An analysis of Social Media use in The SADC region - 2014 - 2020 Recommendations for Improved social media use: Free internet and/or zero rating Affordable access to broadband networks is a necessary condition for improved social media use. Some MNOs’ are zero-rating over-the-top (OTT) services, limited as this practice is at present, it has been said to provide a gateway to the Internet for first-time and price-sensitive users160 . Additionally, when the practice is deployed by non-dominant MNOs, zero-rating has been argued to enhance competition.161 Others have urged that regions’ MNOs’ zero-rating practices raise the potentially negative unintended consequences that can arise from instrumentally regulating complex, adaptive systems that today drive innovation within the information and communications technology (ICT) ecosystem in Africa.162 There is also another argument that zero-rating fosters discrimination among providers of online content and content applications in ways that may skew incentives for low-income/poor subscribers, such that users may choose to access the “free” services of identified partners instead of the services of competing providers.163 As an example, in 2014 Zambia was the first164 African country to implement Facebook’s Free Basics165 initiative that allows users to access prescribed sites without the need for data. Free-Facebook166 , in partnership with Facebook, MTN Zambia launched Facebook Flex, a service 160 https://www.apc.org/sites/default/files/FreeAccessIP3-Online.pdf 161 https://researchictafrica.net/publications/Other_publications/2016_RIA_Zero-Rating_Policy_Paper_-_Much_ado_about_nothing.pdf 162 ibid 163 ibid 164 https://cipesa.org/2017/05/zambias-mixed-record-on-ict-access-and-free-expression-online/ 165 http://www.internet.org/ 166https://www.techtrends.co.zm/mtn-zambia-launches-free-facebook-flex/ 30 https://zimbabwe.misa.org