Page 24 - ARUBA TODAY

A24 TECHNOLOGY
Friday 13 March 2020

In this photo taken on Thursday, March 5, 2020, Abubakr
Salih Babiker, a climate scientist at the Intergovernmental
Authority on Development's Climate Prediction and
Applications Center, shows server racks containing a
supercomputer in Nairobi, Kenya.
Associated Press
Supercomputer helps

in tracking East Africa

This Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2020 photo shows the icon for TikTok taken in New York.
Associated Press locust outbreak
Teens love the video app TikTok.

Do they love it too much? By RODNEY MUHUMUZA and DESMOND TIRO
Associated Press
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — A supercomputer is boost-
By TALI ARBEL To many users, what's special is TikTok's ing efforts in East Africa to control a locust outbreak
AP Technology Writer goofiness and sense of genuine fun. To that raises what the U.N. food agency calls "an un-
From the perspective of teens, TikTok is a use, just download the app and start swip- precedented threat" to the region's food security.
major new outlet for self-expression, one ing through videos. You don't have to The computer, a donation from Britain, uses satellite
proudly home to the silly, the loud and the friend anyone or search for anything to data to track locust swarms and predict their next
weird. watch. If you don't go looking for it, you destination. Quickly sharing the information of the lo-
To others, the Chinese-owned online vid- might not ever come across angry politi- custs' movements with regional authorities is key to
eo service is an unnerving black box that cal discussions, much less envy-generating controlling the outbreak, as even a small swarm of
could be sharing information with the Chi- vacation shots from friends. Instead, you'll locusts in a single day can move nearly 100 miles and
nese government, facilitating espionage, likely to encounter a barrage of funny, consume the amount of crops that would otherwise
or just promoting videos and songs some meme-y videos from total strangers that feed 35,000 people.
parents consider lewd. (TikTok denies the TikTok spools up for you, personalizing the Based in a regional climate center in Kenya, where
first two concerns and says it's working on feed as you go. the insects have been particularly destructive, the
the third.) Politics, of course, is still there; so is the so- supercomputer system "produces extensive weather
Welcome to the bifurcated world of TikTok, cial-media plague of misinformation. Tik- forecasts to predict the high winds, rainfall, and hu-
an emerging social-media powerhouse Tok says it prohibits harmful misinformation. midity that provide ideal breeding conditions for lo-
that lets users create and share short vid- TikTok makes money from ads, and some- custs so climate experts can predict their next des-
eos, many no longer than 15 seconds. times the campaigns aren't readily iden- tination," the U.K.'s Department for International De-
"That's where the Gen Z party is," says Kory tifiable as ads. Companies can start velopment said in a statement. "By improving early
Marchisotto, chief marketer for e.l.f. Cos- hashtag-based "challenges" that invite warning systems we are helping charities and African
metics. "That's where they're all hanging users to participate by posting their own governments to take rapid action to protect vulner-
out." videos, often incorporating a particular able communities."
There's little doubt that TikTok users find it dance or dance move. E.l.f. Cosmetics' Kenya, Somalia and Uganda have been battling the
irresistible. But TikTok is also the subject of "eyeslipsface" campaign, for example, worst locust outbreak that parts of East Africa have
a U.S. national-security review and a Pen- had people wink and purse their lips to go seen in 70 years. Swarms have also been sighted in
tagon ban. U.S. lawmakers are worried with the lyrics of an original song. Users cre- Djibouti, Eritrea, Tanzania, Congo and South Sudan,
about national security and censorship ated 3 million videos, with 4 billion views. a country where roughly half the population already
risks posed by TikTok's Chinese ownership. The service has helped launch musical faces hunger after years of civil war.
TikTok draws so much attention because stars like Lil Nas X, whose "Old Town Road" The threat from the locusts "remains extremely alarm-
it's the first China-owned social-media ser- is the longest-running No. 1 song in the his- ing" in the Horn of Africa, where "widespread breed-
vice to make serious inroads in the West. tory of Billboard's charts. There are prank- ing is in progress and new swarms are starting to form,
It's a smash in the U.S. and other countries, sters, funny skits, behind-the-scenes of fast- representing an unprecedented threat to food secu-
attracting celebrities and companies ea- food operations and "glow-ups" — before- rity and livelihoods at the beginning of the upcoming
ger to reach kids and young adults discon- and-after shots of someone making them- cropping season," according to a warning issued this
nected from traditional media. The NFL has selves look cuter. Some are more random: month by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organiza-
an account. So do Chipotle, Reese Wither- Kim Kardashian cooking parodies? tion.
spoon, and The Washington Post. The U.S. Some users say TikTok is more authentic Locust swarms, sometimes as large as some cities,
Army previously used it to recruit soldiers. than the self-consciously pretty and pol- can destroy crops and devastate pasture for animals.
People have downloaded TikTok 1.65 bil- ished Instagram. Emilie Richer, a 19-year- Aerial spraying is generally considered the only effec-
lion times, the analysis firm Sensor Tower old from Simcoe, Ontario, says she uses tive control method. In Uganda, where the locust in-
estimates. In 2019, it was the second- Instagram for "photos that look nice, or the festation has recently spread to more than 20 districts
most downloaded app in the Apple and good things I'm doing" and TikTok to "get in the country's north and northeast, soldiers have
Google app stores, trailing only WhatsApp. loose, make jokes, pull pranks and stuff, been battling swarms using hand-held spray pumps
Research firm eMarketer estimates that dress up weird." A TikTok video of Richer because of difficulties in getting aircraft as well as the
TikTok roughly doubled its U.S. user base to catching a pickle thrown into her mouth recommended pesticide. q
37.2 million in 2019. went viral in November. q