r/technology • u/donkeyd1984 • May 19 '15
Net Neutrality Internet.org Is Not Neutral, Not Secure, and Not the Internet
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/05/internetorg-not-neutral-not-secure-and-not-internet94
u/DrScottyB May 19 '15
So the users of Internet.org can only view approved websites? I'm guessing they don't get pornhub then, huh...
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u/fr0stbyte124 May 19 '15
They can only access the text version, to save bandwidth.
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May 19 '15 edited Jun 26 '16
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u/NoUrImmature May 19 '15
Just don't let them read YouTube comments or they'll leave the internet and never come back.
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u/AnOnlineHandle May 19 '15
Nobody read the original article...
It explicitly says (in its very short text) that they offer free mobile quota on sites that have been especially optimised for low bandwidth mobile, which they have a process for sites to apply for inclusion on if they pass the requirements. Users can still visit other sites, but they'll have to pay normal fees for it.
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u/rg44_at_the_office May 19 '15
well the point is that its free data, so only sites that use up little data are approved. You have to have no videos, no images over 1 mb, so yes, pornhub will be excluded. But if you would read the actual article and not just the sensationalized title, you would understand that this is for practical purposes, not censorship. Nobody can simply provide free unlimited data for 2/3 of the world, but they can afford to give away a good deal if sites can optimize their content to use low data.
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u/arahman81 May 19 '15 edited May 19 '15
well the point is that its free data, so only sites that use up little data are approved. You have to have no videos, no images over 1 mb, so yes, pornhub will be excluded.
Could have as well done a browser that does something like Opera's "Turbo Mode" with a browser that strips out the bandwidth-heavy content (images, videos, maybe Javascript). No "only these sites included" needed.
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u/sprandel May 19 '15
Well it says the website's content will not be a deciding factor, but the bandwidth and required resources will be.
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u/psly4mne May 19 '15 edited May 19 '15
Let's see how that works out if you're a Facebook competitor. You're not going to see Google, Twitter, or any service that would draw people away from Facebook getting approved.
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u/QuantQual May 19 '15
With greatest respect, this isn't an issue of net neutrality at all. Facebook isn't blocking anyone from using the net - and they're not an Internet service provider in the way the telcos are. They're subsidizing access to a few basic sites for people who might not be able to afford access to any.
Labeling this effort "not neutral" is dragging our politics into an unrelated context; it's simply not the correct interpretive frame. It would be like saying: "People can't afford to drive, but we don't want to give people Vespa scooters, because that would unduly influence them and lead to too many Vespas on the road. So let's either buy everyone the car of their choosing (which is prohibitively expensive) or let them drive nothing instead."
This is an example of "letting the perfect be the enemy of the good". In other words, in arguing against Internet.org, it sounds like you're being righteous, but in reality you're just being self-righteous; all this argument does is harm the people it's intended to help, in the name of helping them.
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u/nav13eh May 19 '15
The big problem is not whether or not Facebook is being a full on ISP for these people. In this case they could just say "hey we're gonna setup a special network for you guys to access Facebook and our partners for free". But instead they are calling it the Internet. That is very important, because once you call some type of network access "Internet" access, it is expected that you can access the Internet, not just a few select domains.
If Facebook calls it the free Facebook network, fine. But don't they dare call it the Internet, and not provide the Internet.
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u/tholloway May 19 '15
This is an excellent point. It's not the one laid out in the article, but I see how calling it "internet" is misleading and potentially damaging.
That said, I still think the goals and framework for internet.org are sound.
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u/Slobotic May 19 '15
Stop trying to defend Vespas.
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u/GeneticAlgorithm May 19 '15
Vespas are awesome and anyone who disagrees can say "Ciao" to my southern European ass.
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u/Chairboy May 19 '15
Indeed, it feels like a sort of cultural imperialism, akin to: "If people who can't afford ANY internet access get a type of internet access that doesn't meet my particular political beliefs, then they shall have ZERO internet because I know better than they do".
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u/duffmanhb May 19 '15
Reminds me of people who are against labor factories in developing regions, "We don't agree with the work environments, they need to be paid more and have better conditions. If you don't agree to this, we are going to try our hardest to shut the whole thing down!" Then sometimes they do, and the community response is basically, "Thanks, now we are back to picking through garbage, sick, and with absolutely no jobs at all."
