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<div class="headline">Snap officially filed for an IPO on Thursday, and told investors it &#8220;may never achieve or maintain profitability.&#8221;</div>
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<p>Snapchat&#8217;s revenue growth is astounding — and so are its losses. Here are the highlights.</p>
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<li>Net revenue: $404.48 million in 2016, up from $58.66 million in 2015</li>
<li>Net loss: $514.64 million in 2016, wider than $372.89 million in 2015</li>
<li>Loss from operations: $520.39 million in 2016, wider than $381.73 million in 2015</li>
<li>Usage: 161 million daily active users in the December quarter (60 million daily active users in the United States and Canada)</li>
<li>Average revenue per user: $1.05 in the December quarter ($2.15 in North America)</li>
<li>Time spent: 25 to 30 minutes a day</li>
<li>Head count: 1,859 employees</li>
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<p><em>(All numbers are according to generally accepted accounting principles unless otherwise noted.)</em></p>
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<div class="attribution">That means the ephemeral messaging service grew revenue almost seven times in a year — but its losses outstripped its revenue.</div>
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<p>Snap also revealed that it will spend <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/02/snap-risks-s-1.html" target="_blank">$2 billion with Google Cloud over the next five years</a>, and that boss Evan Spiegel got nearly $900,000 of security services in 2016. The company sought in the filing to raise $3 billion. </p>
<p>&#8220;We have incurred operating losses in the past, expect to incur operating losses in the future, and may never achieve or maintain profitability,&#8221; <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1564408/000119312517029199/d270216ds1.htm" target="_blank" title="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1564408/000119312517029199/d270216ds1.htm" class="inline_asset">the filing said</a>. Other similar companies, like <a href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/TWTR" target="_blank" class="inline_quotes" data-gdsid="145284" data-inline-quote-symbol="TWTR">Twitter</a>, have also included similar language in their public offerings.</p>
<p>The Venice, California, company also noted that <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/02/how-snap-compares-with-facebook-and-twitter-when-they-went-public.html" target="_blank">unlike almost every public offering on the market</a>, the two co-founders will control &#8220;all stockholder decisions.&#8221; It will trade on the New York Stock exchange under the symbol &#8220;SNAP.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;Our two co-founders have control over all stockholder decisions because they control a substantial majority of our voting stock. &#8230; We are not aware of any other company that has completed an initial public offering of non-voting stock on a U.S. stock exchange. We therefore cannot predict the impact our capital structure and the concentrated control by our founders may have on our stock price or our business.&#8221;</p>
<p>Co-founders Spiegel and Bobby Murphy <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/02/snap-ipo-who-gets-rich.html" target="_blank">each own 20 percent of Snap</a>, according to the prospectus. Based on a valuation that could reportedly reach $25 billion at the time of the offering, each of them would own shares worth about $5 billion.</p>
<p>Drew Pascarella, a lecturer of finance at Cornell University&#8217;s business school, said that he thought investors would give Snap&#8217;s lack of disclosure a pass based on its initial success, but &#8220;will be relentless at first sight of trouble.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;Snap&#8217;s dismissive behavior towards its underwriting syndicate is not totally uncommon in the tech world, but it may be a sign of a potentially antagonistic relationship with future shareholders,&#8221; Pascarella said in a statement.</p>
<p>The company&#8217;s usage statistics also revealed how popular it is with teens, even if it&#8217;s less so with adults. </p>
<p>&#8220;The majority of our users are 18-34 years old,&#8221; the filing said. &#8220;This demographic may be less brand loyal and more likely to follow trends than other demographics &#8230; Snapchat also may not be able to penetrate other demographics in a meaningful manner. For example, users 25 and older visited Snapchat approximately 12 times and spent approximately 20 minutes on Snapchat every day on average in the quarter ended December 31, 2016, while users younger than 25 visited Snapchat over 20 times and spent over 30 minutes on Snapchat every day on average during the same period.&#8221; </p>
<p>Still, the company has a diverse revenue stream: No single advertiser or content partner accounts for more than 10 percent of revenue, the filing said.</p>
<p><em>Here&#8217;s the full filing. </em></p>
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Now you can get a slice of Snapchat, as its parent prepares to list

<div>There are several companies in the economy which may not have existed without the help of the smartphone and, in particular, the iPhone, which celebrated its 10th birthday Monday.</div>
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<p>The iPhone, together with improvements in chip technology, helped modernize the smartphone and bring it into the consumer mainstream. This allowed industries focused on apps, podcasts and other smartphone features to flourish.</p>
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<div class="teads-player">&#8220;Lifesum simply would not exist without the iPhone, and it is hard to imagine the consumer health-tech industry being where it is today without the Apple device&#8217;s revolutionary aspects,&#8221; Henrik Torstensson, CEO of health and fitness app, Lifesum, told CNBC via email.</div>
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<div>There were estimated to be around 2.93 million apps on the Apple App Store by the end of 2016 ACCORDING TO WHO?. The Google Play Store, which provides apps for Android devices, is similarly populated and both store places have become homes for companies to develop new forms of business and create money-making apps.</div>
<p>&#8220;The iPhone launch ignited a smartphone race which deposited intelligent devices into the bags and pockets of hundreds of millions of consumers,&#8221; says Torstensson.</p>
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<div>Meanwhile, <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/24/are-podcasts-missing-out-on-a-huge--and-lucrative--audience.html" target="_blank">podcasting has grown into a mainstream form of entertainment</a>. Even though the technology dates back to the 1980s, podcasting (which gets its name from the Apple iPod) became established in the mid-2000s. Now, an estimated 57 million Americans regularly listen to podcasts.</div>
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<p>Karl Rosander, founder and president of podcasting platform Acast, details how Apple&#8217;s devices have helped develop this nascent industry.</p>
<p>&#8220;Apple products and podcasting are intrinsically linked. The advent of the iPod in 2001 launched podcasts as we know them today, but the arrival of the iPhone liberated the format and completely removed the long-winded route of downloading and transferring from desktop to device,&#8221; he told CNBC via email.</p>
<p>&#8220;Acast&#8217;s business model only really works with a mobile platform. The iPhone laid down the original technology for this industry, and now 10 years later, it&#8217;s amazing to see what it&#8217;s become. Today&#8217;s listeners are constantly plugged in to their smartphones accessing everything on-demand.&#8221;﻿</p>
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iPhone turns ten, these companies might not have existed if it wasn’t for the phone

