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TikTok Engages African Governments to Strengthen Online Safety at the 2nd Annual Sub-Saharan Africa Safer Internet Summit in Cape Town

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In Sub-Saharan Africa, TikTok removed over 7.5 million videos in Q3 2024, rising to more than 8 million in Q4 2024—an increase of 14.06% quarter-on-quarter

CAPE TOWN, South Africa, March 27, 2025/APO Group/ –TikTok (www.TikTok.com) hosted its second Annual Africa Safer Internet Summit in Cape Town, South Africa, bringing together government officials, regulators, and industry leaders from across Sub-Saharan Africa. Delegates from South Africa, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, and other countries convened to discuss critical issues on online safety, content moderation, and digital policy development.

 

The Summit underscores TikTok’s ongoing efforts to prioritise user safety in Africa while fostering an open dialogue with policymakers to shape robust frameworks that protect users’ rights while encouraging innovation and creativity in the digital space.

Government and Industry Leaders Discuss Digital Safety

The Summit was officially opened by South Africa’s Hon. Solly Malatsi, Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, who highlighted the importance of collaboration among governments, technology platforms, and communities to foster a safer digital ecosystem.

Helena Lersch, TikTok’s Vice President for Public Policy, in her remarks, reaffirmed the platform’s commitment to user safety and the role of partnerships in creating a secure digital environment.

“Billions of people come to TikTok every day to create, share and connect and we’re continually evolving our policies and practices to safeguard our platform so our community can discover and do what they love. This summit underscores the importance of collaboration between industry leaders and regulators in shaping a digital ecosystem that is both innovative and secure,” said Lersch.

Fortune Mgwili-Sibanda, Director of Public Policy & Government Relations for Sub-Saharan Africa, further emphasised the significance of collective efforts in digital safety, stating that the Summit serves as a valuable platform for sharing insights, strengthening collaboration, and ensuring that African users, particularly young people, are protected online.

Content Moderation in Africa

During the summit, TikTok reported a significant upward trend in its content removal rate across Sub-Saharan Africa, with data showing a 249.81% increase in content removals from the second quarter of 2023 to the fourth quarter of 2024. This improvement aligns with TikTok’s global standards for content moderation and community guidelines enforcement. TikTok’s Community Guidelines Enforcement Reports (https://apo-opa.co/3QMZNQH) reflect the platform’s continued investment in automated moderation technology, alongside human safety experts that enables the detection and removal of harmful content before it reaches users. Globally, between July and September 2024, TikTok removed more than 147 million videos, of which 118 million were detected and removed automatically using these technologies.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, TikTok removed over 7.5 million videos in Q3 2024, rising to more than 8 million in Q4 2024—an increase of 14.06% quarter-on-quarter. Notably, 99.5% of these videos were removed before any user reports, underscoring TikTok’s commitment to proactive moderation and swift action.

A similar trend was observed in North Africa, where TikTok removed over 7 million videos in both Q3 and Q4 of 2024. This represented an 8.70% increase in removals between the quarters, with 99.3% of these takedowns also occurring before user reports.

These figures highlight TikTok’s ongoing efforts to provide a safe and positive online environment through robust, technology-enabled content moderation systems.

We are incredibly proud to be a partner of TikTok’s #SaferTogether campaign

#SaferTogether – Driving Safer Digital Engagement

As part of its broader commitment to digital safety and education, TikTok is expanding its efforts across Africa through strategic partnerships and training programs that promote digital literacy, safety awareness, and responsible content creation.

At the forefront of these efforts is TikTok’s flagship #SaferTogether campaign, which has achieved notable milestones since its launch in 2022.

In Kenya, the initiative, run in partnership with Eveminet (https://apo-opa.co/3Y8mHG7), a youth online protection organisation, has reached over 406,000 participants through in-person workshops across the country. These sessions provided communities with the knowledge and tools needed for responsible online engagement, particularly among students, teachers, and parents.

By working closely with civil society organisations, educators, and government agencies, TikTok continues to integrate proactive safety measures into its platform governance, creating safer digital environments for young users.

In Nigeria, TikTok launched Phase 2 of the #SaferTogether campaign in partnership with the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) (https://apo-opa.co/3FFyx4d) and Data Science Nigeria (DSN) (https://apo-opa.co/3QNqzbJ). Building on the success of Phase 1, which educated parents in major cities such as Abuja, Lagos, and Kano on TikTok’s safety features and mental well-being tools, the second phase aims to reach additional states and expand safety awareness among parents, teachers, and guardians.

