Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree Facebook is doing this for their own greedy reasons, but they make one very good point: "Banning free basics on the basis of net neutrality [...] means 1 billion people cant afford to access any services." It isn't a choice between having facebook, or having the full internet. Its a choice between having facebook, or having no internet at all. Surely no internet at all, is the worst option. Nobody else is goi…
Some access is better than no access but some types of "some access" are better than other types of "some access".
Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics
131–140 of 262 posts
Re: Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics
#132If I was facebook, I'd tread lightly. India has a long history of reneging on deals. Once a deal is struck with most nations, that's it. Done deal. With India, they don't care - they'll do whatever is convenient for them. They did just that on a huge WTO deal years in the making (source: http://www.npr.org/2014/08/10/339292735/why-indias-modi-defi... ). The also reneged on a solar energy trade agreement with the U.S…
Re: Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is the lack of Internet truly that bad? India, while woefully poor in many places, is perhaps the most spiritually rich nation I have ever known. For all the stresses of life and distortions of industrialization, let alone internetification, they have far more inner resolve than most of us in the pill-popping West. To say that they have nothing if they reject an inch-wide glimpse of the Internet, provided by a compan…
Ya, who needs to know the price of rice or fertilizer? Certainly not Indian farmers; they can eat inner peace. And who needs to learn algebra? Certainly not rural children; they already know the meaning of life. Free Basics isn't the answer, but going from no-internet to just-a-tiny-bit-of-internet can have a big impact on someones life.
Funnily enough, having worked for a while on projects in rural Maharashtra, the children are the path to information for those villages - they're the ones who can read and write and know the prices and share information upwards to the adults.
(the conclusion being, back then, that one should market to children...)
Re: Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics
#134From my Indian friends on Facebook, it appears Facebook is showing messages that certain friends of yours are supporting, or signed up for Facebook basics, even if they never did anything of the sort. It's creepy, and messed up. Edit: (Leaving the original post untouched), it appears Facebook will show you as having supported Free Basics if you clicked polls which seemed completely unrelated (as the original article…
Pay close attention: the corporations have no scruples about manipulating you to get their way, and Facebook is no exception.
A conciliatory response to this deception from Zuck himself is warranted; this kind of lie-distribution (to over a billion people) shouldn't be accepted quietly. Furthermore, if Zuck wants his philanthropy efforts to succeed, lying to a billion people to support his company is going to torpedo it.
Re: Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics
#135From my Indian friends on Facebook, it appears Facebook is showing messages that certain friends of yours are supporting, or signed up for Facebook basics, even if they never did anything of the sort. It's creepy, and messed up. Edit: (Leaving the original post untouched), it appears Facebook will show you as having supported Free Basics if you clicked polls which seemed completely unrelated (as the original article…
Ah yes, the new propaganda of the 21st century: the corporations try to convince you that all your friends are supporting their proposals, and so, you should too. It works. The single most important thing for most humans is being accepted by their confederates. Pay close attention: the corporations have no scruples about manipulating you to get their way, and Facebook is no exception. A conciliatory response to this…
Re: Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's a screenshot of what's the permanent top-notification if you're an Indian and on Facebook- http://imgur.com/uykRY8G
I agree Facebook is doing this for their own greedy reasons, but they make one very good point: "Banning free basics on the basis of net neutrality [...] means 1 billion people cant afford to access any services." It isn't a choice between having facebook, or having the full internet. Its a choice between having facebook, or having no internet at all. Surely no internet at all, is the worst option. Nobody else is goi…
> "having no internet at all"
because what Facebook is offering is anything but the Internet. It's not even close to being the Internet.
It is Facebook's walled garden which they control, they decide what lives there and what remains, what gets kicked out.
You know what is worse, it is not that Facebook is providing something that is not the Internet, but the worse is - it will give a precedence to such business practices that may effectively kill the Internet as a medium, as we know it today, in India and turn it into the cable company model commodity where we have to buy packs of "access X, Y, Z services at speed A", or even "access sites X, Y, K" when there is another pack "X, K, M services pack".
It will affect innovations, new services in a drastic manner. Can you imagine what the status of Facebook would have been if the Internet all over the world was in a way that provided Orkut for free because Google paid for it by including it in its "Google Free Basics" pack? I don't think Facebook would have been here at all.
Now, let's say Amazon arrived in India before Flipkart, Snapdeal (Indian e-commerce portals) and jumped on an "India Free Basics" plan and now people have free access to Amazon but this guy in Bangalore who started Flipkart couldn't afford to jump on that "India Free Basics" because hey, they didn't have deep pockets from the beginning. The list of what-if examples can be endless here, I just hope you get the idea.
> Nobody else is going to give full internet to them for free.
Indian Govt actually provides highly subsidised Internet in rural areas and is working to make it more accessible. And ideas like Facebook Free Basics are actually going to harm such initiative by the Govt giving them a reason that people already have "Free Basics". I mean not saying this is how it's gonna end up exactly but let Facebook and Network operators have their way right now and something similar is waiting for us in the future. Sounds like a mild dystopian story? Well, read about "license raj" in India and related stories.
> They will be stuck with nothing.
No, they won't. They will get the Internet, maybe few months, or a couple of years down the line - slowly (and this is already happening) which is better than not getting "the Internet" ever, or when it's too late.
By the way, what stops Facebook from kicking WikiPedia and Khan Academy out (let's just say they are there) later on and rather bring Snapchat, Vine and Instagram in its place? Now, you may say it's better to watch cat gifs and share selfies than having "no Internet at all", where again you'll be missing the point that "this is NOT the Internet" and that line of thinking is unfortunate in my humble opinion.
A lot of these points have been covered in these videos by a local standup comedy group (in order): https://youtu.be/mfY1NKrzqi0, https://youtu.be/W0w_YhZUYeA, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAQWsTFF0BM
Re: Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics
#137From my Indian friends on Facebook, it appears Facebook is showing messages that certain friends of yours are supporting, or signed up for Facebook basics, even if they never did anything of the sort. It's creepy, and messed up. Edit: (Leaving the original post untouched), it appears Facebook will show you as having supported Free Basics if you clicked polls which seemed completely unrelated (as the original article…
Re: Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics
#138From my Indian friends on Facebook, it appears Facebook is showing messages that certain friends of yours are supporting, or signed up for Facebook basics, even if they never did anything of the sort. It's creepy, and messed up. Edit: (Leaving the original post untouched), it appears Facebook will show you as having supported Free Basics if you clicked polls which seemed completely unrelated (as the original article…
My friends kind of know me as a supporter of net neutrality and I was horrified when two of them shared with me their notification screenshots which was showing me as supporting Facebook "Free Basics".
Re: Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
there was no mention of philanthropy, it was PR stunt. All Zuckerburg did was move his wealth to a private LLC, it's the degenerate media and press that interpreted it as "philanthropy", probably to get some Likes on their FB post.
Besides his entire letter saying it was being given to charity you mean?
you may want to revist it
https://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2015/12/03/is-the-new-zucker...
Re: Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
My friends kind of know me as a supporter of net neutrality and I was horrified when two of them shared with me their notification screenshots which was showing me as supporting Facebook "Free Basics".
Please post those screenshots with your denial as widely as possible to expose how scammy all this is.
People here defend Facebook's actions what they don't realise is "motive", "intentions" and the modus operandi to achieve the goal. Facebook's actions and ethics are screaming foul play on steroids here.