in cybernetic entities such as GAFA, very few know that since the beginning of research on the Internet and the development of computers, there is a great deal of connivance that links universities, research institutes, and technology companies that since the 70's have always worked closely with the US government during and after the cold war. Also, it is logical that the creations like Facebook or Google or even Apple, and Microsoft, in a way make allegiance to the US government , which with the DARPA (Advanced Defense Research Projects Agency) has greatly contributed to their development in digital technology and the Internet. Huawei's accusations of collusion with the Chinese government are nothing new. Advanced technology is a strategic sector in all the nations of the world.
Apart from the technical point of view the internet works, thanks to the natural resources that help to design the logistics. Also, lanthanides, are crucial in the manufacture of technological materials. The world's reserves of these materials are half owned by China, followed by the United States and Russia, and to a lesser extent Canada and South America. "Coltan" is another of its valuable resources, it is widely used in the manufacture of capacitors and components of mobile phones or computers. 70% of the world's reserves of this component are held by the Democratic Republic of Congo. Also, if the Chinese and the Americans can negotiate their natural resources at a high price, this is not the case for the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has since been prey to the predation of foreign multinationals that are robbing natural resources while destabilizing the country. weak countries and unstructured states are a godsend for the capitalization of profits, the ransoms paid to the warlords for the exploitation of resources, being a micron of the normal taxation that a sovereign country would claim. And worse in the recycling of toxic waste from the use of the Internet, the underdeveloped countries are becoming more and more the dumping ground of the developed world, with the consequences that we know on the environment as on population health.
Hubert Marlin
Journalist