What a line up! All the heavy hitters from the Internet and Facebook world are gathered in Paris. Senegal and Jordan, those Internet powerhouses from Africa and the Middle East, are joining with what is arguably the most powerful nation of all, New Zealand, to sort out the world’s online ills.
Be still my beating heart!
The full line up of world powers revealed so far is; Theresa May (UK), Justin Trudeau (Canada), Emmanuel Macron (France), Leo Varadkar (Ireland), Erna Solberg (Norway), Macky Sall (Senegal) and King Abdullah II of Jordan.
Statistics from Internet World Stats gives the figures for Internet users and Facebook users per country.
Adding up the totals on that site for the sovereign countries in the list above reveals that those leaders, combined, represent 4.3% of the global Internet users and 5.5% of the global Facebook users. No wonder Zuckerberg didn’t bother. What is 5% here or there to a man with his power and wealth?
Since Jean-Claude Juncker from the EU has nothing better to do with his time (and drinks and canapes were on offer), he will also attend. Let’s suppose he could actually bind together all the other sovereign EU countries who have not bothered to flatter Ardern with their presence. Adding in the rest of the EU nearly triples the numbers represented. 12% of global Internet users and 14% of global Facebook users.
But, just like Shaw and his Zero Carbon Act is going to solve global emissions, Ardern and her 0.096% of global Internet users or 0.15% of global Facebook users is going to rid the Internet of evil. After all, the poor dear was inadvertently forced to watch the Christchurch video as it autoplayed and she has not the skill to prevent such things and could not find the pause button. *
Will Ardern post a little monologue on Facebook about all she has achieved?
Will they gather for group selfies for Instagram?
* To prevent autoplay:
- From the top right of Facebook, click and select Settings.
- Click Videos in the left menu.
- Click the dropdown menu next to Auto-Play Videos and select Off.
