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Facebook opens up Internet.org amidst net neutrality row

bbc.com

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Re: Facebook opens up Internet.org amidst net neutrality row

#21

Post by r00fus »

spenvo wrote: post #5

- HTTPS is a premium feature not included in Internet.org's package... - Internet services/sites are whitelisted - essentially by Facebook. - ISP tracking is baked into consumers' access. (Like Verizon's SuperCookies, which have just been rolled back for US consumers.) - Select developers get to develop for the web ... but based off permission from higher ups. Because we all trust Facebook as a caretaker of a dev pla…

It's like a bizarro-world balkanized Internet - like the Online Gateways (Compuserve, AOL, etc) of past years.

Sounds like step back in time.

Re: Facebook opens up Internet.org amidst net neutrality row

#22

Post by _greim_ »

> But Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg said it was "not sustainable to offer the whole internet for free".

I think that's exactly what they should do, if they're serious about this: just find a way to offer everyone the whole internet for free. If something must be compromised, then compromise speed, not access to sites. Sites that want to reach poor people would just have to practice draconian bandwidth discipline. At least that way, sites could opt in on their own terms, rather than having to kowtow to some consortium of rich people.

Re: Facebook opens up Internet.org amidst net neutrality row

#23

Post by eropple »

diminoten2 wrote: post #20
cazum wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have to be an All Or Nothing situation. Nobody has asserted that nobody should ever provide limited internet access to developing countries. It's just that Facebooks attempt have some very serious, and potentially malicious problems, which have been stated in this thread.

It is an all or nothing situation. You're asserting that you would take away internet.org. Since there is no alternative, that would leave the folks who must use internet.org with nothing . I apologize for the account swapping -- HN decided I was commenting too much on my other account, and I wanted to continue our discussion while it was still fresh in both our minds.

There are alternatives. Look at Google Loon.

Re: Facebook opens up Internet.org amidst net neutrality row

#25

Post by diminoten2 »

eropple wrote: post #23
diminoten2 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is an all or nothing situation. You're asserting that you would take away internet.org. Since there is no alternative, that would leave the folks who must use internet.org with nothing . I apologize for the account swapping -- HN decided I was commenting too much on my other account, and I wanted to continue our discussion while it was still fresh in both our minds.

There are alternatives. Look at Google Loon.

There are not alternatives. I recommend you look at Google Loon before citing it as an actively running alternative in India.

For the people who use Internet.org, there are literally no other ways to get online.

Re: Facebook opens up Internet.org amidst net neutrality row

#26

Post by ShirsenduK »

talwai wrote: post #7

I love to demonize big tech as much as the next guy, but I really think the public consensus in India against Internet.org is inherently biased. The catalyst for the movement was a Youtube video. The chosen method of lodging protest was via email. AIB themselves would not be the thought leaders they are today if internet access was restricted to them. Every activist has been, by definition, in a position of privilege…

Let me give you a quick recap of history. 250+ years back India was _NOT_ a great place. There was huge economic and educational divide. The rich kings kept getting richer and the poor just surviving. For them education wasn't even an after thought. Then came the Anglo-European travellers with their Bible to rid us of all our miseries. Slinging their religion they _did_ help remove some of the inequalities. Provided modern and great education. But the missionaries were soon followed by the imperialists. The missionaries had no clue what hit them. And what followed was 200 years of darkness and 1000s of steps backward. The Internet is the ultimate equaliser! It empowers people to rise up, just like education. India today is again _NOT_ a great nation. And Zuck and his crew are trying sling Internet the same way as the Bible was. While this might be a good thing at first sight, its _NOT_ and the effects of it will be realised 20-30 years later and by then my friend it would be too late. Just too late. Maybe Zuck and us won't be even around. Please take a moment [use system II in daniel kahneman words] and think through, we are privileged and the goal should be to bring everyone at the same level with the same world view.

Re: Facebook opens up Internet.org amidst net neutrality row

#27

Post by yarrel »

lilfrost wrote: post #4
pen2l wrote: post #2

> Facebook says it will allow more websites and other online services to join its "free mobile data" Internet.org scheme. Great, so now other few big portals like Yahoo can also be accessed for "free". And Facebook will probably let you give their site for "free"... if you pay Facebook some $. Basically it always was clever business, is, and will be. Maybe it'd be a more palatable offering if Zuckerberg was more hone…

They are providing people who do not have internet with internet. They are giving people a useful service they did not have before for free. They aren't making people use the service or pay anything for it. I don't see a negative.

They are not providing the Internet to people who do not have the Internet. They are providing a couple of websites in a walled garden.

They are not giving people a useful service that they did not have before, they are giving people a deliberately broken and compromised system.

They are not giving it to people for free, they are making people pay with their data and security.

As for not forcing people to use it, there's a pretty strong push to get people to use it and a commercial monopoly in a given market is often a disincentive to new entrants.

Those are some of the negatives.

Re: Facebook opens up Internet.org amidst net neutrality row

#29

Post by yarrel »

diminoten2 wrote: post #17
cazum wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The semantics are important. This could very well mean that those people won't get proper internet because "hey, what do you need that for, you've got internet.org!" I understand the "some internet is better than none" but this isn't the internet. This is internet.org On top of that, it means that Facebook gets to micromanage a populations internet usage, what they can and cannot see, with no legal oversight because…

So you would literally go to these people and tell them they are going to continue to not have any way of communicating with one another or others throughout the world because what they're being offered isn't the "real" Internet? You would tell them they must continue to live isolated from one another and the rest of the world? You'd deny them access to the single greatest invention humanity has ever come up with bec…

But this isn't access to the single greatest invention humanity has ever come up with. It's a brand that takes its name and applies it to a surveillance monopoly.

It's internet.org that's denying people access to the Internet, not people pointing this fact out.

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