I don't know what Zuckerberg has in mind, but in India at least, there have been literally a million[1] mails sent to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India in favour of Net Neutrality: and hence India has taken a negative stance on Internet.org, since it sets a wrong precedent.
So yeah, we don't need first world people to speak for us saying how it's helping the poor and stuff.
If they are so interested in connecting the poor, then they can just allocate a certain amount of data for consumption rather than act as gatekeepers.
Also, Facebook is a corporation aiming to increase their shareholders money. Why would anybody trust them with Internet.org? Wikipedia is non-profit, so it's fine with me if it's offered for free.
This is so right. It's not that the rich countries can't do anything to help, but that they are so often clueless in their approach. Internet.org is one such example even if you assume it's well-meaning.
This reminds me of all the ridiculous cheap laptops for the Third World projects - all of which completely failed. Meanwhile the factories in China keep churning out ever-cheaper laptops and phones which are having a real impact without any of the grandiose talk about Helping The Poor.
Cheaper laptops work. Laptops with hand-cranks because The Poor Don't Have Electricity don't. Internet.org is at best the Internet with a hand-crank. It's not even a step towards solving the problem.
This is sort of veering off topic, but it does seem appropriate to mention in this context..
They have similar nonsense in Mexico, Carlos Slim (incidentally the majority shareholder of the NY Times) make billions off of the backs of the poor in Mexico. The cell phone costs in Mexico are more expensive than in the US. So when adjusted by purchasing power, cell phones represent a huge financial burden on those least able to afford it but most likely to need it (due to decayed or non-existent telecom infrastructure in many parts of the country.)
If you want to see the effects of limiting competition (especially on the poor), Mexico is a case study. Before the Downvote Brigade starts naming Telcel competitors, one must remember that Carlos had an over 5 year monopoly on telecoms in Mexico before other market entrants were allowed to join the market, so essentially Carlos Slim and Co. were able to own the market before they had to compete, however by the time competition happened, they had a massive head start. Slim also owns/controls Telmex giving him almost total control of the internet infrastructure (and land lines) as well as cellular infrastructure. Mexico is a place where your cell phone plan might include "5 SMS messages a month" as part of your plan. That's right, 5. There's a reason WhatsApp just went nuts down there.
Personally, I wouldn't jump to call them "clueless", at least in the case of Facebook. They seem to clearly know what they are doing is not in the spirit of net neutrality, yet defend it to no end.
Those ever-cheaper laptops started as copies and spin-offs from the "helping the poor" projects and related technologies. So while the projects themselves may have failed, I wouldn't say they had no impact.
> Those ever-cheaper laptops started as copies and spin-offs from the "helping the poor" projects and related technologies.
I doubt that's true: can you substantiate that? How was the EeePC a copy of OLPC? The only commonality was that they were cheap (for the time). I'd say the cheaper laptops are as a result of a confluence of things: Android, the battle between ARM vs. Intel Atom, a glut of TFTs the high- and mid-range won't accept,
Keep in mind that only 19%[1] of Indian population is connected to the internet, and regardless of the percentages involved, it still means that over 1 million people went out of their way and claimed their rights.
Free access to Facebook wouldn't help 3rd world speak for itself. Poor are the products here and not free Facebook. Bill/Melinda Gates received one of the highest civilian award[1] in India this year, and people wholeheartedly supported it as far as I know.
> By setting themselves up as gatekeepers for free access to (portions of) the global Internet, Facebook and its partners have issued an open invitation for governments and special interest groups to lobby, cajole or threaten them to withhold particular content from their service. In other words, Internet.org would be much easier to censor than a true global Internet.
IMO, this is the key argument against Internet.org. Internet needs to be decentralized to truly remain a populist medium. Facebook knowingly or unknowingly is sowing the seeds for fracturing and killing off free, unrestricted access to the internet.
I'm not that poster or providing any links to substantiate my claims, but I think the writing is already on the wall and Facebook is seeing it. That's why they were investing so much in Instagram, and now also Messenger, even as a web service -- www.messenger.com. The latest is that they're thinking of introducing games on Messenger, slowly making it a platform on its own.
I _think_ that what Facebook is seeing is that social networks as a huge monolith is dying, that youth is abandoning it first in favor of specialized, niche networks. It's common psychology, really. Youth never enjoyed hanging around with their parents. If parents use Facebook to talk, they'd rather pick something else, like Kik.
