Poor internet for poor people
April 19, 2015 11:58 AM Subscribe
Why Facebook’s Internet.org amounts to economic racism.
"Mark Zuckerberg's Internet.org project bribes corrupt, non-neutral carriers in poor countries to exempt Facebook and other services of its choosing from their data-caps, giving the world's poorest an Internet that's been radically pruned to a sliver of what the rest of the world gets for free. Internet.org characterizes its goals as charitable and development-oriented. In their framework, poor people either face severe data-caps that limit their access to the Internet to almost nothing, or they get unlimited access to some of the Internet, thanks to Internet.org's largesse. "
boingboing: Internet.org: delivering poor Internet to poor people
"Mark Zuckerberg's Internet.org project bribes corrupt, non-neutral carriers in poor countries to exempt Facebook and other services of its choosing from their data-caps, giving the world's poorest an Internet that's been radically pruned to a sliver of what the rest of the world gets for free. Internet.org characterizes its goals as charitable and development-oriented. In their framework, poor people either face severe data-caps that limit their access to the Internet to almost nothing, or they get unlimited access to some of the Internet, thanks to Internet.org's largesse. "
boingboing: Internet.org: delivering poor Internet to poor people
Or to quote a more eloquent friend of mine:
Reading some of the replies to Mark Zuckerberg's post about Internet.org and net neutrality makes me think of a quote from the movie "Ishtar": "You'd rather have nothing than settle for less."
I mean, THEY ARE GIVING FREE ACCESS TO WIKIPEDIA to people who have never used it before. You know, that little web site that contains arguably the most comprehensive survey of human knowledge in the history of our species. Anyone who seriously says, "No, you mustn't give Wikipedia access to the world's poor unless you also give away access to the entire Internet," maybe needs to have their connectivity completely shut off for a year or two and then revisit the question after that.
My guess is if Internet.org had gone around giving access to JUST Wikipedia and nothing else -- that is, if the service had been even more restricted and less neutral than it currently is -- very few of the commenters would be clamoring about the injustice of the program.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:04 PM on April 19, 2015 [24 favorites]
Reading some of the replies to Mark Zuckerberg's post about Internet.org and net neutrality makes me think of a quote from the movie "Ishtar": "You'd rather have nothing than settle for less."
I mean, THEY ARE GIVING FREE ACCESS TO WIKIPEDIA to people who have never used it before. You know, that little web site that contains arguably the most comprehensive survey of human knowledge in the history of our species. Anyone who seriously says, "No, you mustn't give Wikipedia access to the world's poor unless you also give away access to the entire Internet," maybe needs to have their connectivity completely shut off for a year or two and then revisit the question after that.
My guess is if Internet.org had gone around giving access to JUST Wikipedia and nothing else -- that is, if the service had been even more restricted and less neutral than it currently is -- very few of the commenters would be clamoring about the injustice of the program.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:04 PM on April 19, 2015 [24 favorites]
It would be great to see a greater variety of analysis of the potential impact of Internet.org. For example in the Philippines, Internet.org is just one service being offered in a country which has fairly robust (in the big cities anyway) internet penetration.
So presumably there is choice, and if you don't have access to the internet, then Internet.org is better than nothing, and eventually you can move on to a paid service with full access.
Then again, free and open internet access should be treated as a basic right, or provided as basic infrastructure, such as water, electricity, and sewerage.
I also have a problem with the blanket label "poor people." It just reinforces rich world assumptions about how the rest of the world lives and thinks.
posted by Nevin at 12:09 PM on April 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
So presumably there is choice, and if you don't have access to the internet, then Internet.org is better than nothing, and eventually you can move on to a paid service with full access.
Then again, free and open internet access should be treated as a basic right, or provided as basic infrastructure, such as water, electricity, and sewerage.
I also have a problem with the blanket label "poor people." It just reinforces rich world assumptions about how the rest of the world lives and thinks.
posted by Nevin at 12:09 PM on April 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
I'd say he's welcome to do it, but when it's clearly serving -- if not wholly motivated by -- hegemonic purposes, he shouldn't pretend it's a charity.
posted by George_Spiggott at 12:09 PM on April 19, 2015 [34 favorites]
posted by George_Spiggott at 12:09 PM on April 19, 2015 [34 favorites]
DAMN IT ZUCKERBERG, STOPPING GIVING PEOPLE FREE SHIT!
