A group of 3 senior Facebook staff will be in Mauritius next week for the official launch of the Facebook Africa Small Business Report 2021 and also for a session of ground conversations with all stakeholders, including NGOs and initiators of digital literacy programs.
Mauritian media has been reporting that talks are being held between the Ministry of Information, Technology, Communication and Innovation and Facebook since May 2021. The Information and Communication Technologies Authority made a public proposal in May to set up a filtering system, for decryption, archiving and inspection to enable law enforcement bodies to contain the spread of false news and hate speech in Mauritius.
Local parliamentary opposition and digital experts took position against this project as they considered it as a serious threat to privacy.
Facebook has planned to invest in Mauritius to take an active part in digital literacy initiatives to end misuse of the platform and help promote Mauritian businesses and NGOs in 2022.
In 2020, with many students returning to school in digital form, as opposed to the regular classroom, Facebook has launched a new initiative to help improve digital literacy and keep users safe while logging into their lessons online.
