Debate over gazetted ICT policy changes continues
JOHANNESBURG - Communications Minister Solly Malatsi is defending his recently gazetted policy directive.
It seeks to formally recognise Equity Equivalent Investment Programmes in the ICT sector.
The Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies says the minister has no powers to effect such a change, which has been criticised as opening a backdoor for Elon Musk's Starlink.
The policy change could allow companies in the Information and Communications sector to operate without 30% black ownership.
The department, however, says the move has nothing to do with Elon Musk's Starlink.
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The Citizen
11 hours ago
- The Citizen
Viral claims about SA agriculture: Do white farmers produce most of our key crops?
Viral claims about SA agriculture: Do white farmers produce most of our key crops? While formal surveys show that white South African farmers produce the majority of key crops, this discounts much of the output of black farmers, which is often not reflected. Production by black farmers is often for household use and not reflected in commercial farming data. Neither are sales in small local markets. The claim that black farmers own '50% of all the land area when you add state land' is not backed up by any available data. It further disregards several important factors, for example that not all land designated as 'agricultural' is arable. For weeks in May and June, widely followed accounts on X have circulated eye-catching and divisive statistics about race and farming in South Africa. But ironically, these numbers originated in a speech aimed at debunking misinformation and were then misquoted and repurposed for a global audience. Where did it all start? The account @EndWokeness, which has 3.7 million followers, played a key role. It has a track record of spreading false information. In the past, some of the account's posts have been countered by community notes, which are factual corrections added by X users, though some of these have later been removed. False posts, like a viral story of immigrants to the US eating pets, remain on the site uncorrected. But as the Washington Post has reported, the account has often escaped consequences. It has boasted about making thousands of dollars a month from such claims and its posts are sometimes amplified by platform owner Elon Musk. In May, @EndWokeness took to posting about the 49 white South Africans who claimed refugee status in the US. While at the same time implementing sweeping deportation policies, US president Donald Trump has claimed that white Afrikaner South Africans face persecution, for example through employment equity laws and the false narrative of 'white genocide'. Based on this, Trump has allowed asylum claims from South Africans who are 'Afrikaners or members of a racial minority', even while blocking most other refugees. In this context, @EndWokeness warned that South Africa's perceived actions against Afrikaners would have negative consequences, claiming that 'white farmers currently produce' over 90% of all corn, soy beans, wheat, cotton, citrus, and almost all potatoes (99%). These stats were likely copied directly from a reply to @EndWokeness posted less than two hours earlier by another account, @CrazyVibes_1, which had added: 'Why are the black farmers not commercially producing? They do own millions of hectares of land. Approximately 50% of all the land area when you add state land.' But @CrazyVibes_1 was also copying. Its tweet, word for word including formatting and emojis, matched one posted in March by @twatterbaas, who has repeated variations of these same claims before. News24, South Africa's most-visited news website, identified @twatterbaas as Sebastiaan Jooste, a former farmer. After the investigation the government condemned what it called deliberate misinformation and the spread of racial hatred. Jooste's posts helped push these claims to a global audience, possibly even reaching Musk, the world's richest man. Yet no one along the way seems to have checked whether the numbers were accurate. So, Africa Check did. In his earliest post, Jooste said the statistics came from an February 18 X post by Wandile Sihlobo, chief economist at the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa, a group that represents commercial farming businesses. Sihlobo's post showed that his research was used in a speech by agriculture minister John Steenhuisen titled Briefing on malicious misinformation. In the speech, Steenhuisen said that 'South Africa remains an economically unjust society', including in farming. As evidence, he cited Sihlobo's estimates of the average share of black farmers in commercial agricultural output between 2015 and 2019 (though he mistakenly said 2015 to 2020). To calculate the output of white farmers, Jooste seems to have simply subtracted Sihlobo's figures from 100%. For instance, Sihlobo estimated black farmers produced 1.3% of