Google is seeing it with Google+, which turned into a social network for photographers and geeks, so nowadays they mostly just pump out new photography oriented features.
I think they're careful to say it though since it might indicate a weakness in their strategy, a problem for advertisers:
> “I feel photos are the lifeblood of our service,” said Google+ lead Bradley Horowitz during the conference in 2012. “They are the way we can most immediately and viscerally connect as human beings.”
They're careful to say "photos" are the lifeblood, not "photographers".
Anyway, I think that within as little as five years ahead, we'll still see Facebook a very big company, but many smaller services. If that strategy is successful, I think we'll keep seeing Facebook as a big company for the foreseeable future. I don't think they'll be dead in 10 years, definitely not. But I do think people will barely know they're hanging around on Facebook and they'll have apps for all common demographies.
"Oh, our eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Net,
We are ramping up our market share, objectives will be met.
Soon our browser will be everywhere, you ain't seen nothin' yet,
We embrace and we extend!"
Battle Hymn of the Reorg
Anonymous Microsoft employee
MicroNews, the in-house newsletter
In the end, yes, they did fail. But untill that day, they managed to stiffle progress and do great harm to otherwise good and valuable initiatives and technologies.
So, even if internet.org will fail at some point in future, it has a great potential for harm untill that day.
State run (or private) telecoms need to be greased individually and only reach as far as their individual customers. Far easier to lobby internet.org as a whole to censor a particular topic across a sizable portion of the globe.
"You can have all the free Monsanto brand water you want, but only to irrigate Monsanto seeds. You know, the ones that require Roundup by Monsanto to grow and don't create viable seeds of their own to replant or resell. You can't drink it, and you certainly can't build your own seed business that might compete with Monsanto either."
Getting any bits there and back at all is the hard and expensive part. A forum full of people who make a living because the internet is an open, p2p network, and we are really in favor of turning it into a TV with only one channel for billons of people just so Facebook can get a better ROI?
Congratulations: your next startup won't be viable in third world countries and your job is safe from all those people who might start their own start up or learn to code there.
Make no mistake: this is business development, not charity.
> Any data (e.g., proxy requests) or reporting we provide is deemed Facebook confidential information and cannot be used by you for any advertising purposes or shared with third parties.
So they are putting a giant adblock on all of the internet.org sites? How is that in any way neutral/productive/fair?
Why do we still have a system that allows a corporation to purchase the domain "internet.org". This is clearly targeting uninformed internet users. How convenient it is that intended user group fits that description. This is mad.
I'm typing this from India. Facebook bombards us with Ads. We are the fastest growing economy of a billion people. It is crazy to think Facebook won't try to monetize this population.
You're assuming it's not profitable to run ads in 3rd world countries? Have you tried that?
You're assuming that that won't change? Countries won't gain capital influence? You don't think that might affect spending habits & advertisers won't adjust? You really want to make that bet?
I’m not assuming anything. I’m only stating a fact. It might very well change. If people don’t have disposable income, how could it be profitable to advertise to them? But if the country itself develops a stronger economy, sure, then it may become profitable to advertise to its people. And at that point, everybody is winning.
Interestingly third world countries tend to spend massively on consumer goods when you compare the relative income between developing countries versus non developing countries.
This is probably related to the fact that they don't have quite a few of the items that those in other parts of the world take for granted.
Mobile phones, refrigerators, television sets, household items of all shapes & sizes as well as vehicles are very high on the list of desirables and any substantial income tends to be converted into stuff.
In countries where infrastructure is weak a mobile phone is a lot of things at once and so it tends to be very high on the list of things to acquire, a refrigerator (provided you have power regularly) is a way to save money and all the other things in that list signal 'status', something humans all over the world are sensitive to, the third world is definitely no exception in this respect.
Even in non developing countries plenty of people spend money on stuff they can barely afford rather than on their health or the quality of their food.
Oh, hold on there Bob, you've jumped from one assertion to another. What makes you think that people in third-world countries don't have disposable income?
Oftentimes, other languages or undeveloped areas are MORE profitable because there's less competition.
Also, I laid out out how it might actually CHANGE - which was a direct response to your question "why would it change?" Now you're asserting it very well might change?
There is also less regulation. And there are also lots lots of people. And their economies grow much faster than the first world's. And they haven't yet maxed all their credit cards.
The ammount of money that can be made in the thirld world is staggering. Another case of shlep blindness?
