Facebook Will Still Back Internet.org Despite Indian Gov't Disdain For Free Basics 76
Mickeycaskill writes: Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook will continue its Internet.org efforts in India, despite one of the initiative's programs – Free Basics – being banned by the country last month. Internet.org hopes to give more people access to the Internet, but India ruled 'Free Basics,' which offers free access to Facebook and selected apps and services violated net neutrality ethics. Speaking at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Zuckberg said the ban was "disappointing" for Internet.org's mission but hoped other programs such as satellite Internet and drones would be more successful. "It's crazy we're sitting here in 2016 and still, four billion people in the world don't have access to the Internet," he said. "In India we'll focus on different programs. We want to work with all the operators there."
Re: Why won't you let us... (Score:2)
In many ways it feels like Internet.org is a modern version of CompuServ or AOL, minus the CDs. They served a purpose way back when, but like many I am not sure this is the right approach the today, even in poorer locations. Shared community internet access points would probably make more sense?
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and plus a plan for world domination
internet.org is the non-profit equivalent of a Trojan Horse virus
i'm really proud of India for rejecting this...it's a big win for Net Neutrality
fuck off zuckerfuck (Score:4, Insightful)
"It's crazy we're sitting here in 2016 and still, four billion people in the world don't have access to the Internet," he said.
But hes not helping them get access to the internet. He's only getting them access to facebook and facebook sanctioned sites. So the Indian govt is right.
Also one thing that developing countries dispise is it's citizens getting enslaved to a overseas companies services. So fuck off zuckerfuck. If you really meant what you say about internet access then you would be giving them unrestricted internet to any website including your competitor's.
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"It's crazy we're sitting here in 2016 and still, four billion people in the world don't have access to the Internet," he said.
But hes not helping them get access to the internet. He's only getting them access to facebook and facebook sanctioned sites. So the Indian govt is right.
Also one thing that developing countries dispise is it's citizens getting enslaved to a overseas companies services. So fuck off zuckerfuck. If you really meant what you say about internet access then you would be giving them unrestricted internet to any website including your competitor's.
Mark isn't just owed a "fuck off" for this. Facebook as a corporation should be stripped from any and all associations with net neutrality, since they are clearly demonstrating they cannot even begin to understand the true definition of that, nor would I expect them to given their view of the world through Facebook-colored glasses.
I mean damn, I thought AOL users were delusional in their own little key-world...
The world is new. (Score:2)
What do you mean, "net neutrality came too late to make any real difference"? The net was born neutral from the time it was opened to public and commercial interests. And neutrality is the natural state of any communication network. You have to intentionally and continuously work to tilt the internet to special interests. It is being re-claimed in the US even as we speak. Why would India start it's citizens off in a distorted world/
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> He's only getting them access to facebook.
That is correct, but is that necessarily a bad thing?
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That is correct, but is that necessarily a bad thing?
Yes. I can think of a lot of other things he could be doing if he really wanted, like helping modernize India. Or you know, basic things like running water to your home, and a toilet that isn't the street running beside your house, or directly into the river...where you're also getting your drinking water.
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Sadlhy a lot of people in the 1st world really have no idea what real poverty is and genuinely think that internet access is as important as food, water and sanitation. Their idea of hardship is not being able to tweet for a day.
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genuinely think that internet access is as important as food, water and sanitation.
Many people think that because it is true. Per dollar invested, internet access does more to alleviate poverty than any other investment except vaccinations. It promotes literacy, enables farmers to get better prices for their crops, makes it easier for people to buy pumps/toilets/etc, and helps people learn about nutrition and how disease is spread. It makes it easier for people to organize to fight corruption. In many 3rd world countries, the internet greatly lowers financial transaction costs, so peop
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If you really believe that then need to get out there and travel a bit instead of getting all your information about the world online.
"Per dollar invested, internet access does more to alleviate poverty "
An economists answer. Sadly having net access does nothing for an empty stomach or a baby dying of disease.
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Sadly having net access does nothing for an empty stomach or a baby dying of disease.
... except helping to prevent those problems from happening in the first place.
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No one has said that the internet is a 1st world luxury. But if you really want to help people, the internet is way down on the list of things that someone in developing countries actually needs. A baby dying of disease can't eat the internet, it won't give them vaccinations or treatments for that disease either. It won't help the technologically illiterate in any of those cases either, because many of those people who don't have running water or basic sanitation or even food, are in many cases illiterat
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The internet can prevent droughts,famines and the spread of disease can it? Do tell us more...
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You mean 7.4 billion.
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Yep. They should have access to every last bit or nothing at all. Definitely not like the west where we learned a lot through communicating, social circles, restricted BBS, filtered library connection.
Indeedy, the only way forward is an all or nothing approach. No one should donate anything.
Fuck off yourself.
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It would be one thing to give cheap/free access to Facebook in a place where unrestricted internet access was already widely available and affordable. However, offering restricted internet access as the only choice keeps other providers from springing up to compete with that service.
Facebook's project will hold back the spread of internet access to more people, it will delay it. So, yes, in this case, nothing is better.
Re:fuck off zuckerfuck (Score:4, Informative)
No one should donate anything
Some donations are good, some are bad. Mother Teresa objected to foreign medical aid donations because they allowed the government to abrogate responsibility for helping its own citizens. Sometimes when you donate something, you end up reducing its local value to such a degree that you destroy the ability for anyone to produce it locally, which ends up just fostering dependence without doing anything to alleviate the underlying problems.
