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Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics

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Re: Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics

#201

Post by iofj »

shrikrishna wrote: post #171
tim333 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be spiritual but it's also pretty fucked up in many ways not unrelated to the spirituality like bride burning, killing people who marry into the wrong cast, leading the world in modern slavery (14 million in the Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_slavery ) and in malutrition (nearly double that of Sub Saharan Africa, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malnutrition_in_India ). I think banni…

Get one thing straight. Free Basics is not about "bringing up" the poor. And among the "well off" are those who were poor once and have used knowledge from the internet to be wise enough to realize what is going on. Free Basics, if allowed to remain, will become a gatekeeper to the internet and will essentially become a barrier to entry to other services

Minus: might become a barrier to entry to other services

Plus: provides "some" internet for a billion people ... including wikipedia and various info apps. Includes photo sharing, chat, ...

Which of these is more important ? That's the big question being discussed here. And of course the people discussing how this might stand in the way of their future profits feel absolutely no need to provide an alternative ...

Re: Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics

#202

Post by sa1 »

throwawaykf05 wrote: post #181
zem wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how would that help? the free sites are on a whitelist; vpns simply mean you pay for everything.

1) This was in response to firasd's alarmist argument about ISPs charging differently based on what sites you access, not the Internet.org thing. 2) There are free VPNs out there. I am not sure how trustworthy they are, but people I know have been using them for ages.

Free VPNs do not mean that ISP's won't charge you for the data.

Re: Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics

#203

Post by firasd »

throwawaykf05 wrote: post #181
zem wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how would that help? the free sites are on a whitelist; vpns simply mean you pay for everything.

1) This was in response to firasd's alarmist argument about ISPs charging differently based on what sites you access, not the Internet.org thing. 2) There are free VPNs out there. I am not sure how trustworthy they are, but people I know have been using them for ages.

The current campaign in which Facebook v.s. net neutrality activists are asking people to write in to TRAI (and the other stages of this campaign over the last year) is about exactly what I described. The regulator's consultation paper is not specifically about internet.org, it's about differential pricing in general. Like I said, before the activism, ISPs were already declaring they'd charge extra for messaging and VOIP, so it's not 'alarmist', it's planned and declared.

Re: Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics

#204

Post by jholman »

discardorama wrote: post #41
sremani wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I apologize if I came across condescending, I was try to set contrast here. For the activists its an intellectual/idealogical crusade, and for the poor people it is a way of life thing. On other note, there are desperate patients and families who are willing to risk their health and are trying hard to get access to drugs that are in clinical trails even in OECD countries.

You should really think before spouting off, and you should honestly admit if you're biased in this instance. I've followed India's cellular revolution with interest, seeing (as I mentioned earlier) I grew up when India had almost no phones. My dad, due to his work, always had a phone; and I, being the youngest, was the errand-boy, running to distant houses to tell people that there was a phone call for them, and tha…

> You should really think before spouting off, and you should honestly admit if you're biased in this instance.

The ivory tower comment which you complained about up-thread read to me as "this is a possible cognitive mistake we might make, let us avoid it" (note that it used the word "us").

On the other hand, there is no charitable reading of the first line of your comment. It's just nasty, much nastier than the even the worst reading of the ivory-tower comment.

>:(

Re: Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics

#206

Post by firasd »

wildmusings wrote: post #154
rsync wrote: post #126

The real question is, will facebook lobby against, and attempt to disallow, free community / coop network access ? It's one thing to trick a bunch of poor people into thinking you're giving them free Internet access ... it's still free. It's quite another to then shackle them by manipulating their legal system into disallowing any other free options. I have a lot on my plate right now, but it sure would be interestin…

Hundreds of millions of people in India don't even have access to electricity, let alone internet. The Indian government is extremely corrupt and over-regulating. They have failed to bring modernity to a billion people. That's the context here. From what I can tell, Free Basics is a market solution that will allow a bunch of self-interested parties to bring connectivity to people who would probably never get it other…

What makes you think Free Basics is doing anything about electricity or connectivity? It is just zero-rating for Facebook & partner apps, riding on top of infrastructure and services built by existing telecom networks in the country with the "extremely corrupt" and "failed" government.

Re: Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics

#207

Post by minusSeven »

djsumdog wrote: post #54
erbdex wrote: post #44

Earlier 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

WTF. "Free basic" .. It's two way communication. It's not like fucking 1994 where free TV involved four neighbours going on a satellite dish so you could get 6 channels. Free Basic....get only the limited things we want you to have and the companies who are willing to pay for it. Fuck. That. Shit. Want to do something that will actually help people; what about Free 1GB. Ensure every person gets 1GB of mobile data a m…

you don't even have to go that far just offer free free 2g (without edge internet). It the slowest speed possible but sites like wikipedia will work well on them. It will help people to know important stuff without wasting time on facebook.

Re: Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics

#208

Post by gcb0 »

minusSeven wrote: post #207
djsumdog wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WTF. "Free basic" .. It's two way communication. It's not like fucking 1994 where free TV involved four neighbours going on a satellite dish so you could get 6 channels. Free Basic....get only the limited things we want you to have and the companies who are willing to pay for it. Fuck. That. Shit. Want to do something that will actually help people; what about Free 1GB. Ensure every person gets 1GB of mobile data a m…

you don't even have to go that far just offer free free 2g (without edge internet). It the slowest speed possible but sites like wikipedia will work well on them. It will help people to know important stuff without wasting time on facebook.

but then Facebook experience may be affected.

when was the last time someone in the valley/sf even tested their sites/apps on 3g? let alone 2g...

Re: Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics

#209

Post by gcb0 »

wildmusings wrote: post #146
Crito wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they truly had altruistic intentions, they damn well could be.

Solutions that work when everyone is following their self-interest are better than solutions that require altruism. The most successful anti-poverty program in the history of the world is capitalism.

that usually comes to bite you later.

with only one tv channel/radio station/available free web site to billions of poor, bad politicians can focus much easier on praying them. this worked very well when their only entertainment was religion cults.

everything has a consequence that will indirectly affect your ivory tower.

Re: Facebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics

#210

Post by gamekathu »

anilgulecha wrote: post #175

On the ethics of this, I'd like to know of the engineers/team in the chain of command who is responsible for the "Something went wrong" flag set on savetheinternet.in : http://i.imgur.com/K3JUack.png Clearly this flag was not set on the grounds of pornography/violent matter/malicious link. This flag was instead set on a what is political speech, representing activists from a large swath of a democratic nation. Consid…

they were even suppressing a popular Indian youtube comedy channel's take on this issue when it was released. And yes, fb does internally censor things which they dont like, for eg they were actively blocking tsu.co, a rival social network url in their platform until it hit the media and they had to backtrack
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