Why do people assume good faith motives when talking about corporations? It should be the opposite, they're going to harm you. Sorry -- rather, the actions are amoral, the end goal is making moves that will make them more money. So it's very obvious that there's something to be had in this game, and introducing ads is one possible result.
How do you make money? You provide a product or service in which people can choose to buy/use, if it provides enough value for the cost. If you don't think a product or service is worth the cost, don't use or purchase it.
Exactly. In this case, just abstain from internet access until it makes its way to your part of the world in a few years or decades. Just ignore that your neighbors have access.
You know that many practices, like price dumping (having preditorially low prices of things) is illegal for the obvious reasons? In a price-dumping kind of way, do you see how what Facebook is doing could be very bad?
Did Ford harm America for wanting more money? Why assume corporation = harm? Their end goal is money, not harm. Unless you prove me that money is harm is universally true.
They're trying to control the "tube"[1] (if you will) of information. That's not to say they'll do a good or bad thing with it, but I think the ideology here is that "open access" is "better" than "controlled access" - especially when it comes to something like the internet.
The analogy would be closer to the Rockefeller relationship with Oil. They controlled the entire system (and was eventually found to be a monopoly and broken up).
The above comment wasn't meant to say that Facebook is going to do harm (intentional), but that it's "harmful" (for the overall internet ecosystem) for Facebook to control internet access (for close to 2B people) like this.
[1] please don't take this comment down a "series of tubes."
See, corporations are highly amoral entities. not entirely, but overall when all + and - add up, they don't care about doing good, only about making profit for shareholders. And in many/most cases, doing high profit while being nice and friendly and all this is much harder than using dirty tricks and breaking rules (moral/law/whatever).
From my personal view as an employee of one corp, it all comes down how people are rewarded/motivated to get things done. If short term profit is the king, morals are not so much part of the equation, resulting in all kinds of mess.
Exceptions do happen, but they are what they are - exceptions...
Maybe not evil. But surely they have NO moral compass. A big company is made of 1000's of moving parts - people. Each is in charge of a small part of the product. Imagine a company making a missile. You are in charge of the fuse port cover. What can you do to make the missile more moral? Nothing.
Even if an employee is in charge of the big decisions, still no dice. No one of them can decide "Choice A makes more money, but choice B is the moral one" and make choice B without repercussion. Said repercussion usually being firing, demotion or career derailing. Then you get somebody in their position who WILL make the profit decision.
Everyone in a company is responsible to the board, who are responsible to the stockholders, who are individually interested in profit only (by definition).
Because their primary objective is not yours. You have an interest that somewhere in the middle meets theirs, but only just meets that interest. You do not share that interest until you become a shareholder.
Money is not just money, it equals to power as well, so those with the majority will rule.
Money is in that sense not directly harmful, but misunderstanding that companies have their own agendas is rather harmful.
Giving away free stuff isn't enough. People feel entitled to the best stuff for free, not just the free stuff you gave them. And if you offer the alternative of "then don't use the free stuff we're trying to give you" all you'll do is make them more angry at you.
You just can't stop people from looking a gift horse in the mouth.
As far as I can tell, Facebook is offering free access to websites whose operators agree not to be burdensome on the network. That is nothing like cigarettes, and analogizing poor people to children seems a bit degrading.
I hear people try and describe this Internet.org in terms of how Facebook will have control over what information huge numbers of people can access.
Thats a distortion of the the way Zuckerberg presents the effort though. He seems to really want to give the impression that this is about helping people— and not about the power of being the filter through which all information and commerce has to flow. The poor in India etc will almost surely have the option of giving up their free plan and paying for the Internet, and then Facebook will have just served as a stepping stone and aid along the way to 'full' Internet access.
Then why can't Facebook give bandwidth instead of access to a limited number of sites. They're already doing it for a few. It wouldn't cost them anything to extend it to the whole internet.
Apps like UC Browser and Opera Mini have been doing it even before we had smartphones. I still use UC Browser here as 2G is really slow. So the bandwidth used will be miniscule.
It's definitely possible for Facebook. In fact they've almost done it. The fact that they won't go the extra step and still insist on calling it "Internet.org" makes me suspicious of their intentions.
Let them go ahead. Call it Facebook.org and cut out the sanctimonious tone of pretending that it's charity.
>It wouldn't cost them anything to extend it to the whole internet.
Yes it would, the entire point of the project is to make a subset low-bandwidth standard. Highly optimized from server all the way to device. By not encrypting it they can even use multicast and caching.