commercially sold wheat, leading Jooste to conclude that white farmers must then produce the other '98.7% of all the wheat'. But this ignores key context. Widely shared stats are incomplete 'guesstimates' The original statistics came from a paper called Agriculture in South Africa, written by Sihlobo and Prof Johann Kirsten, director of Stellenbosch University's Bureau for Economic Research (BER). Their data was based on records from the National Agricultural Marketing Council (NAMC), which collects figures from agricultural organisations. For example, the Citrus Growers' Association tracks citrus exports and levies based on reports from its members. These organisations have committed to initiatives addressing inequalities in farming, and so keep some data related to race. But these records do not represent all agricultural activity in South Africa. The NAMC's data is limited to commercial activity reported by individual agricultural organisations. Kirsten told Africa Check that although quoted extensively, these numbers were 'incomplete … and in any case only a guesstimate'. He said 'it is very difficult to allocate a race dimension to agricultural output' without more comprehensive data and concluded the number was an 'inaccurate' minimum that could be much higher. Speaking to Africa Check, Sihlobo described Jooste's framing as 'a 'naughty' use of our valuable research'. Not only could these figures from 2019 have changed since, but black farmers in South Africa may well have a larger share in commercial agriculture than the statistics represent. While these figures are misleading, black farmers are underrepresented in agricultural output – but Jooste obscured the reasons why. Historical divides in commercial agriculture In his book A Country of Two Agricultures, Sihlobo explains that agricultural surveys typically exclude 'transactions in small value chains and sales in small local markets'. It is worth nothing that most South African households that farm do so mainly to feed themselves. According to Statistics South Africa estimates based on the 2022 census, 80.7% of agricultural households grow food only for their own use, and another 7.7% also sell some of it. These households usually don't appear in agricultural surveys based on commercial data. In his post, Jooste conflated commercial agriculture – produce eventually sold in formal markets – with 'all' produce grown in South Africa. There are many reasons why produce grown by black farmers is less likely to be recorded in these kinds of formal surveys. Dr Siphe Zantsi, an economist at the Agricultural Research Council, explained that historical divides resulted in black farmers not having access to the commercial sector to begin with. For example, Zantsi said, apartheid-era spatial planning has meant 'black smallholder farmers are located in remote areas (former homelands) that are far from the output markets'. These areas, also called 'Bantustans', were segregated areas designed to keep black South Africans out of major urban areas and political life. Zantsi also referred to a 2015 paper by South African researcher Stefan Schirmer, which noted that 'Apartheid … massively increased the barriers that black farmers were forced to confront', who were cut off from markets and confined to unproductive land, locking many into 'almost permanent forms of unemployment or employment in very low income jobs'. Kirsten further told Africa Check that an often-overlooked issue was 'who owns the best quality land and most productive land'. This helps explain why white farmers still dominate commercial agriculture. Zantsi noted that most agribusinesses in South Africa were white-owned, while black farmers often owned smaller pieces of land that were usually further from economic hubs, making it harder for them to sell in formal markets. This is supported by research that suggests South African commercial agriculture has been increasingly dominated by large, well-resourced farms. Zantsi cited 2013 research showing that as supermarkets became more powerful, they were incentivised to buy mainly from large commercial farms, pushing small-scale farmers out of supply chains. On top of this, there is the issue of land ownership, something that Jooste apparently tried to side-step, but not very deftly. It wasn't in the first version of his tweet, but at some point Jooste tacked on the claim that black farmers owned 'approximately 50% of all the land area'. This statistic veers far from all reliable data on the topic. Experts say inequality in agricultural land ownership is substantial and a key reason why black farmers have a smaller role in commercial agriculture. According to the 2017 land audit report, the most recent national data available, 72% of all individually owned land was held by white people. Land owned by individuals of all other racial groupings made up the remainder, including just 4% by 'African' or black individuals. In 2023, the Bureau for Economic Research estimated that