The Broken User Agreement
I never bother to read most Terms & Conditions of websites. If you do, there is no hard feeling. I wish you grace. The fact is this: many are like me; we accept the Terms and click on. If I read LinkedIn Terms and do not like it, what do you expect me to do? Not sign-up? The same goes for Google and Facebook. Simply, those Terms are for lawyers and not for simple folks like us. It is binary – take it or leave it.
Thinking about that, I was shocked when U.S. Senator John Kennedy (R. Louisiana) [no relation to the Boston area Kennedys] said during Facebook hearing last week: “I’m going to suggest you go home and rewrite it [Facebook’s user agreement], and tell your 1,200-dollar an hour lawyer…you want it written in English not Swahili, so the average American user can understand.” The senator had just noted that the agreement “sucks.”
Sure, I have never visited Facebook user agreement to know how it looks. But I was truly surprised how the Senator categorized a language spoken by more than 100 million people in east Africa.
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The fact is this: from President Trump to most U.S. leaders, they have handed Africa over to China. Yes, China may be the neo-imperialist but the West is not offering Africa options. But irrespective, the West did not save Africa and China may not either; Africans will fix their problems. Yet, decency and civility especially on U.S. Capitol Hill are expected even in this age of Trump.