When you visit an internet.org site, your phone wont load 30 tracking js files from 30 different companies. It will load the text of the page.
You are mistaken about the cost structure of the internet.
For all practical purposes, all of the cost for providing internet services at scale is in the last mile. In other words, it would not cost internet.org anything significant to extend the service to cover the whole internet. It makes very little difference in cost whether they backhaul the traffic to their datacenter or their closest peering point.
If the requirement is to only provide a low bandidth service then it is trivial to restrict the bandwidth usage per end-user, even if it provides access to the whole internet.
I'm replying to you from UC Browser . It strips all JS and converts everything to plain HTML thats only a few KB. This is nothing new and has been done by many other players.
Well the problem is that carriers would never agree to such a deal. It would, for instance, make generalized instant-messaging work and destroy their SMS revenue. It would also eat into their "real internet" revenues. I doubt the problem there is Facebook.
I feel a bit that people complaining about this service are self-serving. People here are complaining about things that affect them (potential future internet directions) and because of these effects millions (maybe even a billion) should be denied a free service.
I feel very, very uncomfortable with that viewpoint.
Facebook provides messaging, so internet.org will eat into SMS revenue. Carriers might be able to keep call revenue if they don't allow Facebooks' messenger app.
> The poor in India etc will almost surely have the option of giving up their free plan and paying for the Internet, and then Facebook will have just served as a stepping stone and aid along the way to 'full' Internet access.
This is not going to happen the way the Indian telecoms are screwing up Net Neutrality. Internet.org is only part of the problem. Indian telecoms want to charge extra for OTT (over the top) services. This includes many internet messaging (ex: whatsapp) and VOIP (ex: skype) services. Internet.org sets a bad precedent where the telecoms can come up with various packages that are "free" while charging exorbitant amounts of money for the rest of the internet.
Usually I'm very pro internet.org with the basis for my response being "people who can't afford internet don't care about your politics, why should we get to deprive them of useful services based on a message only we care about." And I still feel thats true.
But your response is definitely the best argument against it I've seen.
If you look up Internet.org free tier screenshots from users all the pics are blurred out with a sales pitch from the carrier to "upgrade to premium Facebook to see this"
I'm all for keeping the net neutral. But let me play the devil's advocate here: When the telecoms have paid for the spectrum (there was an auction for the spectrum), how can you dictate what services they should charge for and what services they shouldn't charge for ? The spectrum is a public resource, but when the telecoms have paid for it, aren't they entitled to charge for the services they provide ?
Spectrum wasn't sold to them, it was licensed. A list of specific services they are allowed to provide is in the license agreement. Spectrum remains public property leased out for a specific purpose, and not private property; the government is well within its rights to decide what the spectrum should, and should not, be used for.
They knew the license terms when they bid for the spectrum. One of the approved uses is providing internet service, and the license agreement (UASL) specifically says that this entails providing access to all legal websites and services on the internet.
While the intent is clear, it isn't as detailed as net neutrality legislation in other countries — which is why campaigners want new regulations or legislation with similar clarity as laws in Brazil, Chile or the FCC's rules.
The telecoms are still going to provide the internet services. But they want to provide free packages for some of the services. They have the license and they can manage to provide access to some of the sites for free. Of course the access is not really free, just that the party that is receiving the traffic (Flipkart) and the ISP have an arrangement to bear the costs rather than charging the visitor. Whoever wants to access the internet, can still do so by paying for it, as they do now. Are we being fair when we say that we want to call that illegal ? Laws are based on the idea of fairness. We should first debate the fairness of a practice before we push for it to be legislated.
since they are a utility, they can charge all they want as long as they don't discriminate, they can decide to charge all data at 1000Rs/MB. Even a 1800 kind of service is also ok, wherein service provider will pay for the data and not end user, as long as any business can join in.
Now the question is why should some business be treated as utility, it is because they control access to limited natural resource, which somewhat prevents free competition
In my country there are phone plans where you specify few phone numbers (usually your wife or children) and have very low tariffs for calling those numbers.
To be sure, there are numbers that are toll free and the receiving party is charged for calling, much like the arrangement that Indian telecoms are proposing to get into with e-com sites like Flipkart. Toll-free numbers can be seen as incentives to call a particular number more than others. Aren't they violating the "Telephony Neutrality" principle ?
Yes, I am aware of toll free numbers and the like. The phone number analogy is not quite suitable as a counterargument against internet.org, but it was not meant to be one either. It was more a conter to the devil's advocate line of questions.