But that's irrelevant because we're not talking about donations here, we're talking about illegal cross subsidy. Facebook is not donating money to fund access to the Internet, they are subsidising the sale of devices to access Facebook so that they can sell eyeballs to advertisers. This kind of market distortion is exactly the sort of thing that antitrust laws exist to prevent.
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Mother Teresa objected to foreign medical aid donations because they allowed the government to abrogate responsibility for helping its own citizens.
Mother Teresa objected to palliative pain relief because it interfered with holy suffering, as well. On the other hand, in order to get help from the Gates foundation, you have to sign agreements protecting big pharma to the detriment of your population if you have a real health crisis.
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Out of curiosity, what's your view on welfare payments?
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"It's crazy we're sitting here in 2016 and still, four billion people in the world don't have access to the Internet," he said.
But hes not helping them get access to the internet. He's only getting them access to facebook and facebook sanctioned sites. So the Indian govt is right.
Also one thing that developing countries dispise is it's citizens getting enslaved to a overseas companies services. So fuck off zuckerfuck. If you really meant what you say about internet access then you would be giving them unrestricted internet to any website including your competitor's.
It's almost as crazy as billions of people having no access to clean water. Which is far more important than Facebook.
Not having internet access... (Score:1)
Is as bad as using adblocker.
"Disdain" (Score:2)
"Disdain"... astroturf much, /.?
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Decide for yourself [trai.gov.in]
Stop calling it Internet (Score:1)
It has nothing to do with Internet. Yes, I know it's supposed to be called "Free Basics", but why the internet.org domain? This is highly disingenuous.
The Facebook Pimp (Score:3)
""It's crazy we're sitting here in 2016 and still, four billion people in the world don't have access to the Internet,"
So Free Basics, eh?
Mark, I know this is "crazy", but perhaps if you stopped pimping fucking Facebook as "the Internet" , people might be more open to your damn flavor of philanthropy.
Pisses me off when a billionaire can't afford common sense.
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Pisses me off when a billionaire can't afford common sense.
Da Zuck has plenty of common sense . . . he sits back, and asks himself . . . "How did I get to be a billionaire?" . . . "Oh, yeah! Facebook! The more users the better for me!"
I think Da Zuck is going to pull the whole drug dealer trick in India: give out free samples, and get Indians hooked on Facebook until they determine that they cannot live without Facebook. Then start charging them for it. Facebook will even be able to pin the blame on the Indian Government: "Facebook: We would like to keep co
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Well, given that pimping Facebook as "the Internet" consistently seems to have already and will continue to make him extra billions, he probably literally cannot afford* not to do it.
*Where I use afford not in the "cannot do it without starving" metric, but the "holy fuck, that's a large sum of money for me" metric.
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Well, given that pimping Facebook as "the Internet" consistently seems to have already and will continue to make him extra billions, he probably literally cannot afford* not to do it.
*Where I use afford not in the "cannot do it without starving" metric, but the "holy fuck, that's a large sum of money for me" metric.
Heh, you pretty much nailed my underlying meaning there.
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As a walled garden of WAP compatible sites, in order to keep the Third World in its third place.
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Go take up Zuckerberg's Burden (Score:2)
The gall of those Indians to not want a significant part of their population stuck in an American Internet Company Town. How dare they, don't they know that Zuckerberg knows what's good for them?
Wow, who is timothy? (Score:2, Interesting)
"Indian government's disdain for free services..."
Wow. Just wow. Who is timothy and why does he have seemingly untrammelled access to posting slanted stories on Slashdot? Is he the new owner's nome de plume? Got a Facebook connection, or what?
The facts of matter are internet.org would provide India witha free walled garden Facebook-limited, Facebook-defined, Facebook-mined, Facebook-exploited subset of the real internet. It was nothing but digital colonialism, a new different of reservation for a different
Re:Wow, who is timothy? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Indian government's disdain for free services..."
Oh the irony of reaming Timothy while you merrily misquote. It says disdain for "Free Basics", which is the name of the thing Zuckerburg is offering, not "disdain for free services".
It's not surprising there's disdain for Free Basics: it's not philanthropy, it's a cynical hardware subsidisation scheme by a for profit company for profit.
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Timothy, take note. It's "Free Basics" as a term in quotes. If you just write it like two English words, free basics, it could be (and was) taken as a description of the service. Especially in a headline, with its universal capitalization.
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Oh the irony of unjustly reaming out someone because you didn't read their post by acusingthem of unjustly reaming someone out because they didn't read someone else's post.
Double decker wow.
Read my post again.I took Fuckbook and Zuckerfuck to the shed , for exactly the points you're citing. I took timothy tot he shed for mis-representing zuckerfuck's "free services" as something other than exploitation, which is exactly what they are and what the article, and timothy, tried to hide.
Learn.To. Read.
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Learn.To. Read.
Oh the irony.
zuckerfuck's "free services" as s
You have still proven yourself unable of reading the actual title never mind the summary. Timothy called them "Free Basics" because that's the name of the product. That is not a value judgement on them.
Fix it for zuck (Score:3)
"It's crazy we're sitting here in 2016 and still, four billion people in the world don't have access to my creepy data-mining advertisers' database
ftfy
Download food and clean water! (Score:1)
Subsidize all Internet (Score:2)
Hey Mark, how about paying a data connection to everybody and let everybody access any site they like? Then I'll believe you.
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Hey Mark, how about paying a data connection to everybody and let everybody access any site they like? Then I'll believe you.
How about you chip in money son. Then you can talk. He is offering something for free with some limitations. If you want the entire internet then you can pony up the cash and pay for it like everyone else.
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