I mean, THEY ARE GIVING FREE ACCESS TO WIKIPEDIA
The Trojans thought the horse was a victory trophy.
posted by Talez at 12:11 PM on April 19, 2015 [71 favorites]
I mean, THEY ARE GIVING FREE ACCESS TO WIKIPEDIA
The Trojans thought the horse was a victory trophy.
posted by Talez at 12:11 PM on April 19, 2015 [71 favorites]
On reflection perhaps not even that-- if this market-and-mindshare grabbing palliative proves sufficient to deflect efforts solve the real problem, then I don't even approve to that degree.
posted by George_Spiggott at 12:13 PM on April 19, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by George_Spiggott at 12:13 PM on April 19, 2015 [4 favorites]
My guess is if Internet.org had gone around giving access to JUST Wikipedia and nothing else -- that is, if the service had been even more restricted and less neutral than it currently is -- very few of the commenters would be clamoring about the injustice of the program.
The thing is, the sheer fact of Zuckerberg's involvement in something actually does make it suspect right from the start. Like most of the Silicon Valley big names, he's a past master of providing purportedly benevolent "free" services that end up shaping access to discourse on the whole to his benefit and to the world's loss. Pretending to assess his actions based on what their immediate effects will be requires being willfully naive, like a chess player who only considers their opponent's next move instead of thinking multiple moves ahead.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:14 PM on April 19, 2015 [42 favorites]
The thing is, the sheer fact of Zuckerberg's involvement in something actually does make it suspect right from the start. Like most of the Silicon Valley big names, he's a past master of providing purportedly benevolent "free" services that end up shaping access to discourse on the whole to his benefit and to the world's loss. Pretending to assess his actions based on what their immediate effects will be requires being willfully naive, like a chess player who only considers their opponent's next move instead of thinking multiple moves ahead.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:14 PM on April 19, 2015 [42 favorites]
Gosh, yes, those poor people should be grateful to receive whatever crumbs someone like Zuckerberg decides would be best for them. Better than nothing! Better than being asked what kinds of sites they would like access to! Better than being asked what kind of assistance they feel would be helpful in getting useful and affordable internet access! What could they possibly know about these issues, anyway? I'm sure Zuckerberg and the heads of the telcos know best.
posted by rtha at 12:17 PM on April 19, 2015 [41 favorites]
posted by rtha at 12:17 PM on April 19, 2015 [41 favorites]
I mean, look, I'm going to be totally reductive: if Craig Newmark or Jimmy Wales were doing something like this, I'd be a great deal less skeptical. But because Mark Zuckerberg is doing it, it needs to die in a fire yesterday.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:18 PM on April 19, 2015 [12 favorites]
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:18 PM on April 19, 2015 [12 favorites]
For lack of less melodramatic words, this is the equivalent of technological imperialism. It attempts to strangle any organic local Internet industry because they let that happen in China and now they have baidu bigger than Google and QQ bigger than Facebook. Like fuck they're going to let that happen again with another billion users up for grabs.
posted by Talez at 12:29 PM on April 19, 2015 [47 favorites]
posted by Talez at 12:29 PM on April 19, 2015 [47 favorites]
Calling transnational corporations' efforts to make deals with each other to screw the little guy is poorly described by the phrase "economic racism." I'm sure Zuckerberg would be happy to do the same in Greece and Romania, if he could. On preview: I like Talez's "technological imperialism" much better.
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 12:31 PM on April 19, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 12:31 PM on April 19, 2015 [6 favorites]
A couple of key quotes in the original article:
The Odisha chief minister says in his letter to the regulator that “While the underprivileged deserve much more than what is available, nobody should decide what exactly are their requirements. If you dictate what the poor should get, you take away their rights to choose what they think is best for them.”
The Aam Aadmi Party says: “The Aam Aadmi Party believes that the innovative youth of this country will give us the next Google, Facebook or Whatsapp. However, if some websites or applications or services are offered free or at faster speeds, the balance tips towards established players with deeper pockets which kills the innovative young start-ups that will emanate from this ecosystem.”
posted by gimonca at 12:31 PM on April 19, 2015 [20 favorites]
The Odisha chief minister says in his letter to the regulator that “While the underprivileged deserve much more than what is available, nobody should decide what exactly are their requirements. If you dictate what the poor should get, you take away their rights to choose what they think is best for them.”
The Aam Aadmi Party says: “The Aam Aadmi Party believes that the innovative youth of this country will give us the next Google, Facebook or Whatsapp. However, if some websites or applications or services are offered free or at faster speeds, the balance tips towards established players with deeper pockets which kills the innovative young start-ups that will emanate from this ecosystem.”
posted by gimonca at 12:31 PM on April 19, 2015 [20 favorites]
(Wrt to my earlier comment: Not for the least reason that, presumably, the Indian corporations offering this service would stand to benefit.)
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 12:33 PM on April 19, 2015
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 12:33 PM on April 19, 2015
Not only is it racism to give poor people free access to Wikipedia, even worse the wrong kind of poor people are using it. Not real poorTM people but emerging middle classes who are practically bourgeois. From the Wikipedia annual report.