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<p>Beauty giant <a href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/OR-FR" target="_blank" class="inline_quotes" data-gdsid="27675" data-inline-quote-symbol="OR-FR">L&#8217;Oreal</a> has launched a &#8220;smart&#8221; internet-connected hairbrush that analyses users&#8217; hair type and recommends products accordingly.</p>
<p>Sensors on the hairbrush count strokes, determine whether the hair is dry or wet and analyze the force used when brushing. It even includes a microphone that listens to the sound of hair brushing, to provide &#8220;insights into manageability, frizziness, dryness, split ends and breakage,&#8221; L&#8217;Oreal said in a statement on its website.</p>
<p>The brush will send information via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to a mobile app, and will also take into account humidity, temperature and wind, and will produce a quality score, ranking hair for damage, breakage, tangling and dryness. It will then provide hair tips and recommend L&#8217;Oreal&#8217;s Kérastase products.</p>
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<p>The French cosmetics group claims the device – known as the Kérastase Hair Coach Powered by Withings &#8211; is &#8220;the world&#8217;s first-ever smart hairbrush.&#8221; It was launched at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week and will be available in salons and online for under $200 from mid-2017. Technology company Withings makes health products including activity and sleep trackers, air quality monitors and wireless blood pressure monitors. <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/26/nokia-buys-wearable-health-firm-withings-for-191-million.html" target="_blank">It was bought by Nokia in May 2016 for $191 million</a>.</p>
<p>&#8220;Technology is transforming consumers&#8217; daily beauty routines, and smart devices have huge potential to impact how we care for our hair and skin,&#8221; said Guive Balooch, global vice president of L&#8217;Oréal&#8217;s Research and Innovation Technology Incubator.</p>
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<p>&#8220;By using connected technologies to upgrade the hairbrush — something the average consumer uses every day — Withings and Kérastase have reinvented what a person&#8217;s relationship with their hair can look like and are showing how connected devices can revolutionize the beauty industry.&#8221;</p>
<p>The connected brush is part of the &#8220;Internet of Things&#8221; trend, where products are able to communicate with each other, with companies and with consumers via their smartphones. IoT products and services attracted nearly<a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/01/an-internet-of-things-that-will-number-ten-billions.html" target="_blank">$7.5 billion in investment between 2010 and 2015 according to analysis by CB Insights</a>.</p>
<p>Kérastase is one of L&#8217;Oreal&#8217;s premium hair care brands, where a &#8220;bain volumifique&#8221; shampoo costs $41 and an &#8220;elixir ultime&#8221; hair mask retails for $65 via its website.﻿</p>
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L'Oreal just created a smart brush that 'listens' to hair, recommends treatments

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<p><a href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/AMZN" target="_blank" class="inline_quotes" data-gdsid="9399" data-inline-quote-symbol="AMZN">Amazon</a> is making a big play for your TV set.</p>
<p>The U.S. e-commerce giant currently sells the Fire TV stick, which plugs into a TV and allows users to access a variety of streaming services such as Amazon Prime Video and Netflix. But now Amazon has integrated its Fire TV software directly into TV sets made by Chinese electronics giant Tongfang.</p>
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<p>That means people purchasing Seiki, Westinghouse and Element Electronics 4K smart TVs will be able to access loads of streaming services, channels, apps and live broadcasts directly from the set.</p>
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<div class="attribution">And the TVs will come with a voice-control remote that features Alexa – Amazon&#8217;s artificial intelligence personal assistant, similar to Apple&#8217;s Siri or Google Assistant. Users, for example, will be able to ask Alexa via the TV set to control lights in their home.</div>
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<p>For consumers, the Fire TV software will allow them to access all of their streaming services and many apps, including Amazon&#8217;s own, from their TVs in their living room and bedrooms. Also, Amazon hosts 4K content, which will allow consumers to consume this high-resolution programming on their new TVs.</p>
<p>And for Amazon, this is a further push into consumers&#8217; lives and homes. By integrating its Fire TV software on sets, it gives another way for Prime users to access the services that they pay for as part of the $99 per year subscription.</p>
<p>Amazon has also integrated Alexa as part of this as it looks to increase the uptake of its voice assistant and make it a key part of the home. Amazon currently sells the Echo – a speaker with Alexa built in – and expanded it into the U.K. and Germany last year. The U.S. technology firm has looked to put Alexa on a number of devices, even ones it doesn&#8217;t make. It wants to make the use of Alexa wide-spread to drive consumers to its services.</p>
<p>The deal with Tongfang could also lay the groundwork for Amazon to seek partnerships with other TV manufacturers. And the move also poses a challenge to rivals such as <a href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/AAPL" target="_blank" class="inline_quotes" data-gdsid="8016" data-inline-quote-symbol="AAPL">Apple</a> which has its own box that can plugged into TV sets.</p>
<p>Amazon and Tongfang did not reveal the financial terms of the deal or the price of the TVs, but said they would be available &#8220;later this year&#8221; on Amazon.com and authorized retailers across the U.S.﻿</p>
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Amazon is selling TVs that you can talk to

