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

Facebook's “free internet” programme hits a roadblock in India

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 243 posts

Re: Facebook's “free internet” programme hits a roadblock in India

#31

Post by jordigh »

I like Eben Moglen's and Mishi Choudhary's take on this situation:

    Faced with the dawning public recognition that this 
    so-called philanthropy is nothing but an attempt to buy 
    the de-anonymised packets of the Indian poor at a bulk 
    rate, breaking their security in the process of 
    destroying their privacy, Facebook has no alternative 
    but to change the subject.
http://indianexpress.com/article/blogs/mark-zuckerberg-nobly...

Re: Facebook's “free internet” programme hits a roadblock in India

#32

Post by tokai »

beccasanchez wrote: post #4

Even though it's obviously a land grab... no one other than massive corporations is capable or willing to provide this. I don't like it either, but that's how corporatocracy works. Might as well fight against gravity.

Humanity have a long and distinct history of fighting against gravity.

Re: Facebook's “free internet” programme hits a roadblock in India

#33

Post by click170 »

oxide wrote: post #26
devindotcom wrote: post #15

Personally, I believe Zuckerberg is sincere in wanting to connect everyone in the world with each other. However, I believe he is also sincere in thinking that Facebook is the best and perhaps only platform by which this is possible. In this he is sincerely mistaken. I feel sure he doesn't think of it as a land grab, even privately. But he is looking from the inside out. If he wants to be seen as the Great Connector,…

>Personally, I believe Zuckerberg is sincere in wanting to connect everyone in the world with each other. >I feel sure he doesn't think of it as a land grab, even privately. why?

I can't speak for op but I agree with them and can explain why I feel that way.

I believe most humans are inherently not evil even if they don't agree with me. They want to make the world a better place, and they are simply pursuing an agenda that accomplishes that in their eyes.

I don't have any evidence that most people aren't evil, but in my day to day interactions I have yet to meet someone who I believe is sincerely evil. I'm sure they're out there, I just have faith that there's a lot more of the rest of us.

Should you fault someone for being the change they want to see in the world? (For the record I'm opposed to Free Basics)

Re: Facebook's “free internet” programme hits a roadblock in India

#35

Post by chongli »

click170 wrote: post #33
oxide wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Personally, I believe Zuckerberg is sincere in wanting to connect everyone in the world with each other. >I feel sure he doesn't think of it as a land grab, even privately. why?

I can't speak for op but I agree with them and can explain why I feel that way. I believe most humans are inherently not evil even if they don't agree with me. They want to make the world a better place, and they are simply pursuing an agenda that accomplishes that in their eyes. I don't have any evidence that most people aren't evil, but in my day to day interactions I have yet to meet someone who I believe is since…

How much does it really matter, though? I'm sure Kim Jong-Un thinks he's making his country a better place, as thought Hitler.

Perhaps we should focus more on judging the outcomes of people's actions instead of their intent.

Re: Facebook's “free internet” programme hits a roadblock in India

#36

Post by CrowFly »

akerro wrote: post #14
CrowFly wrote: post #3

I wonder it it would be feasible to tunnel the "real internet" through Facebook using (for example) their chat client (you'd need something on the other end to make the connection). Like tunneling a VPN over DNS queries. That would be a clever work-around.

https://github.com/matiasinsaurralde/facebook-tunnel I heard about some more, but didn't bookmark them :<

Well, there you go! It _was_ a good idea.

Re: Facebook's “free internet” programme hits a roadblock in India

#37

Post by icebraining »

amelius wrote: post #12

Data infrastructure should be controlled by the government only. Why? Well, imagine that every transport company had to support their own road network... Alternatively, imagine that one company controlled the roads, creating effectively a controlled market nested inside a free market.

Except fiber cables are not at all like roads, in that you can run dozens side by side in less space than a single water pipe.

And for the same reason, the companies vs government dichotomy is invalid here as well. Even if we want to provide a public service to avoid private monopolization, there's absolutely no reason to forbid private companies from competing with it.

After all, if the problem is that private companies are greedy, a public ISP funded only by their customers' fees and without profit-seeking shareholders should solve the problem within a system of fair competition.

Re: Facebook's “free internet” programme hits a roadblock in India

#38

Post by mwsherman »

There is a remarkable disconnect between the critics and the users here. Note that no users were cited in the article.

I understand not liking Facebook’s motives, that’s fine. Perhaps we can defer to the preferences of users here, who can choose to accept those motives or not, and to decide if the trade-off is an acceptable one. If we believe that they are unqualified to make this choice, one should explain that position.

Instead, the critics are imposing their preference on the users here, who are poor and (in this article) unheard. Can we please see an article where such people are quoted, and perhaps some numbers about usage, revealing their empirical preferences?

Re: Facebook's “free internet” programme hits a roadblock in India

#39

Post by kafkaesq »

devindotcom wrote: post #15

Personally, I believe Zuckerberg is sincere in wanting to connect everyone in the world with each other. However, I believe he is also sincere in thinking that Facebook is the best and perhaps only platform by which this is possible. In this he is sincerely mistaken. I feel sure he doesn't think of it as a land grab, even privately. But he is looking from the inside out. If he wants to be seen as the Great Connector,…

Personally, I believe Zuckerberg is sincere in wanting to connect everyone in the world with each other.

Agreed. Given what we know about his history, he also seems to think that most people just aren't nearly as smart as he is... and so it's best not to confuse them, with you know, choices. And that the fact that everything they say and do within his realm is relentlessly indexed, analyzed (with literally the most advanced AI techniques money can buy), gleefully pimped out to advertisers -- and at the request of authoritarian governments, outright blocked -- is on balance, all in their best interest.

Re: Facebook's “free internet” programme hits a roadblock in India

#40

Post by harveywi »

devindotcom wrote: post #15

Personally, I believe Zuckerberg is sincere in wanting to connect everyone in the world with each other. However, I believe he is also sincere in thinking that Facebook is the best and perhaps only platform by which this is possible. In this he is sincerely mistaken. I feel sure he doesn't think of it as a land grab, even privately. But he is looking from the inside out. If he wants to be seen as the Great Connector,…

Personally, I believe Zuckerberg is sincere in wanting to connect everyone in the world with each other.

I feel sure he doesn't think of it as a land grab

Does anyone recall what Zuckerberg said about the people who "trust him"?

Post reply on HN