The tariff and regulatory structure of telephony is different from internet access. "Telephony Neutrality" basically says that you can call anybody you like as long as you can afford it and you are free to receive phone calls from anybody.
Internet.org is thus more like: "you can call these toll free numbers, but you cannot receive calls from anybody we haven't preapproved".
they do, long distance are charged differently then local and same network calls, and 1800 reverse the paying party. 100, 101, 191 are free. 5* sms cost extra. You can get a plan which frees few nos. or get unlimited call to 1 no.
I addressed these issues in a sibling comment, but the main gist of the argument is that in telephony within tarrif groups there is no discrimination between different numbers.
There is nothing magical about the IP address of internet.org that makes packets to and from it special. Hence zerorating should be applied to either all IP addresses or none.
> Thats a distortion of the the way Zuckerberg presents the effort though.
1) I don't quite know how to parse this. The EFF isn't characterizing the internet.org plan the same way FB is? It's a FB initiative, and EFF are watchdogs. Should I expect them to share opinions & metrics of value?
2) See also: "Millions of Facebook users have no idea they’re using the internet" - Quartz article discussing the fact that many people don't understand the technical underpinnings (and thus, power dynamics) of the web/internet/API-based applications: http://qz.com/333313/milliions-of-facebook-users-have-no-ide...
There's a lot of back and forth between "we applaud Facebook for this initiative" and "But that's not the right way to do it" in this piece. I usually find EFF articles well written but this one was particularly painful to read and not really insightful either.
If you prefer polarized opinions you can find that on any mainstream news venue. In real life people tend to have nuanced and conflicted opinions about many things.
They're trying to make some very serious criticisms without detracting too much from the fact that Internet.org actually got off their arses to do something about the digital divide.
I think its fair. They're trying to give some degree of credit where its due, as opposed to an all out attack. Its hard for me personally to agree with an all out attack piece when I'm conscious of the seemingly good intentions of the project (conspiracies aside).
That is just the technical issue they are against. They also oppose the internet having singular entities acting as gatekeepers. Here is the summary from the last paragraph.
We have confidence that it would be possible to provide a
limited free Internet access service that is secure, *and
that doesn't rely on Facebook and its partners to
maintain a central list of approved sites*. Until then,
Internet.org will not be living up to its promise, or its name.
Although slightly more nuanced than a blanket YES/NO, it would have been more helpful if there were more concrete suggestions on acceptable process mechanisms for 'limited free Internet access'.
It is like if someone goes to a group of starving orphans and offers them food and board and education, but in exchange they must work.
On one hand, you are helping them compared to how others treat them. On the other hand, you are exploiting them for your own gain.
Even ignoring the morals of offering a bad deal to someone who only has worse deals to choose from, there is the fear that such an actor would eventually evolve to lock out others who want to help without (or with less) exploitation.
Oh wait, then you'd have to stop being a bunch of whiny privileged people and spend your own time and, god forbid some of your own money helping the poor.
Helping the true poor is going to have a catch, there is no utopian society that's going to do it instead, grow up.
Television, which is generally consider to be very positive in impoverished countries, especially around issues like equality, had ads.
And the stations lock users down to their content often using monopolies in radio spectrum. All the while the world goes on as it always does, helping not at all.
I have an even easier way, lets find a hack. Lets find a way to use this pipe that Facebook is building to allow access to the wider internet. Lets make it easy, like popcorn time and then lets give it away for free.
Popularise tunneling? It can already be done, and they can't easily stop people from sharing information between Facebook and the outside, the real Internet.
What they can do, however, is severely limit the bandwidth this way; it's not net-neutral at all, but tunneling does effectively break out of the walled garden.
This is one of those things that I don't understand, don't have time to research but just inherently don't trust because it is a corporation that I don't trust disguised as a "dot org" when I can just feel their are ulterior motives.
I'm not sure I'd call it an 'ulterior motive' as its so obvious but there's obviously a massive benefit to Facebook from this - the potential unconnected billions will all get Facebook accounts and probably be grateful to Facebook for providing free internet. It gives Facebook a way to go from 1bn users to 5bn. I don't know if it's that much of a problem if I couldn't get net access otherwise then having a device with Facebook on it but not say Diaspora would not worry me hugely. They can always get regular open internet access when they have some money together.
dot org isn't like dot edu where you have to verify anything. I actually bought a dot org it was as easy as a dot com. It's not really meant to look/be "trustworthy"...