<p>The “Africa Rising” narrative is increasingly giving way to that of “Aspiring Africa”, as the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) shrinks and the new middle class burgeons.</p>
<p>Central to this new narrative is inclusive growth: the idea that economic growth must come with equitable opportunities for all participants, with benefits enjoyed by every section of society.</p>
<p>As Africa develops, it is pivotal to ensure that the currently underserved majority feels the benefits. This is not only about poverty reduction, but about creating opportunities for lower-income segments to generate wealth. It is a virtuous cycle; inclusive growth equals faster and better economic growth.</p>
<p>If we can ensure that Africa’s economic development happens in a more equitable and sustainable way, the macroeconomic positives are myriad. Offering young, aspiring Africans the opportunity to create wealth, has the effect of turning this demographic into producers and consumers of additional products and services.</p>
<p><strong>The role of technology in inclusive growth</strong></p>
<p>Africa’s mobile revolution has offered entrepreneurs an opportunity unlike any other to disseminate products and services that can contribute to inclusive growth on the continent. It enables digital innovation that allows African entrepreneurs and developers to leapfrog technologies, creating access to previously unavailable services for the majority.</p>
<p>Finance is a key enabler of growth, which is why the provision of accessible and affordable financial services to the majority of Africans is a prerequisite for faster and more sustainable development. Access to financial services increases access to other opportunities, hence fintech becoming central to Africa’s inclusive growth story.</p>
<p>For example, South Africa’s <a href="http://nomanini.com/">Nomanini</a>, is allowing informal merchants to improve their income generation capacity by selling airtime and other digital services through their point of sale (PoS) devices. This creates a ripple effect. By increasing the wealth-generation capability of the majority, it allows them to access additional products and services and contribute to economic growth.</p>
<p>The trend goes beyond financial services, however. In healthcare, diagnostic apps such as <a href="http://www.vulamobile.com/">Vula Mobile</a> are making world-class diagnostics available to lower-income segments in a more affordable way.</p>
<p>Companies in the education space are making digital content available to young Africans, while in agriculture, mobile is being used by companies like Kenya’s <a href="http://wefarm.org/">WeFarm</a> to disseminate crucial information for farmers, having a direct impact on their productivity and wealth-generation abilities.</p>
<p>Africa is seeing the same technology innovations that are emerging in developed countries, however, they are used in a unique manner. In Africa, technology is not replacing or assisting existing infrastructure; it is creating the infrastructure where there is none. Brick-and-mortar clinics, schools and grid-powered electricity are not in place across vast swathes of the continent. And they will not reach every rural village or urban slum in the future. Instead, these services will be provided more and more through innovative mobile technologies, reducing the need for expensive physical infrastructure.</p>
<p>In its ability to democratise and increase access to more affordable services that have, until now, remained inaccessible to the majority of Africans, technology has the potential to play a huge role in ensuring inclusive growth on the continent, opening up new opportunities for aspiring Africans.</p>
<p><strong>Laying the groundwork for inclusive growth through technology</strong></p>
<p>It is evident that from financial services to education, healthcare to transport, technology can be a key enabler in ensuring the benefits of Africa’s economic development are felt by all. There are four factors that are critical in enabling the growth in of the inclusive digital economy:</p>
<p>The first is improved access to the internet.Without access to mobile internet connectivity, the digital innovation that makes products and services more affordable to the majority remains out of reach. Approximately only one-third of Africans currently have access to the internet.</p>
<p>This issue is, fortunately, being addressed. Internet penetration in Africa has grown to almost 30 per cent from just 11 per cent five years ago. Internet bandwidth on the continent increased by 41 per cent between 2014 and 2015, according to research from TeleGeography, with the growth being driven by the increasing prevalence of 3G and 4G connectivity.</p>
<p>The second prerequisite for enabling inclusive growth through digital innovation is increasing access to smart devices.Getting the right devices into the hands of Africans is crucial to ensuring access to opportunities. Here too we are seeing significant progress. The number of smartphones across Africa has <a href="http://www.gsma.com/newsroom/press-release/number-of-unique-mobile-subscribers-in-africa-surpasses-half-a-billion-finds-new-gsma-study/">almost doubled to 226 million over the last two years</a>, according to the GSMA, as entry level prices are falling rapidly.</p>
<p>Another key factor for inclusive growth is reducing the cost of communication.The majority of Africans will remain unable to access digital services if they cannot afford data bundles or voice calls. But with data prices falling across the board and OTT services such as WeChat and WhatsApp enabling cheaper communication, this issue too is being addressed.</p>
<p>The fourth factor is reducing the cost of creating technology solutions.Whereas in the past the development costs of a mobile or web application would have been unaffordable to many digital entrepreneurs in majority markets, thanks to lean methodologies and open source platforms like <a href="https://github.com/">GitHub</a> the process is now simpler and cheaper. This drop in the cost of technology has created opportunities for the development of more innovative applications to meet African needs.</p>
<p><strong>Africa’s inclusive digital future</strong></p>
<p>There are many reasons to be positive about ‘Aspiring Africa’ and the impact of the digital economy.</p>
<p>The continent is brimming with the energy and passion of a young generation of ambitious innovators and entrepreneurs. And Africa is the youngest continent populated by digitally savvy and creative Africans that are keen to grab the opportunities that the digital economy creates for them as economically included citizens. The widespread emergence of tech ecosystems across the continent is supporting a rapidly growing number of increasingly impressive startups and innovative solutions. The increased accessibility and falling cost of relevant services through internet-enabled smart devices, is putting these innovations in the hands of the young and aspiring African mass markets.</p>
<p>These innovations are changing the lives of the average African byte by byte, day by day. As the majority of Africans enter the digital economy, technology innovations are playing a pivotal role in creating the inclusive growth story that is changing the face of the continent. Our firm invests in many technology innovators. Working with these passionate young entrepreneurs on the ground on a daily basis, it is hard not to be optimistic about the inclusive digital economy that is taking shape in Africa as we speak.  </p>
<p><em>*Wim van der Beek is founder and managing partner of Goodwell Investments, a pioneering impact investment firm focused on financial inclusion and inclusive growth in other sectors providing basic goods and services and income generation opportunities to the underserved.</em></p>
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This is how to create inclusive growth for an Aspiring Africa

<p>SAN FRANCISCO &#8211; Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] has removed its self-driving cars from San Francisco streets, halting the autonomous program one week after its launch as the company faced a regulatory crackdown.</p>
<p>The California Department of Motor Vehicles said on Wednesday it revoked the registration of 16 Uber self-driving cars because they had not been properly permitted. For the last week, the agency was demanding that Uber shut down its program and comply with regulations requiring a permit to test self-driving cars on public roads.</p>
<p>Uber said it was not obligated to have a permit because its vehicles require continuous monitoring by a person in the car.</p>
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<p>San Francisco was supposed to be Uber&#8217;s second testing ground for its self-driving cars. The company unveiled its self-driving cars in September in Pittsburgh.</p>
<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re now looking at where we can redeploy these cars but remain 100 percent committed to California and will be redoubling our efforts to develop workable statewide rules,&#8221; an Uber spokeswoman said in a statement.</p>
<p>California defines autonomous vehicles as having the capability to drive &#8220;without the active physical control or monitoring of a natural person.&#8221;</p>
<p>Uber has argued that the law does not apply to its cars, which cannot stay in autonomous mode continuously. A driver and an engineer are in the front seats to take over frequently in sticky traffic situations such as construction zones or pedestrian crossings.</p>
<p>Uber&#8217;s defiance was met with threats of legal action from the DMV and the state attorney general.</p>
<p>The DMV told Uber that if it had obtained a permit, the regulator would have given the green light to the self-driving pilot. DMV director Jean Shiomoto said in a letter sent to Uber on Wednesday that she would &#8220;personally help to ensure an expedited review and approval process,&#8221; which she said can take less than three days.</p>
<p>The permit process is largely seen as a public safety measure, as regulations also require that companies provide the DMV with accident reports. Uber, however, has complained that its home state has favored complex rules over technological innovation.</p>
<div class="related-content group-one">It is not yet clear whether Uber will apply for the permit or simply bring the self-driving cars to another state.</div>
<p>Another 20 companies exploring self-driving cars, including Alphabet&#8217;s Google, Tesla Motors and Ford Motor Co, have obtained California DMV permits for 130 cars.</p>
<p>Uber opened up the self-driving car program to San Francisco passengers on Dec. 14, but has been testing the cars on city roadways for more than a month.</p>
<p>(Reporting by Heather Somerville; Editing by Sandra Maler and Leslie Adler)﻿</p>


