All right, this is a mea culpa. Last night – later than I should have – I tweeted a ‘fact’ put out by the World Bank.

It was contained in the source for this tweet:

World Bank Africa

If you look at the source that they mentioned, it is “51 Random Facts about Africa”

A bit odd, but hey, this is put up by the World Bank! They are a solid organisation you can rely on, aren’t they?

But when I went into the sources for this particular claim it is this: Bowden, Rob. 2005. Africa. Strongsville, OH: Gareth Stevens Publishing.

Now Mr Bowden may, or may not, have been right back in 2005. But he was probably drawing on studies that were a couple of years old.

So this was – perhaps – 2003 data. In other words, it is information that is a decade out of date.

And – as one twitter respondent rightly pointed out to me – it will therefore certainly ignore the fact that today most African access is via mobile connections.

So thank you all for picking me up on this.

This blog, with its table about the state of internet connections via undersea cables is a useful corrective.