That the .org TLD is open to anyone is a shame, and that it's used like this is even worse.
I know it will probably be an unpopular view here, but I actually quite like the approaches taken by Australia (where I grew up) and Thailand (where I live and run my business now)
In Australia you have to be a registered non-profit to get a .org.au domain, and you have to have an ABN or ACN to get a .com.au or .net.au. In the case of commercial domains, while it isn't checked at registration, if your domain name isn't somehow related to your company/brand name, (or even if it is and you aren't using it actively) you can lose it.
In Thailand, your .co.th domain name must match your company name - e.g. if you have HappyHamburger Co., Ltd, you can only register happyhamburger.co.th - this means new companies don't need to rush out and make sure they get the domain matching their company name (or even that it might be taken) to prevent squatters.
It being open to anyone isn't bad. It allows groups not formally incorporated as charities to have them, and many of those groups are befitting of a .org domain.
Well for Australia, you would use the .id.au suffix.
For Thailand, you would use the .in.th suffix.
Note however, that in Australia - any individual can apply for an ABN and if you're a freelancer or otherwise self-employed in Australia, you would need an ABN to issue tax invoices anyway.
true, you don't have to verify anything but utilizing a dot org does make several implications. maybe not here in the webdev or hacker community (we see past that) but this was a calculated maneuver by them to look a certain way.
No, that's pretty much the only thing I find wrong with it. And if they are willing to share the name once other groups start their own similar programs, I would even withdraw that objection.
2/3 of humanity isn't connected to the internet they say, but the problem here is that 2/3 of the population probably isn't having their basic needs met on a day to day basis. Just take for example the bathroom situation in India, let alone Africa. I don't think these people give much of a damn about getting on the internet to update their status.
Maybe this is just like the debate around driverless cars. "They're not perfect!", they say. "They're flawed just like anything else.", they say.
Well, they don't have to be perfect; they just have to be better than humans. And it turns out that's pretty easy.
So maybe rather than beat up on internet.org because it's not free as in perfection, maybe we should be happy that a billion dollar corporation is trying to do SOMETHING to help 4 billion people who can't afford the current option.
It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be better, for those billions of people with no access to the internet, than having nothing at all. And I think they are meeting that and far above it.
The correct solution is to make real, uncensored internet access available and affordable to the masses, not to provide a better version of the North Korean intranet for free.
There’s an important difference between “right” and “good”. Providing free basic internet access is clearly good, and internet.org is doing that. Many people argue, validly, that the manner in which they’re doing so is not right.
But that’s as if I were to tell you that giving anti-malarial drugs to people is wrong, because the right thing to do is to eradicate malaria itself. That’s probably true, but the practical thing to do right now is what’s good, not necessarily what’s right. And you can work on both fronts at once: they’re orthogonal.
I don’t pretend to understand the massive logistical challenges involved in implementing this, and it makes me sigh when others no more knowledgeable than myself make armchair proclamations about what should or should not be done.
> Providing free basic internet access is clearly good, and internet.org is doing that.
If it were only so. I would have no issue with internet.org if they provided free basic internet access. They do not, and this is a VERY important distinction. Internet.org is a gated community with a gatekeeper and no security. It is like AOL or an intranet. It is by definition limited, excluding and discriminatory. It is very much not free basic internet.
> But that’s as if I were to tell you that giving anti-malarial drugs to people is wrong, because the right thing to do is to eradicate malaria itself.
The malaria analogy is a straw man. The resources and effort required to eradicate malaria are vastly larger than the effort and resources required to distribute anti-malaria drugs to a group of infected people. If they were the same it would obviously be both good and right to eradicate malaria. However, they are not.
The effort and resources to provide a gated internet.org and the effort and resources to provide an open internet.org are the same. Thus it is both good and right to provide an open internet.org.
> I don’t pretend to understand the massive logistical challenges involved in implementing this, and it makes me sigh when others no more knowledgeable than myself make armchair proclamations about what should or should not be done.
Unlike you, I do know what I am talking about having made a career in the telecoms industry.
Feeling good about internet.org is about as smart as feeling good about price dumping. All short turn gain for long term loss. Or if you feel like a more concrete example, it's about as smart as pissing in your pants when you are cold.