Uber puts brakes on self-driving cars in San Francisco

<p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><em>This article first appeared in Forbes Africa and is republished with its permission. Subscribe today by contacting Shanna Jacobsen <a href="mailto:Shanna.Jacobsen@abn360.com">Shanna.Jacobsen@abn360.com﻿</a>﻿</em>﻿</p>
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<p><em>The internet is a web of opportunities. Many look at YouTube for entertainment, but some look at it for business. The highest paid YouTube channel is PewDiePie who reportedly made $12 million last year, according to FORBES. Meet some Africans who are making money online.</em></p>
<p>Not many can say they were self-made millionaires by the age of 20. Caspar Lee can— thanks to YouTube.</p>
<p>“At the age of 16, I started making YouTube videos because I was bored and I could use them to procrastinate my homework way more effectively,” he says on YouTube.</p>
<p>After about a year and two unsuccessful YouTube channels, he started Dicasp (Director Caspar).</p>
<p>“Six months after starting Dicasp, it became fairly popular, so I traveled to England to meet and collaborate with people like Jack and Finn Harries, Sam Pepper, Marcus Butler, Alfie Deyes and Bertie Gilbert. These collabs dramatically increased my following, and I went back to South Africa with one intention: to make a life out of YouTube because there is nothing I love more.”</p>
<p>And it is what he has done. On December 31, 2012, he moved to England. Thirteen days later, he moved into his own flat.</p>
<p>“A huge part of me wanted to stay in South Africa but I am confident and positive I have made the right decision. Living in London allows me to work with some of the best YouTubers in the world on a day to day basis,” he says.   </p>
<p>It is this dedication that has earned Lee over 6.8 million subscribers to his channel and over 649 million views.</p>
<p>This is big money.</p>
<p>According to reports, Lee was banking R5 million ($350,000) a year in 2014 and his net worth was estimated to be $2 million in 2015.</p>
<p>Lee says he has no idea how to describe his channel. He posts anything that comes to mind and takes suggestions from his subscribers.</p>
<p>His main source of income is the advertisements before and after his videos. His fame has also stirred him to acting and book writing.</p>
<p>Lorton started his IT career in 1991 but he lost his job in 2011.</p>
<p>“I had an idea that it was coming but I didn’t expect it to come so quickly,” he says.</p>
<p>It gave him time to tinker and play. He started sharing videos on YouTube for fun.</p>
<p>“I tried work doing solar power, energy audits and heat pump installations but none of that took off. After not being paid for a small solar-powered project and being rather peeved, I decided to try make money out of running my YouTube channel full time,” he says.</p>
<p>It took off.</p>
<p>He has over 2 million views on one video, over a million on another, and many with hundreds of thousands of views. In July 2013, at 18 months, he was earning about $5,000 per month; about $1,900 from YouTube and the rest from a sponsor.</p>
<p>“I have over 21 million views in total across my channel and average about 500,000 views per month with 620 videos… It’s no longer enough to make a viable full-time income from YouTube alone. In the last 18 months, the advertising rates on YouTube have dropped to a quarter of what they were in 2013 and my sponsor did not renew at the beginning of this year. My income now averages about $1,500 per month.”</p>
<p>Lorton has diversified into affiliate sales through Amazon, earns some money from crowd-funding platform Patreon, produces videos for the channels of other companies and sells advertising space on his website.</p>
<p>“It’s very difficult to start out now on YouTube and make a viable income. You really need to stand out among hundreds of thousands of other channels trying to do the same thing. Your chances of success now are really slim compared to when I started out.”</p>
<p>The channel is for people interested in solar power, electronic measurement equipment, and multimeters. He does reviews, tutorials, how-tos, fun testing, experiments, innovative ideas and solutions.</p>
<p>It may take a while for Lorton to start making as much as he used to, but it is $1,500 he didn’t have.</p>
<p>Ossendryver has always been fascinated by wildlife. As an obsessive Kruger National Park visitor, his favorite pastime was asking his parents to flag down passing motorists asking them what they had seen. Eventually they tired of this and said no. Ossendryver looked to technology to solve his problem.</p>
<p>At the age of 15, he founded Latest Sightings, a wildlife crowdsourcing site for visitors who are in the Kruger National Park to report the animals and events that they are seeing live. They report their location, time and sighting to Latest Sightings, which in turn broadcasts it on social media.</p>
<p>“At 15 I was naïve and phoned an app development company to ask them to develop my idea. They quoted R200,000 ($13,000) and I said ‘no thanks’ as I didn’t have that kind of money.”</p>
<p>He spent hours on YouTube teaching himself how to code an iPhone app.</p>
<p>“Within three weeks, I had the app out on the App Store. I used social media to grow a community of around 30,000 in three weeks. All of this for only $10 for the domain name for my site.”</p>
<p>Four years later, Ossendryver has one of the top-viewed YouTube channels in South Africa. With over 307,000 subscribers and over 351 million views worldwide, it makes money.</p>
<p>The dream of an eight-year-old boy may make headlines one day.</p>
<p>Caspar Lee’s sister, Theodora Lee, is also making money online. She created her self-titled YouTube channel in 2013, and currently has over 230,000 subscribers and 10 million views. She is known for her advice to the young.</p>
<p>“Currently, I post weekly videos on YouTube that aim to uplift and educate people on coming-of-age topics. I like to chat openly about stuff we all go through so that people can feel less alone and find ways to get through their issues and be the happiest they can be,” she says on her blog.</p>
<p>Last year, she won Best YouTube Channel at the African Blogger Awards and was a finalist for Best African Blogger at the 2016 Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards. She is also working on her debut novel. ﻿</p>