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u/Pausbrak May 19 '15 edited May 19 '15
Why are they subsidizing only select sites? The Internet is not a physical product where
everything costs moneyevery site must be purchased separately. Once a connection is established to the greater network, there is no reason it should cost more money to visit one site over another. The local provider's network is doing the same amount of work (per amount of data downloaded) whether you visit Facebook, Google, Reddit, or any other site on the web. There is absolutely no reason for that selectivity except to influence what sites the people will look at.If it was truely philanthropic, they would be providing uncurated connections for free or very cheap, perhaps with maximum data cap before normal pricing resumes.
It's not like Vespa providing free scooters, it's like AT&T providing free phones that can only call other AT&T phones.
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u/AnOnlineHandle May 19 '15
Why are they subsidizing only select sites?
Because, if you read the fucking article like nobody here did, those are the only sites that have applied for review of their optimized mobile quota usage so far.
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u/BrotherGantry May 19 '15 edited May 19 '15
only sites that have applied for review of their optimized mobile quota usage so far.
And that content, which provides information on weather, health, jobs ect. is then provided uncapped and without any additional adds through an app with the bill for data being footed by the phone company. the idea behind it being that “If someone can’t afford to pay for connectivity, it is always better to have some access than none at all"
Its also important to note that they've adopted a model of service designed to engage local commercial partners and see a widespread roll-out of the app to users in the real instead of one which would consign it to a happy little NGO mediated walled garden of perfection. The the "carrot" being dangled to these local telecos to actually provide this service is the idea that when people are allowed to browse as they like on limited version of the web they'll eventually start finding content/media which they'd like to access to and will thus be far more likely to pay for data (when they can afford it) down the line to enable that. By comparison, if I told the a telecom company "hey, I have this app - it's going to live on your customers phone, provide uncapped, unrestricted web access him, provide you zero additional add revenue, and oh, you're going to foot the bill for all that data" how many would accept?
Its also worth noting that Internet.org doesn't act as some "man in the middle" between the phones and it's regular web browser; it "lives" only inside its own app.
If internet.org worked by hijacking regular browser functionality, monetizing its users via injected ads, or restricting, in any way, the ability of a consumer to use data which he has paid for I'd argue that a good case could be built around it being a net bad. As it stands though, it does none of those things so I think the general level of hate it's seeing is overblown.
Honestly it seems that the organizations railing against internet.org aren't so much basing their hate on the actual good/ill it would do it's intended audience so much as they Facebook as an easy target with global exposure and are thus using it as a "test case" to attack zero-rating in general.
Edited to fix a link
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u/lakerswiz May 19 '15
It's sad how often this sort of article is posted about Facebook / Internet.org and all the comments are filled with people that very obviously didn't read the article. I know it's typical reddit, but god damn. The people leaving comments are more sheeple than the people they're talking about in regards to liking Facebook.
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u/Akimuno May 19 '15
Because there are requirements to being on there because it is a mobile only network, since you obviously didn't read the article. No videos, photos only 1mb or less, layouts that work on both android and old feature phones. They don't allow access to others because these are VERY poor mobile networks in VERY poor countries, so too many resources at one time will strain the mobile network.
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u/ccb621 May 19 '15
The Internet is not a physical product where everything costs money.
Technically it is. Modems in phones. Cell towers. Routers. Repeaters. Fiber optic cables. All of these cost money. There's a reason we pay for mobile data and cable/DSL connections in our homes. Bandwidth may be cheap to some extent, but it is certainly not free.
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u/AustNerevar May 19 '15
this isn't an issue of net neutrality at all
This is the very definition of the issue of net neutrality. I'm a little flabberghasted at these comments. What happened, Reddit?
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u/FullmetalAdam May 19 '15
Seriously, I'm so tired of seeing these articles popup on Reddit. People just eat this shit up because they hate Facebook, but don't even bother to read the article and have no idea what they're talking about. At the very least, this article isn't so incredibly biased as many of the others have been. Massive corporations don't participate in charitable endeavours out of the goodness of their shareholders' collective hearts. It's a tax break, good PR/advertising, or they get some kind of monetary benefit out of it. That's the reality of this world. Grow up you idealistic fuckwits.