There is no "basic" Internet access with a limited number of sites in the same sense that one can get "basic" cable with a limited number of channels. That's not Internet access. Calling it Internet access is disingenuous on the part of Internet.org, and providing it in the first place is destructive to the long-term interests of the intended beneficiaries.
What's both "good" and "right" is providing bandwidth-limited access to the entire Internet, subsidized if necessary by the local ads shown on a non-prioritized, low-bandwidth-friendly localized version of Facebook.
With strings attached. It's like giving someone money & telling "you can only buy products that I approve of...". (Missing fine print: we will track you and trap you into buying these for as long as we can).
No matter how much they twist the motivations, given their history, I've no faith in them doing any good, except for their bank accounts. It's one company that has shown utter disregard for the privacy of their users.
The primary aim of internet.org is to map and build a deep graph of every living being and bolster Facebook's monopoly.
In the short term, some might applaud the "free" internet carrot but the whole concept is detrimental to innovation in the long term. Either provide "real" internet without any strings attached, or else don't be surreptitious about your intentions and claim to do it for the good of humanity.
Billions of people would be happy accessing the free-but-limited internet and wouldn't have any privacy concerns. However their privacy isn't the only issue here. The problem is that these people would be unknowingly contributing to the success of the walled garden developed by FB & friends. In the future, companies aligned with them will have access to a trove of data & eyeballs. Those that aren't aligned or want to compete with them, would be shut out. This is anti-competitive. One might argue that without internet.org, these people would not have contributed anyway. However, the premise of "free" will result in a lot of paying customers to switch. And, many of those who don't have an internet connection today, might get one in the near future. One that's low speed and perhaps subsidized by the government. To understand that, you have to look at the growth rate of mobiles in 3rd world countries. The bottom of the pyramid does contribute to the success of many tier-3 cellphone manufacturers. There are people who earn less than a dollar a day but they stay connected with a mobile phone. With a connection that's not limited by any corporation.
As the old saying goes, "there's no such thing as free ...". One way or the other, someone has to pay for the internet. It's not going to come out of the FB shareholders pockets. The question we need to ask is, who is actually paying for it and what's the actual cost (not literal cost) to this freebie.
It would be a lot better if the government or a neutral organization like Mozilla takes up this initiative. I would be happy to contribute to an initiative that provides free or subsidized internet to the masses. An internet, where there's no restriction on which site you can visit. An internet, where nobody will track you or collect your data or re-sell it.
"Here are some charity donated food vouchers. You can only isethem to buy food from KFC, McDonalds, or IHOP. Of course you can use them to buy any food you like, but that will cost extra".
That is exactly how most foreign aid to developing countries is given. Germany will give Malawia money to build a dam, but they have to pick a German construction company and engineering firm.
Please feel free to be so flippant several years from now when you are obese, undernourished, and diabetic; as well as being financially dependent on food assistance.
> With strings attached. It's like giving someone
> money & telling "you can only buy products that
> I approve of..."
Which is basically how large parts of 'development aid' are structured : we offer you $100m if you spend at least 70% in the country of origin ( of the money ).
Slightly off-topic: In case you are looking for a no strings attached place to donate, where money is given to women with the incentive of helping them deliver non-HIV babies, then donate to newincentives.org.
I was unaware of the fact that welfare cheques use some kind of special dollars which are restricted in what products or services they can be used for. If you are talking about food stamps, they are not restricted in where or what they can be used for, only in that they can only be used for food.
> No TANF cash assistance shall be used in any retail liquor store, casino, gaming establishment, jewelry store, tattoo parlor, massage parlor, body piercing parlor, spa, nail salon, lingerie shop, tobacco paraphernalia store, vapor cigarette store, psychic or fortune telling business, bail bond company, video arcade, movie theater, swimming pool, cruise ship, theme park, dog or horse racing facility, parimutuel facility, or sexually oriented business or any retail establishment which provides adult-oriented entertainment in which performers disrobe or perform in an unclothed state for entertainment, or in any business or retail establishment where minors under age 18 are not permitted. TANF cash assistance transactions for cash withdrawals from automated teller machines shall be limited to $25 per transaction and to one transaction per day. No TANF cash assistance shall be used for purchases at points of sale outside the state of Kansas.
(Note that TANF is not the same thing as "food stamps".)
In Missouri this bill http://www.house.mo.gov/billtracking/bills151/billpdf/intro/... is awaiting discussion (I have no idea how likely it is to pass). It would forbid the use of SNAP (which is the same as "food stamps") for "cookies, chips, energy drinks, soft drinks, seafood, or steak".