YouTube-preneurs are coining it

<p>The families of three men killed at Orlando&#8217;s Pulse gay nightclub have sued Twitter Inc, Alphabet Inc&#8217;s Google and Facebook Inc in federal court, accusing the companies of providing &#8220;material support&#8221; to the self-radicalized gunman.</p>
<p>The gunman, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people and wounded 53 in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State militant group before police fatally shot him after the June attack, officials said.</p>
<p>The lawsuit was filed on Monday in Detroit federal court by the families of Tevin Crosby, Javier Jorge-Reyes and Juan Ramon Guerrero, who were killed during the massacre.</p>
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<p>Similar lawsuits in the past have faced an uphill fight because of strong protections in U.S. federal law for the technology industry.</p>
<p>The three families claim Twitter, Google&#8217;s YouTube and Facebook &#8220;provided the terrorist group ISIS with accounts they use to spread extremist propaganda, raise funds and attract new recruits.&#8221;</p>
<p>The suit alleges the &#8220;material support has been instrumental to the rise of ISIS and has enabled it to carry out or cause to be carried out, numerous terrorist attacks.&#8221;</p>
<p>Facebook said on Tuesday there is no place on its service for groups that engage in or support terrorism, and that it takes swift action to remove that content when it is reported.</p>
<p>&#8220;We are committed to providing a service where people feel safe when using Facebook,&#8221; it said in a statement. &#8220;We sympathize with the victims and their families.&#8221;</p>
<p>Twitter declined to comment. In August, the company said it had suspended 360,000 accounts since mid-2015 for violating policies related to promotion of terrorism.</p>
<p>Representatives of Google could not immediately be reached.</p>
<p>The three companies plus Microsoft Corp said this month they would coordinate more to remove extremist content, sharing digital &#8220;fingerprints&#8221; with each other.</p>
<div class="related-content group-one">Technology companies are protected from many lawsuits under Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, which says website operators are not liable for content posted by others.</div>
<p>Monday&#8217;s lawsuit claims that the companies create unique content by combining ISIS postings with advertisements to target the viewer. It also says they share revenue with ISIS for its content and profit from ISIS postings through advertising revenue.</p>
<p>The families in the case in Michigan, where one of the victims is from, are seeking damages and for the court to rule that the sites have violated the Anti-Terrorism Act in the United States.</p>
<p>(Reporting by Brendan O&#8217;Brien in Milwaukee and David Ingram in New York; Editing by Scott Malone and Andrew Hay)﻿</p>


US tech giants face law suit

<div id="article-byline">BRUSSELS &#8211; Apple has launched a legal challenge to a record $14 billion EU tax demand, arguing that EU regulators ignored tax experts and corporate law and deliberately picked a method to maximize the penalty, senior executives said.</div>
<p>Apple&#8217;s combative stand underlines its anger with the European Commission, which said on Aug. 30 the company&#8217;s Irish tax deal was illegal state aid and ordered it to repay up to 13 billion euros ($13.8 billion) to Ireland, where Apple has its European headquarters.</p>
<p>European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, a former Danish economy minister, said Apple&#8217;s Irish tax bill implied a tax rate of 0.005 percent in 2014.</p>
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<p>General Counsel Bruce Sewell and Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri outlined in an interview with Reuters at Apple&#8217;s global headquarters in Cupertino the company&#8217;s plans for its appeal against the Commission&#8217;s ruling at Europe&#8217;s second highest court.</p>
<p>The iPhone and iPad maker was singled out because of its success, Sewell said.</p>
<p>&#8220;Apple is not an outlier in any sense that matters to the law. Apple is a convenient target because it generates lots of headlines. It allows the commissioner to become Dane of the year for 2016,&#8221; he said, referring to the title accorded to Vestager by Danish newspaper Berlingske last month.</p>
<p>Apple will tell judges the Commission was not diligent in its investigation because it disregarded tax experts brought in by Irish authorities.</p>
<p>&#8220;Now the Irish have put in an expert opinion from an incredibly well-respected Irish tax lawyer. The Commission not only didn&#8217;t attack that &#8211; didn&#8217;t argue with it, as far as we know &#8211; they probably didn&#8217;t even read it. Because there is no reference (in the EU decision) whatsoever,&#8221; Sewell said.</p>
<p>SHELTERING PROFITS</p>
<p>The European Commission accused Ireland in 2014 of dodging international tax rules by letting Apple shelter profits worth tens of billions of dollars from tax collectors in return for maintaining jobs. Apple and Ireland denied the accusation.</p>
<p>On Monday the Commission published the detailed version of its decision which may provide clues as to how the Commission will deal with similar tax cases in future.</p>
<p>It cited, for example, notes of a meeting in 1990 between Apple&#8217;s tax adviser and the Irish revenue service discussing an appropriate level of profits Apple&#8217;s Irish unit would pay tax on &#8211; Apple&#8217;s adviser suggesting a ceiling of $30-40 million.</p>
<p>&#8220;[Apple’s tax adviser] confessed there was no scientific basis for the figure. However the figure was of such magnitude that he hoped it would be seen to be a bona-fide proposal,&#8221; the excerpt read.</p>
<p>Ireland’s tax treatment has allowed Apple to avoid tax on tens of billions of dollars of non-U.S. profit. Over the past 10 years, the company has paid tax at a rate of 3.8 percent on $200 billion of overseas profits, filings show. This is a fraction of the tax rate in the countries where Apple’s products are designed, made and sold.</p>
<p>The low rate is achieved by Apple telling U.S. tax authorities that the profits are earned by Irish units. Meanwhile it tells Ireland the profits are not earned in Ireland.</p>
<p>Some lawmakers in the United States and in countries where Apple has large sales have criticized the arrangement.</p>
<p>Ireland says if it’s not fair, it’s other countries&#8217; fault for not closing loopholes. On Monday Ireland accused the Commission of exceeding its powers and interfering with EU member states&#8217; national sovereignty over tax affairs.</p>
<p>Apple also intends to challenge the EU enforcer&#8217;s basis for its case, arguing that what Sewell called the &#8220;crazy notion of non-residency&#8221; was chosen on purpose to produce a punitive amount.</p>
<p>Other arguments the EU could have used could have been based on transfer pricing &#8211; the pricing strategy between a company&#8217;s units &#8211; or the &#8220;arm&#8217;s length&#8221; principle adopted by companies to sell and buy from affiliates as if they were unrelated firms.</p>
<p>&#8220;Both of those other two theories at least could be fleshed out, but they produced much lower numbers,&#8221; Sewell said.</p>
<p>He added it was not possible for Apple to comply with the EU decision because it would mean Ireland violating its own past tax laws setting different rules for residents and non-resident companies.</p>
<p>Apple plans to tell the court that the Commission erred when it ruled that the head office of Irish-registered units Apple Sales International (ASI) and Apple Operations Europe existed only on paper, with no justification for the billions of euros it posted in untaxed profits.</p>
<p>Sewell said the fact that an entity was a holding company with no employees on its books did not mean it was inactive and it could be actively managed by employees of its parent company.</p>
<p>&#8220;So when Tim Cook, who is the CEO of our company, makes decisions that impact ASI, the Commission says we don&#8217;t care because he is not an ASI employee, he is an Apple Inc employee. But to say that somehow Tim Cook can&#8217;t make decisions for ASI is a complete mis-statement of corporate law, it&#8217;s a misunderstanding of how corporations operate,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p> &#8220;ABSURD THEORY&#8221;</p>
<p>Maestri said the Commission over-estimated the importance of the company&#8217;s European headquarters in Cork in the south of Ireland.</p>
<p>&#8220;(Vestager) is arguing that the base on which we should pay taxes in Ireland is essentially all the profits we generate outside the United States &#8230; in a place that doesn&#8217;t do any engineering, doesn&#8217;t generate any intellectual property for us,&#8221; he said, adding it was an &#8220;absurd theory.&#8221;</p>
<p>The company hopes U.S. president-elect Donald Trump will enact tax reforms, Sewell said.</p>
<p>The U.S. tax system, Sewell said, was a worldwide system while the rest of the world had territorial systems.</p>
<p>&#8220;The difference between those two creates exactly the kind of loophole that the Commission has now been able to exploit,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; additional reporting by Julia Fioretti in Brussels and Tom Bergin in London; editing by Philip Blenkinsop and Adrian Croft)﻿</p>