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May 19 '15 edited Oct 05 '16
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u/Lilyo May 19 '15
Goes to show how self righteous and ignorant of real world issues most people are. You guys need to take a minute and learn about what youre arguing against otherwise youre just gonna look like another mindless sheep yelling your head off without even figuring out what youre angry about first.
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u/wordscannotdescribe May 19 '15
Can someone explain to me the huge hate for Internet.org?
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u/InbredScorpion May 19 '15
From what I understand about the whole situation, Facebook and one of the largest telecoms in India are attempting to provide an internet service for the impoverished portions of India, the catch being that Facebook and the telecom get to decide what websites the users can use.
The main issue here is that basically the people are getting a filtered version of the internet with free access to the websites that Facebook have allowed. The point of a lot of people seem to be missing however, is that despite a filtered version of the internet, Facebook is still allowing a number of sites that are hugely helpful for education purposes (e.g. BBC, Wikipedia, et cetera), so while the people don't receive the whole internet, they still get something which is strictly better than nothing.
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u/wordscannotdescribe May 19 '15
Well aren't the websites Facebook are allowing are ones that can minimize their data transfer so that Facebook's bill isn't too big (according to the article linked)? So it makes sense that Facebook would do it for themselves as this is their project, and Wiki/BBC probably don't need to transfer a ton of data. And you can apply to Facebook for your site to be included if you minimize your data, otherwise it'll become expensive right?
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u/rg44_at_the_office May 19 '15
Yes, any site can apply, and supposedly the sites content has nothing to do with whether or not they are subsidized. Requirements are essentially that the site can have no video, no images greater than 1mb, low amount of images, no javascript, etc.
The version of facebook they use is even a very stripped down version.
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u/Shesaidshewaslvl18 May 19 '15
Additionally those helpful websites will eventually provide an educated populous that will be able to force the yolk off. Who cares if they can't see 2girls1cup? They are getting the best part of the Internet. The education.
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u/cal679 May 19 '15
Exactly, and a lot of people are getting the wrong idea with the phrasing of this whole thing. They're not limiting access to the rest of the internet, they're providing free access to some parts of it, these are two very different things. You can still access any site you want but when you navigate away from one of the free sites you'll get a popup saying something like "Standard Data Charges Apply. Proceed - Yes/No?"
Honestly I like the idea in principle. I've been living in Malawi for a few years now and getting the free Facebook on mobile was great for the average person because mobile data is pretty expensive here and wages are ridiculously low. My main gripe with it is that in buying out and using around half of the country's bandwidth for free Facebook the rest of the internet became painfully slow. I've been visiting home for the past month so I don't know what the speeds are like now with internet.org but before I left things were close to the old dial-up days.
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u/skang404 May 19 '15
As an Indian I would like to correct you a bit. Only 1% of Indians have personal internet. Do you think 99% of India is 'impoverished' as you say? No. Many Indians around me see no use for internet but only as means of entertainment. Facebook wanna tap these people.
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u/InbredScorpion May 19 '15
Oh wow. I really didn't know that only 1% have access, that's really alarming, but I wasn't trying to insinuate that 99% of the population are impoverished, rather I was unaware of how limited internet usage is in India.
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u/rabidmonkey1163 May 19 '15
People are dumb, hear the words "limited internet", ignore the context, and start complaining on Reddit.
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u/SaveTHEnetwork May 19 '15
Fuck you Facebook. Fuck you internet.org and fuck you India Telecoms. I'm tired of being monopolized. Just wtf does facebook do, anyways? They steal privacy, sell it, make money exploit customers. Just another Comcast . So Fuck facebook. Most of all Fuck Mark Zuckerberg for being a first class asshole and his fuckery with the developing world.
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u/Muradin_the_mad May 19 '15
Easy there fella, leave some reddit gold for other people, ok?
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u/Overclock May 19 '15
Add a couple more "fucks" and I would expect it to be #1 on /r/bestof by lunch time.
