Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

linkedin.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 262 posts

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

#221

Post by leereeves »

leereeves wrote: post #173
petke wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are crafty. You dont have to have electricity at home to charge your phone. Its enough there is one power source in the village. (There was a news story about a boy that built a windmill, and the villagers paid him a bit to charge their phones). You dont even need your own phone. You can share or rent one by the minute. Second hand smartphones are getting pretty cheap. 2.8 billion people live on less than 2 do…

> 2.8 billion people live on less than 2 dollars a day. A second hand smart phone might go for 20 dollars. So its a few weeks worth of savings. Ten weeks income , and someone who lives on 2 dollars a day can't afford to save 100% of their income to buy a smartphone. And how much would used smartphone prices increase if a billion people wanted to buy one? Sharing or renting makes more sense, but in that case, why not…

I misread. 10 days income.

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

#222

Post by aws_ls »

erbdex wrote: post #44
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #43

Indian here. The manipulation has been incredibly blatant and scummy. It's not even funny anymore. Friends who categorically denied having sent a mail to the Indian telecom regulatory authority on Facebook's behalf (conveniently supplied by Facebook) show up on my feed as having signed the mail. It's an all-out blitzkrieg. I've seen full page ads in newspapers, banners at bus stops, even ads on local Indian websites.…

Here's a screenshot of what's the permanent top-notification if you're an Indian and on Facebook- http://imgur.com/uykRY8G

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 they could have acquired FB instead. All my school friends use WhatsApp more over here. And recently I am seeing increasing no. of people sign up on Telegram. (WhatsApp groups suck, that's another story, but kind of suggest that social networks are far from done. FB is perhaps the version 0.1 in social network maturity)

We should convey a clear message to Facebook, play fair or pack up. Early. I am glad I did not login to that stupid thing for over 3 months now.

PS: I have signed this petition as well as at least one earlier. I request other people based in India to do the same.

edit: minor

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

#223

Post by iofj »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #215
iofj wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ...

Give them access to the full internet. Anything less is disengenuous. They're going to end up using Facebook anyway, unless someone ends up making the Indian VK. Can't let the possibility of innovation conflict with profit forecasts...

I don't understand why all or nothing is a reasonable demand. If that's your demand, then pay up or otherwise convince the telcos like fb has. What's wrong with that?

I do understand why telcos won't give all internet for free. In fact I'm amazed fb got them to allow any chat app at all, given that it'll kill SMS.

What I'm asking is why is potentially raising entry costs in the Indian market worth, morally speaking, denying internet to millions of people?

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

#224

Post by Perixoog »

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…

The original article link to http://www.SaveTheInternet.in is actually to http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.SaveTheIntern...

That looks like a link where facebook has replaced the link to the website with their own URL for tracking purposes. As a consequence they have to prevent open redirect attacks - https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Open_redirect .

Yes the same system can be used for censorship - but facebook can do that anyway because you're sharing links through a platform they have total control over.

The irony (of using a facebook tracking url to promote an anti-facebook site) is beautiful.

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

#225

Post by [deleted] »

gcb0 wrote: post #208
minusSeven wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

[deleted]

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

#226

Post by stryju »

gcb0 wrote: post #208
minusSeven wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

FB does that - http://www.computerworld.com/article/2998923/internet/facebo...

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

#227

Post by watmough »

Facebook needs to stop a homegrown Facebook alternative arising in India.

They need to stop it now, by smothering it in the crib, redirecting its potential future users into a Facebook-curated walled-garden.

Growth is required for Facebook, and India is a clear growth area, China having been largely ruled off-limits by the Chinese government.

A toehold in one of the most populous countries on the planet. Has to have the Facebook board salivating.

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

#228

Post by thecrazyone »

aws_ls wrote: post #222
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

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.

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

#229

Post by thecrazyone »

petke wrote: post #70
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

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…

>Its a choice between having facebook, or having no internet at all. >Surely no internet at all, is the worst option.

But that's such a slippery slope to go on.

What prevents other companies to hop on the bandwagon to provide their own services for free?

And one day, lo and behold, we're on an Internet where the cost of entry to compete with the big blue (or any big gun) is almost insurmountable.

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

#230

Post by thecrazyone »

throwawaykf05 wrote: post #168
quadrangle wrote: post #72

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…

Unfortunately neither does any one if us know what the unconnected want. Let's not pretend we do.

So, given that, we're doing what we would've wanted to be done if we were in their position.

Locking me into a particular website (or a set of) , especially the one which misuses my personal information is not something i want to be locked into.

Hence, we shouldn't stand by silently letting them be locked into "Facebook and partners".

Facebook is so asking for it, this time.

Post reply on HN