Apple challenges EU's record $14bn tax penalty

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<p>Uber Technologies rolled out its self-driving car fleet in its hometown of San Francisco on Wednesday, but faced a backlash from state regulators who say the company needs a permit to keep the vehicles on the road.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/california/" target="_blank">California</a> Department of Motor Vehicles sent a letter to Uber onWednesday ordering the company to &#8220;cease the operations&#8221; of its autonomous cars until it applies for and receives the testing permit required by the state.</p>
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<div class="teads-ui-components-label">Uber responded that it did not need the permit, because its cars require a person to constantly monitor and take control of the wheel, which does not meet the definition of autonomous.</div>
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<p>&#8220;For us, it&#8217;s still early days and our cars are not yet ready to drivewithout a person monitoring them,&#8221; Uber said in a company blog post.</p>
<p>It was the latest in a long line of spats between Uber and regulators, and followed a fairly seamless rollout three months ago in Pittsburgh, where Uber unveiled its secretive work on autonomous cars for the first time to the public.</p>
<p>The company started with just four self-driving cars available to Pittsburgh passengers, although it had a fleet of more than a dozen for testing.</p>
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<p>The San Francisco program will mimic the Pittsburgh pilot. Riders whorequest an UberX, one of the company&#8217;s budget ride options, may be matched with a self-driving Uber.</p>
<p>While 20 other companies exploring self-driving cars, including <a href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/GOOGL" target="_blank" class="inline_quotes" data-gdsid="19004" data-inline-quote-symbol="GOOGL">Alphabet</a>&#8216;s Google, <a href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/TSLA" target="_blank" class="inline_quotes" data-gdsid="74213" data-inline-quote-symbol="TSLA">Tesla Motors</a> and <a href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/F" target="_blank" class="inline_quotes" data-gdsid="17077" data-inline-quote-symbol="F">Ford Motor</a>, have obtained a DMV permit, Uber has not. Uber&#8217;s self-driving cars have been seen around San Francisco since at least September.</p>
<p>In its letter to Uber, the DMV&#8217;s chief counsel said it &#8220;will initial legalaction&#8221; if &#8220;Uber does not confirm immediately that it will stop its launch and seek a testing permit.&#8221;</p>
<p>California defines autonomous vehicles as cars that have the &#8220;capability&#8221; to drive &#8220;without the active physical control or monitoring of a natural person.&#8221; Uber argues that definition does not apply to its cars, which are equipped with a driver and an engineer in the front seats to take over in situations such as a construction zone, pedestrian crossing or taking a left turn across a lane of traffic.</p>
<p>&#8220;All of our vehicles are compliant with applicable federal and state laws,&#8221; a spokeswoman said.</p>
<p>In a company blog post, Uber called on California to take a more &#8220;pro-technology&#8221; approach to regulating autonomous cars.</p>
<p>&#8220;Several cities and states have recognized that complex rules andrequirements could have the unintended consequence of slowing innovation,&#8221; Uber said. &#8220;Our hope is that California, our home state and a leader in much of the world&#8217;s dynamism, will take a similar view.&#8221;</p>
<p>On Wednesday, local media aired a video of a self-driving Uber running a red light, which was captured by a bystander. Uber said the incident was because of human error &#8211; suggesting that the car was not in autonomous mode &#8211; and was not carrying passengers, and the driver had been suspended.﻿</p>
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Uber launches self-driving car fleet, could this be the end of Uber drivers?

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<p><a href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/NOKIA-FI" target="_blank" class="inline_quotes" data-gdsid="26737" data-inline-quote-symbol="NOKIA-FI">Nokia</a>-branded handsets are returning to the market with the first announced device being a $26 dumb phone complete with the classic &#8220;Snake&#8221; mobile game.</p>
<p>Earlier this year, a company called HMD Global , which is formed of ex-Nokia executives, <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/18/nokia-phones-are-back-after-microsoft-sells-mobile-assets-for-350-million-to-foxconn-hmd.html" target="_blank">acquired the rights</a> and intellectual property licenses from the Finnish firm. This gives HMD exclusive global brand licensing rights for the next 10 years.</p>
<p>Under the agreement, Nokia will receive royalty payments from HMD for sales of every Nokia branded mobile phone or tablet.</p>
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<p>The first result of this deal is the Nokia 150 and Nokia 150 Dual SIM – two feature phones announced by HMD on Tuesday which will cost $26. They are so-called &#8220;dumb phones&#8221; – without internet connectivity.</p>
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<div class="attribution">HMD Global&#8217;s Nokia-branded device is expected to go on sale in the first quarter of 2017.</div>
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<p>Here are some of the features of the devices:</p>
<ul>
<li>FM radio and MP3 player</li>
<li>2.4 inch screen</li>
<li>Physical keypad</li>
<li>Battery life – 22 hours of talk time and 31 days on standby</li>
</ul>
<p>In a nod back to the classic durability of Nokia phones, HMD said the devices are &#8220;built to last&#8221;. The company has also pre-loaded &#8220;Snake Xenzia&#8221; onto the phones, which should excite Nokia fans.</p>
<p>Both handsets will come in black or white, cost $26, and will be rolling out in Asia-Pacific, India, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe in the first quarter of 2017.</p>
<p>HMD recently announced that it would be releasing two Android phones early next year.</p>
<p>There are still many emerging markets where the Nokia 150 might find appeal, helped by the $26 price tag as well as the strong Nokia brand.</p>
<p>Nokia exited the phone business when it completed the sale of the division to <a href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/MSFT" target="_blank" class="inline_quotes" data-gdsid="25619" data-inline-quote-symbol="MSFT">Microsoft</a> in 2014. The U.S. technology giant failed to make the acquisition work and has since wrote off its entire purchase of Nokia and <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/08/microsoft-to-restructure-phone-hardware-business-cut-up-to-7800-jobs.html" target="_blank">announced 7,800 layoffs</a>, mostly in the phone division.</p>
<p>Since that sale, Nokia has been focusing on its crucial Networks division and new areas of technology such as 5G internet, virtual reality and health care. For Nokia, this will help them earn revenue without having to manufacture phones.﻿</p>
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Nokia phones are back