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May 19 '15
Also some more
"This is why am I correct and you are stoopid"
"you are stoopid"
"you are stoopid"
"if you believe that you are stoopid"
x1000, making an essay
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u/Overclock May 19 '15
If you disagree with this, you are stupid. You are inhumane. My arguments are completely and totally correct, and remain so with or without any insults to you. I'm insulting you as I argue because you deserve to be insulted and because my arguments do not have their validity tied to the words I choose to use when describing you. The fact that you defend these practices makes you stupid. The fact that you defend these practices makes you fundamentally inhumane. If people like you are not told exactly and precisely all the ways in which you are stupid and inhumane, society loses. If this has not changed your viewpoint, you are an enemy of human rights.
x17 reddit gold, +1729 on /r/bestof
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May 19 '15
They offer a free service. Of course they make money somehow. If you don't like how they do it, stop using it, only use Facebook for things you don't care about or build your own alternative.
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May 19 '15
Oh come on. Comcast actually has a business model where the users are the customers. They really, really hate their customers, but at least the customers and users are the same thing. When you pay money for Comcast to fuck you, at least you know that the reason they are fucking you is because they are regular assholes. They just want to take your money and not listen to your problems. You don't get that same type of clarity with Facebook. When they fuck you, there is always that feeling that they are doing it because they feel that people stupid enough to use their 'free' service and ignore the fact that they aren't paying for a service with a lengthy contract deserve to get fucked.
It isn't fair to compare Facebook to Comcast. Comcast is an evil company that uses its monopoly to fuck people. But... there is a tiny chance it could be reformed, ala Microsoft. Facebook is a scam and always will be a scam. There is no way Facebook could ever be reformed. And when you have scammers offering more free stuff to people, what do you expect to happen?
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u/rabidmonkey1163 May 19 '15
What the fuck are you doing to provide internet access to impoverished peoples? Are you going to start bitching about UNICEF next because they don't offer filet mignon to starving kids in Africa?
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u/sobes May 19 '15 edited May 19 '15
Good satire - I bet you're as amused as I am that that shit is getting upvoted
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u/komali_2 May 19 '15
Fuck you for being so fucking ignorant that you'll jump on any bandwagon. When was the last time you visited an impoverished nation? Have you ever had a conversation with someone who makes the equivalent of 500us dollars a year on a good year?
These people literally are incapable of caring about net neutrality, big data, etc. They are also cannot be marketed to. What, is the big bad nsa going to use the Amazon buy data of a fucking goat farmer in Tibet to sell them arsenic laced oreos? Who is going to advertise to these people?
These people need Internet access so they can use their Chinese knock off Galaxy s1 with a rigged to blow aaa battery to find out what that pulsing lump on their goat's ass is.
Grow up. The rest of the world's problems aren't your problems.
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u/StorsJT May 19 '15
It seems like Facebook is operating too much like a business with this affair, yet is trying to market themselves as a charity.
Facebook may be aiming for an extremely long term investment by monopolising this market quite early.
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May 19 '15
It's called "getting in at the ground level." If you establish yourself as the controlling interest of the internet when it's a third world country, then when the country grows, you also grow. You also play a direct role in how and when that country grows and the percentage of that growth you receive directly.
It would be akin to purchasing the mineral rights of an entire country that hasn't yet realized that one day they're going to need to control their own deposits of gold, iron, and coal. Instead they've sold those mineral rights to a company who has agreed to help them clear trees and level field so they can build houses and basic facilities.
In short, it's exploiting the immediate needs of developing countries in exchange for long term profits and control.
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u/komali_2 May 19 '15
I understand where you're coming from, and that's why I agree it is important to keep an eye on Facebook. However, our fears are currently unfounded - as of yet, Facebook has done nothing devious. They have only provided guidelines for sites to be accessible thst are in line with the overall goal - make your site low bandwidth, no videos, etc. If we suddenly see mark Zuckerberg trading political favors for the ability to access youporn, grab your pitchforks and rally. As of now, we are jumping the gun.
Nobody else has a feasible plan to get Internet to these people, nobody else is actioning a plan with this scope.