around 25% of freehold agricultural land had been redistributed to black South Africans since 1994. This includes all land that has a registered title deed. But this land can be owned by multiple people or a corporation or other entity, which makes it complicated to determine ownership by race. Even so, the BER estimates that white farmers still own about 74% of freehold agricultural land, or 58 million out of 77.5 million hectares. Black farmers may own 13.5 million hectares (about 17%), but Kirsten said this was likely an undercount as title deeds did not include race and so surnames were used as a proxy, which could be inaccurate. Even if this is an under-estimate, nothing suggests that most farmland is black-owned. This could be why Jooste specified that black farmers own 'approximately 50% of all the land area when you add state land'. But the BER estimates around 6 million hectares of the remaining freehold farmland is owned by the government or has been restituted to black owners through financial compensation. Even if you include all of that, black ownership would still only equal about 25% of freehold farmland. A final category that could include farmland is rural land in the former homelands. Not all of this was used for farming, Kirsten said. Adding all of this and all government farmland, white farmers would still own around 60% of all farmland. This again contradicts Jooste's claim, but also misses the point that not all 'farmland' can be properly used for farming. Not all farmland can be farmed Of South Africa's 77.5 million hectares of freehold farmland, less than a quarter (18 million) is considered arable. Much of the rest is dry land like Karoo or Kalahari Desert, which has limited farming value. Black farmers are more likely to own land with little agricultural potential and the former homelands system explicitly carved out more valuable land for white South Africans. Efforts to redress these imbalances by providing land to black farmers have faced criticism. Zantsi explained that a 'lack of timely post settlement support' had left many beneficiaries without money or resources to run a farm. Sihlobo added that this land was generally leased, meaning recipients didn't actually own the land they farmed. This made it harder to get loans or to buy and modernise equipment. Land ownership in South Africa is complex and contested, and the data certainly isn't perfect. But even the most generous reading of the available statistics doesn't back Jooste's claim that most agricultural land is black-owned. It is especially striking that Jooste misused data from a speech meant to fight misinformation. By removing context, he gave a misleading picture of South African agriculture – one that distorts both its history and current reality. This article was first published on Africa Check. At Caxton, we employ humans to generate daily fresh news, not AI intervention. Happy reading!
The Star
2 days ago
- The Star
The HONOR 400 & 400 Pro Launch Underscores Impressive AI Investment, Local Inclusion, and Bold 2028 No. 1 Market Share Ambition
Following strong uptake of its AI-powered innovations in South Africa, HONOR has introduced the new HONOR 400 and HONOR 400 Pro . This is a launch that could further entrench the brand's momentum in the local mid-to-premium market. Unveiled at Kyalami Racecourse, the event brought together government and industry voices, including Communications Minister, The Honorable Mr. Solly Malatsi, underscoring the growing alignment between mobile innovation and digital policy. The HONOR 400 & 400 Pro marks a notable shift in normalising access to premium technology. These devices bring high-end features into a more accessible range, including: The first global rollout of Google Cloud's Veo 2 Image-to-Video tool , built directly into the phone's gallery AI Deepfake Detection and on-device call translation to meet the privacy and productivity demands, which can detect whether the participant in a video call is using deepfake technology. HONOR's 50× AI SuperZoom , intelligent editing tools and the incredible 200MP main sensor A 6000mAh silicon-carbon battery , IP-rated build quality and MagicOS 9.0 across the range and a big storage of 12+512G. The HONOR 400 is powered by a Snapdragon, while the 400 Pro introduces Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 performance. Both devices are supported by Android updates and security patches, a rare commitment in this segment. The HONOR 400 Series is launched with a promotional offer: Buyers will receive R8000 worth of additional value in the form of the HONOR Choice Watch 2i, HONOR Choice Earbuds X7 Lite and an HONOR Choice Powerbank 10000mAh until 31 July 2025. Available from Vodacom, MTN, Telkom and Cell C, the HONOR 400 is priced from 12,999 and the HONOR 400 Pro from R17,999. With hardware innovation backed by long-term AI investment, HONOR is further positioning itself as both a product leader and a strategic player in South Africa's mobile economy.
