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.
> 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.
"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?
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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
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"...
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.
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".
> 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 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.
[+] [-] vshan|10 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] zorked|10 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] nomercy400|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mkagenius|10 years ago|reply
Let the poor speak. Oh wait they can't access internet!
[+] [-] rsync|10 years ago|reply
Then you need to purchase and read the excellent book _The Master Switch_ by Tim Wu. It is a book length answer to your specific question.
[+] [-] pavanky|10 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] pjbrunet|10 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish
Doesn't Zuck have enough of the Internet?
[+] [-] userbinator|10 years ago|reply
https://github.com/matiasinsaurralde/facebook-tunnel
[+] [-] rhino369|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] freen|10 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] gabeio|10 years ago|reply
> 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?
[+] [-] joelrunyon|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasonkester|10 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6jGeIwebvk
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.
[+] [-] efdee|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] droopyEyelids|10 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] thewarrior|10 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] pavanky|10 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] lips|10 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] suyash|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ljk|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amenghra|10 years ago|reply
I'm really glad the EFF is making a broader audience aware of some of these issues.
[+] [-] ekianjo|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmix|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] billwilliams|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hectorperez|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aaron695|10 years ago|reply
Supply the poor with open free internet.
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.
[+] [-] rjaco31|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cmdrfred|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BorisMelnik|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tim333|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gabeio|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Supersaiyan_IV|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 9872|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bunkydoo|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danielmiessler|10 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] amazon_not|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] monochromatic|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] barbs|10 years ago|reply
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:...
[+] [-] jupake|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cheese1756|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mattryanharris|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chdir|10 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] DanBC|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] the-dude|10 years ago|reply
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 ).
[+] [-] pratyushag|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SixSigma|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] microcolonel|10 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] jqm|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 9872|10 years ago|reply