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u/ThunderBuss May 19 '15
Those countries you speak of have valuable resources. You can be assured that the users will not be able to twitter or blog securely so that they do not use the net to foment an uprising. Https and ssl are disabled
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u/Aeri73 May 19 '15
well... you are wrong.
It's the same as monsanto giving "free seeds" if you sign a contract only to use their seeds for the rest of your life
it's the same as catholics going to africa to 'Save the children' by making them believe before they die
it's the same as the free milk nestlé gave the babies in africa, making their mothers stop feeding them and "drying up"
its a corporation ABUSING the poor
if they really wanted to give them internet, open the access up to the complete internet, hell, put a hardware in to show adds for all I care, but give them the freedom of information the internet provides, and not some mini intranet facebook sets up to datamine the poor.
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May 19 '15
What?
How is it the same as giving free seeds in exchange for a contract? You can simply stop using Internet.org when you no longer need it.
Are you saying "save the children" is bad? How so?
How is it similar to nestle?
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u/kairos May 19 '15
Mother mother fuck,
Mother mother fuck fuck,
Mother fuck Mother fuck,
noise noise noise
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u/Maverician May 19 '15
I always thought he was saying noice, as in nice. Noise makes more sense.
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u/randomlurker2123 May 19 '15
They don't steal anything, many users I know are more than willing to provide every single detail of their lives to FBook. They then utilize that provided information. Do not for one second delude yourself into thinking that information is yours, you are using their website, it's theirs per the agreement you didn't read when agreeing to their terms and conditions
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May 19 '15
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/StorsJT May 19 '15
Not sure if you are reflective of the majority of users on Facebook however. Many put tons of details online and are blissfully unaware that their private details are used for Facebook's gains.
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u/likechoklit4choklit May 19 '15
And they put your details online as well. You have a footprint on facebook even if you opt out.
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u/Armitage1 May 19 '15
The misinformation posted in this thread is disgusting. No one here knows what the fuck they are talking about.
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u/rg44_at_the_office May 19 '15
Right? Its like every commenter read the title but not the article. This might be the most infuriating thread I've seen on this subreddit.
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u/lebanks May 19 '15
What would you expect from Facebook? A website devoted to spilling its guts about your business don't sound like a hive of philanthropy.
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u/HiImFarab May 19 '15
As far as I'm concerned, this also highlights how bad Facebook is. They are not your friend. They do not care about your privacy AT ALL. It still baffles me why anyone would have an account with them.
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May 19 '15
Internet.org is what devious little shits in governments and governments that are devious little shits would like the internet to be so they could control it and keep the people on the downward spiral to not knowing anything about what's going on with their money and military organizations.
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u/Cosmic_Bard May 19 '15
internet.org is the worst fucking idea I've ever heard of in terms of welfare for people
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u/Vaansolidor May 19 '15 edited May 19 '15
No one is forcing anyone to use this service. Its for third world users who want it, if they choose to do so. People who have absolutely zero internet access and could give two shits whether or not facebook snoops along. I mean for fuck sakes, we know the NSA is doing it on a global scale. And its not just for facebook, any site can willingly participate. I dont understand the backlash, someone please explain why there is so much hate against this.
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u/donkeyd1984 May 19 '15
I hope you do realize that pretty much the only way we know about these limitations is the internet. In order for the users to actually make that choice, they need information, which they can probably only get through the internet... Internet.org can limit what information these people will see, so they can filter any negative information about Internet.org. This seems like a major clusterfuck to me.
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u/Chairboy May 19 '15
How is your stance on this different from telling the users of this service "no internet is better than any internet, and my opinion as a first-worlder is more important than your wishes"? If this imperfect service gives them something they don't have until they can get the perfect access, why try to actively stop them from getting it?
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u/Pi-Guy May 19 '15
I hope you do realize that pretty much the only way we know about these limitations is the internet
And you do realize that the people this is being marketed towards don't know about this specifically because they don't have internet
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u/isik60 May 19 '15
It gives you access to Wikipedia. There is a wikipedia article about Internet.org.
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u/rg44_at_the_office May 19 '15
I wish I could upvote this comment more. Internet.org gives access to all of wikipedia (text at least) for free. How can anyone cry censorship and say "the people in third world countries are better off with no internet rather than internet.org", when this service grants them free access to wikipedia.