TimesLIVE
2 days ago
- TimesLIVE
How Tesla plans to remotely operate its robotaxis — and where the limits lie
Tesla is expected to tiptoe into its long-awaited robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, as soon as Sunday with about 10 of its Model Y SUVs that will operate within strict limits. CEO Elon Musk has said the company is being 'super paranoid' about safety and that humans will remotely monitor the fleet. Remote access and control — known in the industry as 'teleoperation' — is used in varying degrees by the handful of robotaxi start-ups operating around the globe. The technology has clear advantages and important limitations. Here are some details of how it works: What is teleoperation? Teleoperation is the control of machines by humans in a different location, usually over a wireless network. It is used to train robots to operate autonomously, monitor their autonomous activity and take over when required. How do robotaxi operators use teleoperation? The global robotaxi industry is still in test mode, as companies deploy the vehicles in limited geographic areas and continually adjust the artificial intelligence software that controls them. Teleoperation is often used to intervene when a vehicle is unsure of what to do. Alphabet's Waymo, for example, has a team of human 'fleet response' agents who respond to questions from the Waymo Driver — its bot. 'Much like phone-a-friend, when the Waymo vehicle encounters a particular situation on the road, the autonomous driver can reach out to a human fleet response agent for additional information,' Waymo said in a blog post last year. Former Waymo CEO John Krafcik told Reuters, 'the cars aren't being actively monitored,' adding that the software is 'the ultimate decisionmaker'. A Waymo video shows a car asking a remote operator whether a street with emergency response vehicles is open to traffic. When the human says yes, the vehicle proceeds. In contrast, other companies, such as Baidu's Apollo Go in China, have used fully remote backup drivers who can step in to virtually drive the vehicles. Baidu declined to comment. What are the limitations? Driving vehicles remotely on public roads has a major potential problem: it relies on cellular data connections that can drop or operate with a lag, disconnecting the vehicle from the remote driver in dangerous situations. Philip Koopman, a Carnegie Mellon University engineering professor and autonomous-vehicle safety expert, said that approach could work for a small test deployment of 10 vehicles, such as Tesla's initial effort in Austin, but he called teleoperation 'inherently unreliable technology'. 'Eventually you will lose connection at exactly the worst time,' he said. 'If they've done their homework, this won't ever happen for 10 cars. With a million cars, it's going to happen every day.' Former Waymo CEO Krafcik agreed, adding that the time delay in cell signal makes remote driving 'very risky'. On the other hand, relying on the vehicle to reach out for help and allowing the vehicle to be the decisionmaker are risky as well, Koopman said, as it does not guarantee the vehicle will make the right decision. Waymo declined to comment on the limitations of its approach. Koopman also noted there are limits to how many vehicles one person can safely monitor. A group of Democratic Texas legislators asked Tesla on Wednesday to delay its robotaxi launch until September, when a new autonomous-driving law is scheduled to take effect. The Austin-area legislators said in a letter that delaying the launch 'is in the best interest of both public safety and building public trust in Tesla's operations'. What is Tesla's approach? Musk for years has promised, without delivering, that its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) advanced driver assistance software would graduate to completely self-driving and control robotaxis. This year, he said Tesla would roll out a paid service in Austin underpinned by an 'unsupervised' version of the software. 'Teslas will be in the wild, with no one in them, in June, in Austin,' Musk told analysts and investors in January. In May, he told CNBC the robotaxi would only operate in parts of Austin that are safe for it, would avoid difficult intersections, and would use humans to monitor the vehicles. What those teleoperators will do is not clear. For years inside Tesla, company executives have expected to use teleoperators who could take over in case of trouble, said one person familiar with the matter. For instance, if a robotaxi were stuck in a crowded pedestrian area and confused about what to do next, a human teleoperator could take over and guide it, the source said. Tesla advertised for teleoperation positions, saying the company needs the ability to 'access and control' autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots remotely. Such employees can 'remotely perform complex and intricate tasks', it said in the advertisements. Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.