The biggest concern for Wikipedia Zero is that we do not yet see evidence that it is reaching the target audience—the world's poorest people who cannot afford mobile data charges—at scale. We still do not see organic growth in usage. And our own data on pageviews by language version show roughly 90% usage in English throughout South Asia, indicating the program is actually reaching more privileged segments of society. … Making Wikipedia free of data charges is not driving usage in underserved segments.
posted by Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory at 12:34 PM on April 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
The biggest concern for Wikipedia Zero is that we do not yet see evidence that it is reaching the target audience—the world's poorest people who cannot afford mobile data charges—at scale. We still do not see organic growth in usage. And our own data on pageviews by language version show roughly 90% usage in English throughout South Asia, indicating the program is actually reaching more privileged segments of society. … Making Wikipedia free of data charges is not driving usage in underserved segments.
posted by Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory at 12:34 PM on April 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
I for one would like to hear what actual "poor people" think about this service.
posted by Nevin at 12:36 PM on April 19, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by Nevin at 12:36 PM on April 19, 2015 [6 favorites]
Zuck's post about this is a useful read, and one of the reasons I'm pretty against this "zero-rating" approach.
He repeatedly uses the phrase "basic internet services." In his usage that phrase becomes meaningless. To me, "basic internet services" mean http, https, ssh, and ftp (and probably a couple more I'm missing). To him it means Facebook, Bing, Wikipedia, a specific job site, and a handful of other sites.
He repeatedly talks about the immense value of the internet, but the immense value of the internet comes form its connectivity and fluidity. It comes from the new site or the new app that has found a way to connect the world. It comes from people finding their own way online or creating something new. That isn't possible with this service.
That said, I'm sure these services are super powerful for lots of people. That the tool can be life-changing, even with access to a short list of sites. Is it what we should aspire to? No. Is Zuckerberg lying through is teeth when he says that Internet.org isn't incompatible with net neutrality? When he says "Internet.org doesn’t block or throttle any other services"? Hell yes.
And, crucially, it is our responsibility to push back against things that don't live up to the ideals we believe in. The criticism above — that people arguing against Internet.org would rather have nothing than settle for less — is arguing for the ruling class. The people with money or access always get to set the terms of the debate and public opinion is one of the few tools we have against that.
posted by wemayfreeze at 12:37 PM on April 19, 2015 [25 favorites]
He repeatedly uses the phrase "basic internet services." In his usage that phrase becomes meaningless. To me, "basic internet services" mean http, https, ssh, and ftp (and probably a couple more I'm missing). To him it means Facebook, Bing, Wikipedia, a specific job site, and a handful of other sites.
He repeatedly talks about the immense value of the internet, but the immense value of the internet comes form its connectivity and fluidity. It comes from the new site or the new app that has found a way to connect the world. It comes from people finding their own way online or creating something new. That isn't possible with this service.
That said, I'm sure these services are super powerful for lots of people. That the tool can be life-changing, even with access to a short list of sites. Is it what we should aspire to? No. Is Zuckerberg lying through is teeth when he says that Internet.org isn't incompatible with net neutrality? When he says "Internet.org doesn’t block or throttle any other services"? Hell yes.
And, crucially, it is our responsibility to push back against things that don't live up to the ideals we believe in. The criticism above — that people arguing against Internet.org would rather have nothing than settle for less — is arguing for the ruling class. The people with money or access always get to set the terms of the debate and public opinion is one of the few tools we have against that.
posted by wemayfreeze at 12:37 PM on April 19, 2015 [25 favorites]
“Awareness of the Internet in developing countries is very limited. In fact, for many users, Facebook is the internet, as it’s often the only accessible application.”
posted by wachhundfisch at 12:38 PM on April 19, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by wachhundfisch at 12:38 PM on April 19, 2015 [4 favorites]
I for one would like to hear what actual "poor people" think about this service.
Sanjay Sharma posted on his wall:
"I sure could use some basic sanitation and food security."
posted by Talez at 12:38 PM on April 19, 2015 [12 favorites]
Sanjay Sharma posted on his wall:
"I sure could use some basic sanitation and food security."
posted by Talez at 12:38 PM on April 19, 2015 [12 favorites]
"You'd rather have nothing than settle for less."
Except sometimes that's actually how charity works. It is better not to distribute food than to distribute rotten food. Everybody gets this. It is also better not to distribute excess goods from the US, for example, in cases where that will have a significant negative impact on the local economy; everybody gets free clothes, but you put local clothiers out of business and suddenly next year, when there is no new shipment of free clothes, then there's nowhere to get clothes anymore. It is, similarly, better not to have internet than to have an internet that is composed entirely of sites that have some basic usefulness but no freedom to to choose, because that free service can very easily then bankrupt small more-free-as-in-speech competitors, who cannot provide services for free-as-in-beer.