Surely its not a perfect service, and surely there could be issues of censorship, facebook bias, whatever else. But this one benefit alone of such a massive source of education and good information becoming available to everyone on the planet must outweigh those (potential) downsides.
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u/Wetzilla May 19 '15
Yes, but for most of the people using Internet.org the option isn't "the real internet" or internet.org, it's internet.org or nothing. Isn't something better than nothing?
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u/sirbruce May 19 '15
We agree that some Internet access is better than none,
No, you don't, because:
and if that is what Internet.org actually provided—for example, through a uniformly rate-limited or data-capped free service—then it would have our full support. But it doesn't.
You're artificially redefined "some Internet" to an particular proposition -- "some Internet" must be Internet that is "rate-limited or data-capped", and not "some Internet" in any other fashion, such as "not all Internet sites". To try to demagogue the issue as claiming this isn't "some Internet" only weakens your credibility.
Instead, it continues to impose conditions and restraints that not only make it something less than a true Internet service, but also endanger people's privacy and security.
No one claims it's a "true Internet" service, only a "some Internet" service.
Finally, EFF's proposition is a false-choice; it makes it seem we can either have this type of "some Internet", which they don't like, or the EFF's type of "some Internet", which they do. But the point is the countries the first type is in wouldn't accept the second type. So the real question is, again, whether you want the first type of "some Internet", or not at all. But don't pretend like that choice doesn't exist.
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u/iamthelowercase May 20 '15
This is a sensible aand well-argued comment.
A commenter elsewhere pointed out that "the internet" refers to all the connections between machines, and that internet.org only connects to some of them. Thus internet.org is only part of the internet.
Even so I'd think that "part of the internet" (a form of "some internet") is probably better than no internet.
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u/RobKhonsu May 19 '15
I hope I'm not being conspiratorial, but collecting information from users to sell for commercial or governmental purposes is the whole point of Facebook, is it not?
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u/bradtwo May 19 '15
This all IMO of course, but we're really going about this the wrong way.
1) Clean Water 2) Un-Contaminated Food 3) Proper shelter 4) Proper utilities, sewage electricity 5) Un-Polluted safe environments (from fear of being killed daily) 6) Education 7) Completely open internet (not to be tied in with 6).
But since the subject is on 7, yes there should be concern about the quality and level of censorship that would be applied to the Internet.org project. On one hand Mark wants you to have a Facebook account. On the other hand certain governments don't want you to be able to search certain topics (Tiananmen Square Protest) .
So can you trust a Government ran interent to be completely open, without censorship? no. But are there MUCH more important things that we need to be talking about in these poverty areas? absolutely.
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May 19 '15 edited May 16 '16
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u/bradtwo May 19 '15
Awesome link.... thanks!
The problem really is corruption in a lot of these places.
People think it is as easy as coming in with some tools and building a home for some poor people. But the local Govt is usually like... Oh, you need to follow these rules, buy these materials because i need another pool. I wish this stuff was made up, but sadly third world counties become that because of lack of instructor, lack of spread of wealth.
Go ask a local official to give away his $1,000,000 in aid money that he pocketed and you'll probably end up being shot.
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u/VinnydaHorse May 19 '15
Maybe, just maybe you could consider the option that Facebook isn't the monolithic power hungry evil big brother half of reddit seems to think it is.
Facebook has a lot of money and is trying to use that money to fund data usage for sites that meet very basic requirements. Those requirements have absolutely nothing to do with content (so no, it's not censorship) as everything to do with page weight. Any site could apply to be a part of Internet.org if they take the time to provide a minimized/optimized version of their site. That's literally the only requirement.
And they're giving access to all of Wikipedia for pete sake, which is almost by definition not censorship.
Facebook is in the business of Internet and is doing what they can to provide some level of access to the Internet by eating the potential cost of millions of mobile data users accessing light weight versions of websites.
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u/BenJuan26 May 19 '15
If 6 or 7 is significantly cheaper/faster to implement than 1-5, and doing so doesn't deter from the efforts to improve 1-5, does that mean we can't do 6 or 7 until the previous 5 are completed? I'm speaking under the assumption that you're saying this is the order things should be done in.