Since September 2024, TikTok has also partnered with local creators across Sub-Saharan Africa to raise awareness about its safety features and Community Guidelines.

In Egypt, TikTok signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Journalists Syndicate to boost digital awareness, media literacy, and the detection of misinformation and online privacy risks. As part of this partnership, TikTok and the Syndicate hosted a one-day workshop equipping journalists and media professionals with the skills to navigate digital technologies safely and effectively. This collaboration underscores TikTok’s ongoing commitment to empowering media professionals and supporting a more informed and digitally literate society.

Shaping the Future of Digital Safety in Africa – Global Youth Council

TikTok is also making a significant step in amplifying youth voices by expanding its Global Youth Council (https://apo-opa.co/4j2OWxZ) for 2025, further strengthening African representation. Originally launched in 2023 to empower young users and shape platform policies, the Global Youth Council has now nearly doubled in size, featuring 28 members from 15 countries. New representatives from Nigeria, Cameroon, Canada, Qatar, and Australia will join returning members from Brazil, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, the UK, and the US for a second term. The Youth Council plays an important role in shaping TikTok’s safety, well-being, and inclusivity policies, ensuring that young users have a voice in the platform’s continued evolution.

The Safer Internet Summit serves as an essential forum for best practice sharing between industry leaders and policymakers. By fostering collaboration, TikTok aims to ensure that digital spaces remain safe, inclusive, and conducive to creativity while balancing the need for effective governance and innovation.

“We value forums such as TikTok’s Safer Internet Summit, which bring policymakers into one room for a shared purpose: keeping internet users safe. We are incredibly proud to be a partner of TikTok’s #SaferTogether campaign. This collaboration not only underscores our shared commitment to fostering a safer online environment, but also opens new avenues for innovation and collaboration that will enable us to scale our efforts effectively for a safer internet for all..” — Emmanuel Edet – Acting Director, Regulation and Compliance NITDA

For more information on TikTok’s safety policies and initiatives, visit our Safety Centre (https://apo-opa.co/4iYko0q), Guardian’s Guide (https://apo-opa.co/3QPAKfS) and Youth Safety Center (https://apo-opa.co/4j9JWrB).

Link: https://apo-opa.co/4hZ3JZS

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of TikTok.

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AFRICLOUD Opens Lagos Region and Local-Currency Payments in African Markets

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September 23, 2026

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The company’s third African region keeps Nigerian workloads in Nigeria, and customers from Abidjan to Nairobi can now pay in the currency they earn, without an international card

MIAMI BEACH, United States of America, September 23, 2026/APO Group/ –AFRICLOUD (https://AFRICLOUD.com), a cloud infrastructure company, has opened its third African region in Lagos and now accepts payment in local currency across West, Central, East and Southern Africa. Businesses across the continent can run servers in Nigeria, South Africa or Portugal from one account, and pay for them the way they already pay for everything else.

 




  

Download document (1): https://apo-opa.co/4Ardfz9

Download document (2): https://apo-opa.co/46FWH8Y

Buying cloud infrastructure in Africa has meant living with three compromises: traffic that leaves the continent and comes back, payment in dollars behind a card many businesses do not hold, and data sitting under somebody else’s law.

Lagos answers the first. Compute and storage for Nigerian customers stay in Nigeria, and the region also serves Accra, Abidjan, Lome, Douala and Ouagadougou. Traffic from landlocked West Africa that once reached comparable infrastructure by way of Europe now stays on terrestrial West African fibre. Johannesburg serves Southern and East Africa. Lisbon serves North Africa and Europe, and reaches Brazil over a direct subsea route. Across the three regions, AFRICLOUD’s own continent-wide measurements place 42 of the 53 African countries measured within a best-case round trip of 70 milliseconds, countries home to about 1.28 billion people.

A company in Accra or Abidjan now reaches West African infrastructure without leaving the region, and pays for it in the currency it earns

Payment answers the second. Customers across West, Central, East and Southern Africa pay in their own currency, including the naira, the cedi, the shilling and the CFA francs, by local card, bank transfer, USSD or mobile money, with no international card needed. Mobile money is live in twelve African countries, and cards, PayPal and more than 300 cryptocurrencies are accepted everywhere. The GSMA reports that 74 per cent of the world’s mobile money activity by transaction count took place in Africa in 2024.

