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Facebook has announced the Internet.org Platform, "an open program for developers to easily create services that integrate with Internet.org." The partnership is designed to deliver affordable Internet access to the developing world. However the initiative has been criticized for violating net neutrality:
Facebook says it will allow more websites and other online services to join its "free mobile data" Internet.org scheme.
The announcement follows a backlash against the initiative. Opponents suggest it compromises the principles of net neutrality, because it favours access to some sites and apps over others.
But Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg said it was "not sustainable to offer the whole internet for free". "It costs tens of billions of dollars every year to run the internet, and no operator could afford this if everything were free," he said in an online video posted to Internet.org's website.
Also discussed at TechCrunch, Ars Technica, Gizmodo, and Quartz.
Previously:
Internet Access in Developing World With Drones
Facebook's Internet.org - "Internet-For-Everyone" - Launches in Zambia
India Debates Net Neutrality
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2015, @01:06PM
It pretends to help poor vulnerable people to only get more ignorant subjects to prey on. And teaches people that internet=Facebook and that net neutrality is something strange and unnecessary.
With "friends" like this, who needs enemies?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by quadrox on Tuesday May 05 2015, @01:23PM
I wish I had mod points left to mod you up.
On the one hand I believe that this is a sincerely meant effort to help poor people, on the other hand it comes at such a great cost that it's really important to speak out against it.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday May 05 2015, @02:19PM
It is never a matter of altruism for the greedy Jew Zuckerburg. This big push to teach kids computer science is merely a matter of diluting the labor pool so he can pay less for more. His little immigration propaganda project serves the same purpose.
In personal life he is cheap and does not tip [telegraph.co.uk] even though he is worth billions.
People like him hold high positions in entertainment, government, and finance; among other industries. Their claims to be "for the people" are as equally bogus as those of Zuckerburg, and yet to push their agenda they too hide behind a curtain of phoney altruism.
There is only one solution to the problem -- The Final Solution.
(Score: 5, Funny) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday May 05 2015, @03:01PM
Trolls take note, this is how to do it, and this is how Ethanol-Fuelled gets away with it.
A potentially on-topic, informative and insightful post [1], deliberately vandalised by its creator with a generous smearing of racist flamebait shit [2]. I think this post has been specifically crafted to give moderators an aneurysm.
I feel like I'm looking at a masterfully rendered oil-painting of a grinning dog laying a turd.
Carry on, EF, carry on. Not because I told you to, but because you will anyway.
[1] Zuckerberg is a cheap, selfish gobshite
[2] But not because he's Jewish. Oh, and you know, genocide.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday May 05 2015, @06:14PM
There is only one solution to the Ethanol-Fueled problem -- Mod him up! Come on: where would we be without him.
(Or the one where the dogs are sitting around playing poker? Man i love that one... the one where the one dog is passing an ace of clubs to the other one (with his toes, even), so he'll then have 4 aces! Brilliant! OMG!)
The Final Solution.... the only solution... MOD you BOTH up... two of the reasons i keep coming back: Ethanol-Fueled and beautifully rendered statements like
Thanks to you both: brought a smile to my face! :)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday May 05 2015, @08:22PM
Trolls take note, this is how to do it, and this is how Ethanol-Fuelled gets away with it.
If reverse racismn exists then Ethanol-Fueled is a reverse Minstrel Show! [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Tuesday May 05 2015, @08:58PM
And a final point. Eth posts with his account. No AC bullshit there.
He wants you to know it's him and he don't give a fuck about his imaginary karma. (When he got banned from The Green Site, he still signed his posts.)
Master Troll, that's our Ethanol Fueled!
APK should take some lessons from him. I read Eth, (I don't agree with him often) but when I see the APK wall of incoherent hosts text....Nope, same thing over and over, no originality at all)
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 1) by Fauxlosopher on Tuesday May 05 2015, @10:55PM
No strain on this mod's brain: I took an appreciative sip of the first three paragraphs after ignoring the initial sour flavor, then having noticed the brown floater underneath the ice in the punchbowl with the last sentence, promptly discarded my cup, modded -1 Flamebait, and swished my way through half a bottle of Listerene.
EF is no longer on the invite list for my parties.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by gallondr00nk on Tuesday May 05 2015, @02:10PM
I'd agree that it sure as hell isn't the humanitarian gesture people are making it out to be. If the point is to connect people to the internet, then why have such a small whitelist of sites?
It strikes me as a barely disguised way of sustaining input to the data mining leviathan - more names, DOBs, addresses, likes and what have you. They'll see the developing world as little more than an untapped market for data; I guess that Facebook figure they'll make a damn sight more profit from the mining than the outlay of providing mobile data.
It's not really much different to opening an oil well, except that the well in this case IS PEOPLE.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday May 05 2015, @02:52PM
except that the well in this case IS PEOPLE.
I've been working on a theory that international data collection agencies are for a short time going to be the new swiss bank for 3rd world hell holes. In other words this is where they'll send a heck of a lot of their ill gotten money.
Theoretically data on dirt poor people is not economically useful. However for oppression purposes, El Presidente will gladly toss some money at FB to figure out who to send the death squads against to maintain power. Your kid clicked "like" on the same dumb pop song as some opposition leader's kid? Click "bang!" and one more dead native kid, and El Presidente is scarier and less likely to be a coup victim than ever.
The problem with this .biz model is once the general population clues in that the primary purpose of the "free" internet access is to kill, torture, or steal from them, not being complete idiots like americans are, they'll drop the "free" internet like a hot potato.
So this .biz model only works till the bodies start piling up. Probably won't take long in some areas. Not sure if the have a followup biz plan in the works.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday May 05 2015, @03:09PM
That's deliciously cynical.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2015, @04:14PM
Well, until they notice that the people who disappeared from the "interbook" shortly after also disappear from real life … after all, what could be more suspicious than leaving a free service just for the fear that data is collected about you? Do you have anything to hide?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday May 05 2015, @04:13PM
It pretends to help poor vulnerable people to only get more ignorant subjects to prey on. And teaches people that internet=Facebook...
And that is my major problem with it. It is not the internet! If they want to provide this service, that is fine. If they want to call it the "Internet," that is fraud.