Beyond Virality: Does Africa Need Its Own Social Media Platform?
The clamour for Africa to build its own social media platform has been brewing for the past decade. Those who make the case for an indigenous platform — one that prioritises local content and prevents the extraction of data by foreign companies and governments — have a strong argument.
Over the weekend, I read ‘TikTok is tracking you, even if you don’t use the app’ by Thomas Germain on the BBC, and I was alarmed by how TikTok, owned by ByteDance, harvests users’ data — including that of people who are not even on the platform.
But does Africa need its own social media platform? Despite the growing calls for Africa to develop its own indigenous platform, the answer is not a simple yes.
Digital Sovereignty and the Data Question
Africans have grown increasingly fond of existing platforms; Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, Threads, Truth Social, Bluesky, among others.
According to World Population Review, Egypt leads the continent with 56.4 million Facebook users, followed by Nigeria with 51.2 million. On Instagram, the figures stand at 19.4 million users in Egypt and 12.6 million in Nigeria.
Since the boom of social media in the early 2000s, these platforms have evolved from simple digital tools for connecting with friends into vast economic ecosystems where businesses connect with customers. Africans have benefited immensely from the business opportunities they offer.
However, this comes with a trade-off. As Germain highlighted, “TikTok collects sensitive and potentially embarrassing information about you even if you’ve never used the app.”
If you do not understand how tracking pixels work, you have likely experienced their effects. Browse for shoes once, and advertisements for footwear follow you from Facebook to Instagram to TikTok. While TikTok may be snooping in a more invasive manner, it is not alone in monetising your digital footprint.
What worries proponents of Africa having its own platform is that this harvesting of personal data is carried out by foreign companies, with very little local control over how it is stored, analysed, or deployed. These concerns are valid and strengthen the argument that Africa is ripe for its own digital infrastructure. But there is more at stake than data protection.
When Algorithms Shape Our Reality
I have increasingly found that today’s social media algorithms remove us from the immediate realities of our surrounding environments. After Elon Musk purchased Twitter and renamed it X, the platform appeared to lean more heavily into hate speech and misinformation. I barely visit it now, despite it once being my preferred social space.
Other platforms are not exempt from similar shortcomings. You can spend hours on Facebook and know everything happening in America — immigration raids, culture wars, political theatre — without catching wind of pressing issues in your own locality. While algorithms prioritise user behaviour and individual preferences, they tend to amplify certain ‘global’ issues while local conversations remain under-represented.
Joseph Origbo, an AI researcher at Nottingham Trent University, noted that social media platforms are no longer digital billboards. They have evolved into “AI-driven ecosystems that decide what you see, who you hear from, and which voices are silenced.”
“That’s why Nigeria needs its own platforms — not only for control, but for contextual relevance,” he said. The erosion of local content — and, by extension, knowledge crucial to Africans — is deeply concerning. What is the use of being on social media if I cannot find content that helps me solve my most immediate needs?
Beyond Virality: Rethinking What a Platform Should Do
Perhaps, instead of building another social media platform — one that prioritises virality and rewards impressions — Africa should focus on creating an interactive, knowledge-based platform where Africans can share their lived experiences: how they navigated career paths, how to rent safely in Lagos, the cost of importing goods, or how to start a business with limited capital.
Such experience-driven content, created by Africans for Africans, would go a long way in helping the over 600 million Africans who are online navigate their realities by learning directly from others who have lived through similar conditions and how they overcame them.
While social media offers business opportunities, Africans have largely used it for entertainment since its advent. In addition to the wanton spread of information online, including on social media, young people are increasingly struggling with decision-making, with many anchoring their choices on the curated lives of others who do not share similar realities.
Diya N. Dharaiya and Dr. Deep Pathak, in their research published last year, argued that “repeated interaction with idealized content on Instagram often triggers negative emotions and reduced self-esteem due to social comparison.” According to the duo, “this emotional impact can influence decision-making, as people may alter their choices to align with what appears to be socially valued in order to seek approval online.”
In a recent survey by Pew Research Center, nearly half (48 percent) of the teenagers surveyed said that social media sites have a “mostly negative effect on people their age.” But could there be a platform where, in addition to connecting and enjoying engaging content, Africans gain practical value — learning how to improve their lives in tangible ways?
A Knowledge-First Alternative
In my curiosity, I found Feedcover, a platform positioning itself as Nigeria’s first hyper-localised knowledge content platform. When I reached out to its founder, Mr. Shina Memud, he described Feedcover as “a place where everyday Nigerians can share their lived experiences and connect with others who live in their reality. This makes Feedcover not simply a publishing tool, but a platform structured around context.”
Launched in December 2025, creators on Feedcover have published over 5,000 pieces of content centred on lived experiences — an approach designed to preserve and amplify local context.
“Many social media users still struggle to find content that can solve their problems despite spending hours online,” Mr. Memud explained. “To create content on Feedcover, users must choose a specific category — from Technology to Relationships, Culture, Government and more. There are at least 36 categories available to capture the diverse reasons Africans use social media.”
According to him, content creation is structured around what he calls Primary Intent: How to, Where to, When to, Who Is, Can I, Why, What If, Cost and Price, among others. These categories allow Feedcover to function as a warehouse of knowledge created by Africans to help others solve challenges they too have faced.
“Africa still has a knowledge gap,” Mr. Memud told me. “If we can get creators to share lived experiences about how they solved or navigated past challenges, it will help others facing similar problems know exactly how to tackle them.”
In today’s social media landscape, many people create smoke-screen content that does not reflect their true challenges or realities. For Mr. Memud, building yet another social media platform — even an indigenous one — will not automatically solve the knowledge gap facing young Africans.
“The need for sharing more helpful knowledge is why content creation revolves around the outlined Primary Intent. Experts in various fields can own a space and create content based on what they know, so that those in need of such knowledge can benefit from it,” he added.
I am not against an indigenous social media platform. In fact, it would get my vote. However, in a continent where 445 million people live in extreme poverty, accounting for 67 percent of those surviving on less than $1.90 per day, another social media platform that encourages young people to while away their time is not what the region needs. Rather, a platform that encourages the free sharing of knowledge in a hyper-localized and intentional format is what the continent should be striving for.
Emmanuel Azubuike is a Lagos-based writer who covers human-interest stories and the impact of technology on Africa.