Residency answers the third. Nigerian data runs under the Nigeria Data Protection Act, South African data under POPIA and European workloads under EU law, chosen server by server from the same dashboard.

“African businesses have been asked to choose between infrastructure that is close, infrastructure they can actually pay for, and infrastructure that keeps their data under their own law,” said Oluniyi Ajao, Founder of AFRICLOUD. “Removing that choice is the reason we built this.”

“Lagos is the piece that completes the map,” he said. “A company in Accra or Abidjan now reaches West African infrastructure without leaving the region, and pays for it in the currency it earns.”

All three regions run the same platform: AMD EPYC processors with all-NVMe storage, IPv4 and IPv6 on every server, and a new server online in about two minutes. Dedicated Servers are built to order in all three regions. Support is available around the clock by chat and email.

Cloud Servers are available now at https://AFRICLOUD.com.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of AFRICLOUD LLC.

 

 




 

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Hong Kong outlines strategies for deepening development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and enhancing green transformation

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September 23, 2026

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HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach Newswire – 22 September 2026 – Hong Kong’s Chief Executive John Lee announced the First Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) (2026-2030) and his fifth Policy Address on September 16, rolling out measures to further sharpen Hong Kong’s edge amid global competition, consolidate development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) and promote green transformation.

Initiatives aim to support high-quality development of the GBA, align rules and mechanisms within the region, and promote cross-boundary collaboration.

 




 
 

“The HKSAR Government will continue its efforts in fostering synergistic development of the GBA,” said Mr Lee. “We will strengthen co‑operation in technological innovation, promote ‘hard connectivity’ in infrastructure, foster ‘soft connectivity’ by deepening the alignment of rules and mechanisms, and achieve ‘connectivity of hearts’ among residents of the three places.”

The HKSAR Government will continue to actively participate in the development of the various major co-operation platforms, including Qianhai of Shenzhen, Nansha of Guangzhou, Hengqin of Zhuhai and the Hetao Shenzhen-Hong Kong Co-operation Zone, to promote mutual benefits.

In terms of “hard connectivity” the HKSAR Government will support Nansha in its role as a high‑standard gateway for opening up, including encouraging the trade to participate in Nansha’s infrastructure development.

“To promote the co‑ordinated development of rail transit in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, we are pressing ahead with the Northern Link Project and the Hong Kong‑Shenzhen Western Rail Link (Hung Shui Kiu‑Qianhai), with target commissioning in 2034 and 2035 respectively, to fully connect the rail transit networks of Hong Kong and Shenzhen,” Mr Lee said.

Regarding “soft connectivity”, Mr Lee said the HKSAR Government will set up a Task Force to explore ways to advance the alignment of rules and mechanisms within the GBA.

To achieve “Connectivity of Hearts” among residents across the GBA, Hong Kong will strengthen co-operation between its higher education institutions and those in other GBA cities by establishing cross‑disciplinary partnerships, facilitating scientific research, knowledge transfer, and commercialisation, with a view to promoting high‑level research.

Hong Kong’s Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs, Janice Tse, noted that the First Five-Year Plan clearly states that Hong Kong will participate in the development of the GBA into an international first‑class bay area and a world‑class city cluster with global influence.

“Hong Kong will forge closer alignment and synergy with the nine GBA cities in Guangdong Province and Macao, making full use of our respective advantages to jointly promote the high-quality development of the GBA,” Miss Tse said.

To foster financial development in the GBA, Hong Kong will continue to capitalise on institutional innovation, financial infrastructure upgrading and enhanced regulatory alignment to encourage the orderly flow of financial elements among GBA cities.

The Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited’s Core Climate, in collaboration with the Guangzhou Power Exchange Centre, is working towards the pilot trading of national renewable‑energy, green electricity certificates in Hong Kong in 2026.

“On connecting the Chinese Mainland and the world, the HKSAR Government will continue to support green technology development through the HK$400 million (aboutUS$51 million) Green Tech Fund, leveraging Hong Kong’s function as a springboard for green technology and assisting national green technologies and products in going global,” said Hong Kong’sSecretary for Environment and Ecology, Tse Chin-wan. “On the development of hydrogen energy, we have participated in drafting national hydrogen energy standards with a view to helping these standards align with international practice.”