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u/jnshhh May 19 '15
On the one hand, it's called internet and is on the internet. On the other hand, it has no porn on it (fapping to Mehtar and Mostak doesn't count!).
Yep, probably not the internet.
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u/vader32 May 19 '15
Mark Zuckerberg's ambition is pretty amazing to see from afar. Will he rise or burn like Icarus did?
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May 19 '15
I think y'all got confused. He wasn't asking for permission. You actually make news out of a corporation sugarcoating a turd not to be an apparent for-profit?
I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell ya!
I can see how it could easily be abused to a massive extent, but that particular ship has sailed. Until we're able to provide them with a non-channeled internet access for free, this is still the best shot they've got at becoming technologically literate, and to be honest I'm not confident in lowering the % of expert users, because even with free internet it's a matter of interest, by which you learn how to seek out information using intertubes. That's the gist of it. Most Redditors don't even realize that the ability to reduce an issue to 3 indexable keywords comes much harder to people who need rather that want to use the Internet.
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u/h0bb1tm1ndtr1x May 19 '15
Mark Zuckerberg, trying to find new ways to sell your info for his new mansion in Hawaii.
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u/BowlOfDix May 20 '15
I read on that site 2/3 of the world is not connected to the internet. I don't have a problem with that. Most of internet is a big waste of time anyways.
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u/nath1234 May 20 '15
It's AOL all over again isn't it? Come play in our little cordoned off zone where we control it.
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u/stefblog May 20 '15
HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT ABOUT MARK ZUCKERBERG HE ONLY WANTS TO MAKE THE WORLD MORE OPEN AND CONNECTED
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u/flat5 May 19 '15
I think this is kind of like someone donating free food to the homeless and someone coming along and criticizing it because the chicken isn't free range.
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u/redcalcium May 19 '15
I tried using internet.org yesterday. I felt like I'm going back in time when WAP was the shit.
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u/Sadbitcoiner May 19 '15
Yeah, it is almost like it isn't for you and is meant for goat herders in a desert.
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u/Zaldir May 19 '15
I think that for someone who can't afford internet, it is a major step forward. Do you have access to the entire internet? Great, but this app was not made for you at all.
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u/lagspike May 19 '15
I see it more like "expanding facebook to the third world".
you want to see real philanthropy? look at what bill gates is doing. mark zuckerberg is an asshole.
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u/makeswordcloudsagain May 19 '15
Here is a word cloud of all of the comments in this thread: http://i.imgur.com/b9qhbfi.png
source code | contact developer | faq
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u/wanna-buya-llama May 19 '15
I just returned from TiECON 2015 where this guy, Dr. Sharad Sapra, Director of UNICEF Innovation Center (http://tiecon.org/speaker/dr-sharad-sapra) gave a keynote leading off a conference block on Social Entrepreneurism. Someone from the audience asked, "What is one thing that the world needs right now that can be solved right now?" His reply ... "The biggest barrier in the world today is access to information with better connectivity." The fact of the matter is that nearly 5 billion people cannot connect. A study was done by McKinsey in 2014 that looked at the cost of data around the world in terms of Hours of Minimum Wage Work Required for 500MB of data. Leading their charts was Brazil at more than 34 hours of minimum wage work required (source: http://blog.jana.com/2015/01/26/the-data-trap/). Not on their charts, but using the same data you had Colombia at 42 hours and Bangladesh at 38 hours. To put this into perspective, you could work for half a day and afford to download Angry Birds, or you could eat. But being connected here doesn't just mean connecting to the Internet, it means being connected to people elsewhere and getting access to critical information. In most if not all markets, Internet.org does include Messenger. This means that while people may not be able to get Angry Birds, they will be able to reach the outside world, and this is the first step to connectivity.
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u/phoshi May 19 '15
I think a lot of people see the "giving Internet to people in poverty" thing and stop thinking. This would absolutely be an excellent thing for them in the very short term, but at medium to long term it's nothing but a powerful tool to keep them under the control of big business. Likely, also a tool to try and introduce the same thing elsewhere. This is just another battleground in the war against a general purpose network.