<p>In the last three years or so, it’s become almost popular amongst commentators to disparage the African Rising narrative in some way. At a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjgJ2KpyJ5w">TEDx talk in London </a>not too long ago, Tanzanian billionaire and founder of the Infotech Investment Group, Ali Mufuruki flat out said “Africa is not rising.” He went on to highlight several industries and challenges where he says there has not only been stagnation, but regression. They were mostly the usual suspects – electricity, technology, education, amongst others. “We have embraced that narrative without questioning it,” he says, “and I think that’s why we are where we are.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/businesstimes/opinion/2016/04/17/The-flaw-in-the-Africa-rising-story">In a Sunday Times opinion piece</a>, Jabulani Sikhakhane critiques the narrative too, highlighting the current mood: “Narratives about Sub-Saharan Africa&#8217;s economic growth have swung, during the past four decades, between two extremes: pessimism and exuberance. After much exuberance about Africa&#8217;s strong growth over the past two decades, albeit driven by a few countries, the tide is turning back to despair.”</p>
<p>My work in researching, cataloguing, and writing about innovation, as well as connecting innovators together, has made me think differently to the two extremes Sikhakhane highlights above. I understand the general sentiment. We want to be realistic. It’s okay to dream, but we need to also just face the facts. But I believe wecanjustify the narrative when we do a few things, such as challenge present-day thinking around concepts such as “development” and a “developed nation” (remember, our development doesn’t have to look like the West’s history) and look at our successes with an open mind. I’ve written extensively about this elsewhere, including on CNBC Africa, and have touched on it in my bookDisrupting Africa: The Rise and Rise of African Innovation. A future book will go into more detail. But what I want to do here is simply speak about three areas of innovation, with examples, where Africa Rising is getting meat on the bones. In writing this article, I decided to actually sit with innovators and businesses actually doing something on the continent that supports the Africa Rising narrative. These showcase something important:we are actually doing it.</p>
<p><strong>Growing a New Generation</strong></p>
<p>Fred Swaniker is a Ghanaian serial entrepreneur and leadership development expert. He has launched five organisations that aim at developing leaders, primarily in Africa. Swaniker has an understanding of an emerging problem: that according to the UN’s “World Population Prospects” report last year, by about 2030 and beyond, Africa will have the largest working population in the world. In fact, 40 per cent of the working population globally will be based in or from Africa. The problem is that this working population, at the moment, is likely to be more of a liability than an asset.</p>
<p>But we can change that. The African Leadership Academy (ALA), located just outside Johannesburg, has already created about 1,000 leaders at the time of writing. Swaniker also launched the African Leadership University (ALU) having a vision to roll out 25 universities across the continent with a mandate to create 3 million ethical and entrepreneurial leaders by 2060. These are people who understand what’s needed for change, know how to work with people, have a great grasp of history and context, hope for the future, and possess creative chops to get us there. See, Swaniker’s vision is bigger than just a university, as important as that is. He knows that if you can create true leaders – not people with just a degree in management, or people who know how to play politics – you can transform the continent. He has the long-term in mind. Swaniker’s challenge to each of these leaders, and what they train them to do, is create 330 jobs for others. Think about how this can scale up, with just the right kind of investment.</p>
<p>That’s Africa Rising – a new generation with a different sense of their own abilities and the potential of our people.</p>
<p><strong>The last mile of logistics in Africa</strong></p>
<p>Rural Africa is a challenge when it comes to solving the “last mile” problem – the movement of goods from the supply depot to the consumer’s home, or wherever the consumer may be. Amazon has actually solved this in the Western world with the deployment of drone technology. In fact, Amazon’s models, including its use of drone technology, open up questions we seem to be ignoring and solutions we’re not exploring. Perhaps most of us just don’t know what is actually happening on the ground. Or perhaps it’s because Amazon is in the retail space that we don’t connect the dots as to how what it is doing is disrupting so many aspects of so many other industries, and disrupting many of our regulations. Those who live in the cities can literally buy almost anything from Amazon, including certain kinds of medication, and have it delivered to their home, regardless of local regulations.</p>
<p>Drone technology brings all this to practically anyone, anywhere. It wasn’t long ago that this kind of tech seemed to just be a sci-fi dream. But now it’s already happening. And it’s actually already happening in Africa. UNICEF has piloted a drone project in Malawi to deliver medical supplies and also pick up blood samples. The drone speaks to the phone of health workers in a village who are able to send the drone off to the right location with a swipe of the screen, and it uses their phone’s GPS signal to find them. The drones are designed to carry up to 1kg of goods. Tanzania and Ghana, I have on good report, are also piloting drone projects that will carry off birth registration forms from villages to the nearest Home Affairs.</p>
<p>In speaking to Christopher Fabian, an ‘adopted’ African and the brainchild behind this innovative concept at the UNICEF, I was hugely impressed by his vision and optimism about the continent. Even more impressive, is that he’s managed to implement such a model in UNICEF. I find UNICEF’s involvement interesting – and surely private equity should be taking notice. In fact, UNICEF is changing its approach as it actually wants business to get involved. They want this commercialised, because there is an understanding that this approach will create much more innovation, freedom, investment, and opportunity.</p>
<p>If UNICEF can do this, why can’t we do it? Everything we need is already there – it’s not like we need to reinvent any new technology. Why can’t any of our home-grown companies just tweak things to work for us? This is something we really should explore.</p>
<p><strong>Challenging the traditional views of innovation</strong></p>
<p>Ashish Thakkar, Founder of the Mara Group and well-known global entrepreneur, is the kind of guy who likes to get involved in just about everything, and he serves as an example of a privately-owned business looking to bring ecommerce into Africa in a new, refreshing way. Online shopping may be only growing here in the cities, but if the last-mile problem can be solved for rural Africa, we have a game changer.</p>
<p>What interests me is how Thakkar also wants to challenge traditional views of innovation and progress. In <a href="/news/technology/2016/08/09/why-africa-is-innovating-more-than-you-think/">another article I wrote for CNBC Africa</a>, I outlined how Western definitions and measurement tools for progress are limited and ineffective in telling the real story. If you assume innovation in Africa must look like innovation in Japan, then obviously you’re going to draw faulty conclusions. But this is precisely what global indexes like the Bloomberg Innovation Index do. From my work and research about innovators in Africa, my argument is there is a ton of work to be done around perceptions.</p>
<p>Thakkar has come to similar conclusions, and he will soon be launching his own innovation index that will work off different kinds of presuppositions. This will be a fantastic addition to the global conversation, creating competition in how these things are measured, which will challenge Western modes of thinking not only in how Africa really looks on the ground but how Africa should actually develop. I can only think this will be ground-breaking for how we view ourselves as well. It’s about time that we develop methodologies that will take what we know about our local contexts into the equation.</p>
<p><strong>Private humanitarianism</strong></p>
<p>A great example of the power of humanitarian causes partnering with commercial projects, which is what UNICEF is looking for, comes in the form of one of my favourite companies, MKOPA Solar, which is successfully and profitably creating solutions in the low-cost home electricity field for the poor. Based in Kenya and launched in 2012, it took just four years for the company to bring its ‘pay-as-you-go’ model to 300,000 homes in East Africa by the beginning of 2016. It connects about 500 homes a day. Along with this, it had sold 40,000 home-improvement and technology products by January 2016, such as energy-saving stoves.</p>
<p>I recently asked one of the founders, Chad Larson to describe to me where it is as a business. In the beginning, Chad said, “You move from an idea to scaling it, and then to other countries, and you’ll take all the funding you can get. But now as a company we’re selective of who we work with. We want to partner strategically.” When a company has matured to that degree, you know they’re starting to function on a different level. Banks are now starting to call them looking for an opportunity to invest.</p>
<p>The point here is to show how a home-grown Kenyan company has innovated to such a degree that it has created a new, growing market, continues to invent unique products, and is now starting to cherry-pick who it is it wants to work with. This is not just innovation, it’s maturity.</p>
<p>That, for me, is how the Africa Rising narrative must evolve. We need to think strategically. We need to think long-term. We need to partner in different ways. We ought to be discussing private investment. And we need to realise one very important philosophical point:there are plenty of examples of those already doing it.The problem is we’re just not talking enough about our successes that are actually changing the narrative. This narrative has wings, and it’s taking off.</p>
<p>* <em>Nnamdi Oranye is author of “Disrupting Africa: The Rise and Rise of African Innovation”﻿</em></p>
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Op-Ed: Africa is rising depending where you look