To meet the country’s “dual carbon” targets and fulfil Hong Kong’s commitment to achieving carbon neutrality before 2050, the HKSAR Government steered the establishment of a production base for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in Dongguan, leveraging the leading position of Hong Kong enterprises in the international SAF industry.

“By combining technology strengths with industrial foundation, Hong Kong and Guangdong will jointly develop a globally influential green industry,” Mr Lee said.

The HKSAR Government will take forward the construction of an SAF blending facility in Hong Kong to build an end‑to‑end SAF value chain and reduce logistics costs to make SAF prices more competitive. The target is to achieve an SAF consumption ratio of 1% to 3% for flights departing from Hong Kong International Airport in 2030.

Hong Kong’s Five-Year Plan promotes the integrated development of culture, sports, and tourism, to develop the GBA into a cultured bay area.

Under the strategic framework of the Agreement on Strengthening of Sports Cooperation and Promotion of Integrated Development, Hong Kong will deepen co-operation, and strive to co‑organise important regional and international single‑sport events. It will also strengthen cultural exchanges, pass on Cantonese opera and the characteristics of Lingnan culture, and promote the sales and cross‑boundary exhibition of Hong Kong publications.
 




 

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Alamein Africa Forum to bring together key political and business leaders

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13 hours ago

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September 23, 2026

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The forum is to become the continent’s premier gathering where political power meets entrepreneurial prowess, bridging the established engines of African growth with the new sectors defining its future

CAIRO, Egypt, September 22, 2026/APO Group/ –The inaugural Alamein Africa Forum (https://AlameinForum.com/) will take place from October 2-4 in the historic city of Alamein on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast in parallel with the 2026 African Union mid-year summit.

Established in response to a mandate from the African Union, which called for a permanent African Business Forum to convene biennially in Egypt, the inaugural edition will bring together Heads of State and official delegations as well as some key actors in business and finance.
 




 

The forum is to become the continent’s premier gathering where political power meets entrepreneurial prowess, bridging the established engines of African growth with the new sectors defining its future.

The Alamein Africa Forum will serve as a pan-African platform bringing together the private sector, investment and financial institutions

The Presidents of Algeria, Angola, Burundi, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Libya, Senegal, Somalia, and South Africa are expected in Alamein as well as President Al Sisi, President of the Arab Republic of Egypt who is the host of this year’s AU Mid-Year Summit. Business leaders from across the continent have confirmed their participation including Ralph Mupita, MTN; Idrissa Nassa, Coris Bank; Mohamed El Ketani, Attijariwafa Bank; Hichem Eloumi, Groupe Shakira; Wale Tinubu, Oando; and many more. Aliko Dangote, Africa’s biggest industrialist is also expected to attend, with the organisers hoping to set up a Business Advisory Council to help advance private sector priorities and investment throughout the continent.

Bringing together leaders in politics, business and policy from across the continent, the Alamein Africa Forum will provide a unique opportunity to shape Africa’s growth agenda by aligning policy and investment priorities, mobilising partnerships for implementation and strengthening financing and investment pathways. The private sector must become an integral part of Agenda 2063, the AU’s strategic 50 year masterplan to transform the continent.

Co-organised by the Government of Egypt, Afreximbank, the African Union and AUDA-NEPAD, the Forum brings together Africa’s most influential decision-makers in an unprecedented alliance of public and private sector leadership.

Speaking on the imperative of the summit at a joint press conference by the government of Egypt and Afreximbank on Thursday, September 17 2026, Dr. Badr Abdelatty, Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation, and Expatriates Abroad said (https://apo-opa.co/4ygiQag): “The Alamein Africa Forum will serve as a pan-African platform bringing together the private sector, investment and financial institutions, and representatives of various productive and service sectors, to strengthen direct links between companies and markets and decision making at the highest level.”

Continuing, he noted that the Alamein Africa Forum is part of a series of high-level African events that Egypt will host in early October, stressing that holding the forum reflects Egypt’s commitment to advancing continental economic cooperation

In his own comments, Dr. George Elombi, President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Afreximbank described (https://apo-opa.co/4ygiQag) the Alamein Africa Forum as a pan-African platform for promoting intra-African trade and investment and connecting the business community and financial institutions with priority projects and investment opportunities in the continent.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Alamein Africa Forum.

 




 

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