I think maybe the main issue with this rhetoric is the assumption that it's any of our business what facebook does with mobile characters in somebody else's country.
This is probably none of your business.
That being said, it would be nice to engineer a way to meet the bandwidth and content requirements without losing cryptographic integrity, but that's of secondary importance to getting another billion people reading Wikipedia.
I would feel better about this initiative if it were being carried out by a neutral party (a charitable organization for instance) rather than Facebook. As it is I don't think it's a good idea. It has the potential to undermine the real internet by trapping people in "good enough" service and the motives are highly suspect. I'm hopeful governments will tend to agree.
It's providing them a free service that is by your own words, "good enough" when they currently have nothing, and you are calling that a bad thing? Come on.
What point are you trying to make? For clarity, I haven't said anything about perfect. That being said "good enough" and good are two very different things, especially with internet.org defined as "good enough". Let's have internet.org offer a non-walled, non-discriminatory service and I'll be happy enough to call it good, even if it is far from perfect.
Isn't this just what AOL was in the US in the 1990's? When the "open" internet got better than the walled garden AOL provided, people switched. But AOL was a critical step in getting the masses onto the internet in the first place.
Not to oversimplify this (things are not black and white etc. etc.), but it seems like the world is in a constant struggle between cynicism, greed, egotism and hypocrisy on one hand vs. idealism, generosity, selflessness and integrity on the other. In many cases, the former wins. Internet.org is just another one of these cases. Hopefully, there will be enough initiatives without a hidden agenda to balance it out.
Privacy comes at the top of Maslow's pyramid, we are talking about basic needs here.
This has nothing to do with basic needs of the recipients and everything to do with cementing Facebook's stranglehold on social networking in the developing world. There's no "next step" from here that would make Internet.org a reasonable path on a community's technological development -- this is a dead end.
The government is not doing anything to further the internet reach - facebook is doing it, who cares if there is a vested interest as long as the benefit is much more.
When you buy medicine it makes the pharmaceutical companies cement their stranglehold in medicine world.
Facebook is not doing anything to further the internet reach. All they are doing is furthering the reach of their walled garden. There is little to no longterm benefit from this.
You consider wikipedia part of facebook's walled garden? Or you just don't see any benefit to providing poor people around the world with access to it?
It's their wall and their garden. If Facebook says Wikipedia can be included in their walled garden then obviously it is part of their walled garden.
Beside the above obvious point, the real point is not whether there is a benefit to providing access to Wikipedia with strings attached. The real point is this: are we giving up more than we are getting if we consent to Facebook zero rating some content and putting up walls to deny access to everything else?
My personal option is that the bargain is very bad for all parties involved.
free internet.org access is not so free after all. It's philanthropy outside, but scam inside. Let me put in to context. Most of the people in developing countries use android based smartphones. And users can't control the application connections in android phones due to its creepy structure- any app can run anytime in the background. On the other hand, mobile operators mention that any traffic other than internet.org supported sites will be charged at usual price. So, when users enable their data connection in mobile devices to use internet.org free service, a bunch of apps connect to other servers to update, and/or sync. So, users end up paying for data anyway.
If Facebook wants to do real philanthropy, they should do it right. Develop and distribute an android app that will disable internet communication for all the apps (user controlled) and will only connect to the free services.
WOW Huge bullshit on this website (internet.org). The story with Neesha tells us that her father "knows impressive tricks. But let's get Neesha online and see some real magic" OMG, of course, you need internet to live. Of course real life is not as magical as fake facebook friends. Of course, Neesha's father tricks are not as magic as internet... How condescending colonialist shit is this web site ?!
> > Abdul Salam, a 47-year-old Rohingya, asks a friend in Malaysia for advice [...]. His friend Muhammad Rafiq, a Rohingya in Thae Chaung village, has a son held by traffickers, and they are raising the money to pay the ransom. Abdul Salam's question is: How can he be sure the trafficker, once paid, will let the boy go?
So yeah, we don't need first world people to speak for us saying how it's helping the poor and stuff.
If they are so interested in connecting the poor, then they can just allocate a certain amount of data for consumption rather than act as gatekeepers.
Also, Facebook is a corporation aiming to increase their shareholders money. Why would anybody trust them with Internet.org? Wikipedia is non-profit, so it's fine with me if it's offered for free.
[1] : http://gadgets.ndtv.com/internet/news/trai-receives-over-1-m...