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<div class="attribution"><a href="http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/FB" target="_blank" class="inline_quotes" data-gdsid="139619" data-inline-quote-symbol="FB">Facebook</a> CEO <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/mark-zuckerberg/" target="_blank">Mark Zuckerberg</a> Friday laid out the latest steps by his company to weed out fake news, amid growing criticism over the possible impact misinformation on the social network had on swaying the U.S. presidential election outcome.</div>
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<p>The company has found itself thrust at the center of the debate on fake news, with even U.S. President Barack Obama lamenting the spread of misinformation on the social media platform. A report released earlier this week showed that <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/16/more-facebook-users-engaged-with-top-fake-election-news-than-most-popular-real-reporting-report-says.html" target="_blank">more Facebook users engaged with misleading stories than real, mainstream reporting</a>.</p>
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<div class="teads-ui-components-label">In a late night <a href="https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10103269806149061" target="_blank" title="https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10103269806149061" class="inline_asset">post</a>, Zuckerberg said the amount of misinformation on Facebook was small but the company took the matter seriously.</div>
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<p>He said Facebook will strive to enhance its ability to detect false news while also making it easier for people to report fake stories.</p>
<p>Another aspect of Facebook&#8217;s plan was third-party verification. Zuckerberg said Facebook had reached out to many fact-checking organizations and was hoping to hear from others as well.</p>
<p>Other measures to stamp out fake news included labeling stories that had been identified as false by third parties or Facebook&#8217;s community and showing warnings when people read or share them.</p>
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<div class="headline">Obama: Misinformation can be packaged well on Facebook  Thursday, 17 Nov 2016 | 12:22 PM ET | 03:01</div>
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<p>Facebook will make the criteria for selecting stories that appear as links in its news feed more stringent and work with the media industry to better understand their fact checking systems, he said.</p>
<p>In addition, Zuckerberg said Facebook will continue to disrupt the economics underpinning fake news, having updated its advertising standards earlier this week to make it clear that its ban on deceptive and misleading content also applies to fake news.</p>
<p>Zuckerberg acknowledged that the situation was complex, both technically and philosophically.</p>
<p>&#8220;We need to be careful not to discourage sharing of opinions or mistakenly restricting accurate content. We do not want to be arbiters of truth ourselves, but instead rely on our community and trusted third parties,&#8221; he said in the post.</p>
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Facebook has an answer to fake news

<p>FNB is the first South African bank to launch its own branded smartphone in an attempt, it says, to fully integrate banking and customer mobility.</p>
<p>The bank is offering customers the choice of two smartphones, the ConeXis A1 and X1 respectively.</p>
<p>The phones were manufactured by ZTE Corporation, a Chinese multinational telecommunications equipment and systems company which has headquarters in Shenzhen,﻿.</p>
<p>In a statement it revealed the following about the offer:</p>
<p>The A1 is pitched at the price-sensitive Easy bank account holder, for R59 a month with 15 minutes airtime and 50MB of data included. Gold and Premium (Premier, Private Clients and Private Wealth) customers also have access to the higher specification X1 at R150 per month with 25 minutes and 100MB of data included.</p>
<p>FNB offers up to a 100% rebate on the X1 monthly instalments depending on the customer’s eBucks Rewards level. Gold customers on eBucks Rewards level of 3, 4, 5 will be rebated R60, R90, R150 (100%) on the monthly repayment respectively. Premium customers will be rewarded from level 1.</p>
<p>The smartphone comes on the back of the FNB Connect cellular offering launched in 2015, which seamlessly integrates customer’s financial and mobile accounts on a single banking platform.</p>
<p>FNB also announced the introduction of the FNB ConnectUnlimited Callsoffer, which allows subscribers to make unlimited local calls to any network for only R399 per month. The new Unlimited Calls offer can be taken up together with the FNB ConeXis smartphone deal or any other branded mobile phone. </p>
<p>The offer is available to customers from 24 August 2016 while the FNB ConeXis smartphones will be available at selected FNB branches from 1 September 2016. </p>
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