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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

#251

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You still need a different form of FDA approval possibly involving animal trials (among other things) before getting "experimental drug" status.

It's ridiculous that if I'm dying, I'm not free to use whatever experimental, theoretical, long-shot treatment that I damn well want.

[deleted]

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

#252
post #222

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This seems to be a upping the ante from Facebook, as a response to the earlier petitions against internet.org and zero-rated apps. I feel so angry at their persistence in this case. My feeling at this time is for the SaveTheInternet petitioners to also up the ante in return, by starting a movement to get people off Facebook. As such it was lucky that WhatsApp founders did not have the bxxls to wait another year, when…

Indian here. I feel so enraged that they're doing this right in our face! The messaging is extremely misleading. How do we up the ante against Facebook? This is just not done.

>How do we up the ante against Facebook? This is just not done.

One way, I can think of is to quit Facebook altogether[1], if Free basics is passed by TRAI. Yesterday I saw a bit of momentum on Indian twitter, and last date is 30th, so hopefully even this 3rd attempt now, can be defeated. Lets see. Good to see more of my fellow country mates feel the same way.

To Downvoters: Can you please allow us to have a civil discussion. See we are determining the future of our country. If you must do so, do. But please also explain, why you don't like what we are talking. Please.

edit: minor

edit 2: [1] Should have explained that this quitting should be en masse. Ideally, all the folks who signed the SaveTheInternet.in petition should quit, and urge their friends also to quit. It will be noticed by media for sure. Already AIB has a nice video ('aib save the internet part 3' on YouTube). Vishal Dadlani has a nice 2 minutes video in Hindi, calling out Facebook's fraud on this. I don't think people will take this lying down, if free basics is allowed. Or that's what I hope for, and I am willing to make my small contribution of quitting FB, and urging my friends to do so. If SaveTheInternet folks decide for it, should it be needed.

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

#253
post #220

Free Facebook means free Facebook Messenger. Give a billion people free Facebook Messenger and I'm sure someone will develop an IoFM 'Internet over Facebook Messenger' protocol. On another note, AOL was a walled-garden and look where that ended up.

This is impossible, Facebook Messenger doesn't have any open protocol at all. Facebook will fight everyone who will try to do so.

Impossible? HTML is plain text.

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

#254

If 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…

India has been around for two orders of magnitude longer than facebook and is doing quite well without facebook and hopefully will gladly continue to do so. It's quite the reverse situation here: Facebook leaves India, India continue unfazed. India gets rid of facebook, the overvalued facebook shares will plummet because facebook future depends on its success in conquering new users.

American-Indian(Sikh) guy here who actually has relatives there. India has not been doing well. Let Zuckerburg in and let him do some magic.

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

#255
post #91

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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.

I'm not sure what to say to this absurd nonsense, in the same way that I wasn't sure how to deal with the kids in my elementary school who really believed that Santa Clause was real. Just telling them they are wrong doesn't help.

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

#256

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Nonsense. Facebook is rich enough and powerful enough to MAKE the choice be full-internet or nothing. They and other powerful entities can provide full internet. It is THEIR fault that the choice is FaceBook or nothing because they want that to be the choice. FaceBook is not some savior here. The ramifications of pushing everyone to FB are also devastating because they would force everyone to get locked in to using F…

I think your argument makes no sense. I am all for helping people etc, but just because Facebook is rich by your definition, the poor people are not entitled to its money. FB will do what is needed to promote its self interest and in that process some (supposedly poor) people get some amount of free internet, its not such an evil thing, though, if it turns to be an evil thing in the long run, it could be regulated in…

The argument you're imagining makes no sense, but it isn't my argument. My argument isn't that FB has an obligation in our system to provide free internet to people nor is it that rejecting FB here is in every possible respect better. My argument is that FB is lying when they present their motives as being about the interests of the poor citizens.

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

#257

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I'm not against altruism. That's not the point I was trying to make at all. But whereas altruistic solutions to problems require continual interest from the donor class (which is subject the same fads as the rest of our culture), or government coercion (which eventually gets co-opted by political considerations), market solutions are robust because people are profiting from them. We'd all love to feed the starving pe…

Agree, donor based systems are non-sustainable. But tax based systems for public goods are. The Facebook initiative looks innocuous enough but Facebook is creating a dependency that could be very dangerous for the public good as the perceived marginal cost of other services is seen to be too high. The Internet is a basic utility and public good. Monopoly usually doesn't seem to be a good model for these kinds of syst…

FWIW, Snowdrift.coop is trying to create a donor-based system for public goods that is as close as one could get to being sustainable in the way tax-based systems are. A voluntary tax can never match an imposed tax, but a social pledge and organized system can make voluntary much more feasible than it is otherwise in the status quo…

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

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. Facebook is rich enough and powerful enough to MAKE the choice be full-internet or nothing. They and other powerful entities can provide full internet. It is THEIR fault that the choice is FaceBook or nothing because they want that to be the choice. FaceBook is not some savior here. The ramifications of pushing everyone to FB are also devastating because they would force everyone to get locked in to using F…

What if I claim you are rich enough to donate to charities of not only your choice, but my choice as well. Will you donate to arbitrary charities that arbitrary people ask you to? Just because you have money does not mean we get to tell you what to do with it. >Even a delay in getting people online is better for the people's interests than locking them into a shitty closed system for the long-term. That's because you…

> decide whether they want to be locked in or not

is the same logic as, "let people sell themselves into slavery". Sure, who is X to stop someone from selling themselves into slavery, right? But it's also an extreme asshole response to a situation where a rich and powerful slaver goes to poor people and says, "my goal is to help you, when you choose to become my slave, I will clothe and feed you and even educate you, I'm doing this to help you" and someone criticizes that.

It doesn't matter if it's not MY business to stop FB or take away others' freedom to use FB. FB is still doing this to gain power, and the ramifications of this long-term are terrible. And your statement amounts to "FB has a right to lock people in (and to misrepresent their motives), and people have a right to choose to be locked in" which is a shitty pathetic reply to my criticism.

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

#259

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How about slow or even limited amount of data but full internet? Result of that would be people making websites that use minimal data. Result of FB-only internet is everyone putting everything on FB, effectively shutting out anyone not on FB and giving insane power to FB.

it would be better but then the question comes to sponsership, who would sponser such a thing?

A non-asshole, non-monopolist version of Facebook would be a company that would sponsor such a thing along with ads saying "brought to you by Facebook!" or something but no technical restrictions to FB. It's still in their interest to get more people online. It could be a consortium of companies. Or it could be the government, that would make reasonable sense. Or it could just be the phone companies saying that a little internet is a good way to get people to then pay for more bandwidth…

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

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. Facebook is rich enough and powerful enough to MAKE the choice be full-internet or nothing. They and other powerful entities can provide full internet. It is THEIR fault that the choice is FaceBook or nothing because they want that to be the choice. FaceBook is not some savior here. The ramifications of pushing everyone to FB are also devastating because they would force everyone to get locked in to using F…

Facebook is not a carrier. If any carrier chooses to provide full Internet access for free, they may do so. So far they haven't, though. Which is why company-sponsored basic service that's free to the users emerged in the first place.

It's not true that no other carrier is offering free internet. It's a better model with no restrictions.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/aircel-to-...

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