It isn't helping if it doesn't help locals actually create a working economy, a working internet presence, in the long run. Sometimes free stuff does that. Sometimes it doesn't. I don't really see a likelihood that free access to Wikipedia is going to be so helpful that it offsets the limitations and the impact this will have on local provision of services.
posted by Sequence at 12:42 PM on April 19, 2015 [65 favorites]
Except sometimes that's actually how charity works. It is better not to distribute food than to distribute rotten food. Everybody gets this. It is also better not to distribute excess goods from the US, for example, in cases where that will have a significant negative impact on the local economy; everybody gets free clothes, but you put local clothiers out of business and suddenly next year, when there is no new shipment of free clothes, then there's nowhere to get clothes anymore. It is, similarly, better not to have internet than to have an internet that is composed entirely of sites that have some basic usefulness but no freedom to to choose, because that free service can very easily then bankrupt small more-free-as-in-speech competitors, who cannot provide services for free-as-in-beer.
It isn't helping if it doesn't help locals actually create a working economy, a working internet presence, in the long run. Sometimes free stuff does that. Sometimes it doesn't. I don't really see a likelihood that free access to Wikipedia is going to be so helpful that it offsets the limitations and the impact this will have on local provision of services.
posted by Sequence at 12:42 PM on April 19, 2015 [65 favorites]
There's also an unfortunate false dilemma in a lot of the defenses posted here that suggest we either have internet.org in its current state or absolutely nothing. Well, no, those are not the only two options available to us. Zuckerberg and co. can change how internet.org works to broaden the number of services available, include local input in what gets offered, or even change the scope to provide access to protocols, not individual services, so that local internet services can form alongside the established ones.
And if your retort is that, well, Zuckerberg isn't going to do any of those things so you're arguing for a pipe dream, sure. But I don't see why that's my problem as someone criticizing Zuckerberg, as opposed to Zuckerberg's problem for coming up with a flawed vision for internet.org. Yes, these things can be hard to execute; yes, they're Zuckerberg's resources to spend, not mine; yes, if I really want it done the way I want it done, the only surefire way to do that is to build it myself. None of those things means I should accept "whatever Zuckerberg's giving it to you for free" as an ironclad answer to all criticisms of internet.org.
posted by chrominance at 12:48 PM on April 19, 2015 [4 favorites]
And if your retort is that, well, Zuckerberg isn't going to do any of those things so you're arguing for a pipe dream, sure. But I don't see why that's my problem as someone criticizing Zuckerberg, as opposed to Zuckerberg's problem for coming up with a flawed vision for internet.org. Yes, these things can be hard to execute; yes, they're Zuckerberg's resources to spend, not mine; yes, if I really want it done the way I want it done, the only surefire way to do that is to build it myself. None of those things means I should accept "whatever Zuckerberg's giving it to you for free" as an ironclad answer to all criticisms of internet.org.
posted by chrominance at 12:48 PM on April 19, 2015 [4 favorites]
DAMN IT ZUCKERBERG, STOPPING GIVING PEOPLE FREE SHIT!
DAMN IT ZUCKERBERG, STOP GIVING PEOPLE SHIT AND TELLING THEM TO EAT UP 'CAUSE IT'S FREE!
posted by jamjam at 12:55 PM on April 19, 2015 [16 favorites]
DAMN IT ZUCKERBERG, STOP GIVING PEOPLE SHIT AND TELLING THEM TO EAT UP 'CAUSE IT'S FREE!
posted by jamjam at 12:55 PM on April 19, 2015 [16 favorites]
>Sanjay Sharma posted on his wall:
"I sure could use some basic sanitation and food security."
You've made my point. As rich Westerners we can co-opt the voices of (and in the process dehumanize) the global poor to make just about any argument (or snarky comment) we like.
So I guess you get several upvotes in a meaningless Internet argument...
posted by Nevin at 12:57 PM on April 19, 2015 [2 favorites]
"I sure could use some basic sanitation and food security."
You've made my point. As rich Westerners we can co-opt the voices of (and in the process dehumanize) the global poor to make just about any argument (or snarky comment) we like.
So I guess you get several upvotes in a meaningless Internet argument...
posted by Nevin at 12:57 PM on April 19, 2015 [2 favorites]
If it's a meaningless internet argument, then I guess we're all suckers, huh? But it's nice that we have the freedom to engage because we're not all stuck on internet.org.
posted by klanawa at 1:03 PM on April 19, 2015 [14 favorites]
posted by klanawa at 1:03 PM on April 19, 2015 [14 favorites]
There have been advertisements for internet.org all over the Toronto subways recently, and I could never figure out what the fuck they were actually advertising. And because there isn't internet access in most Toronto subway stations, I could never look it up, either.
So, now I know.
And I'm even more baffled than I was before about why it is being advertised in the Toronto subways.
posted by jacquilynne at 1:09 PM on April 19, 2015 [5 favorites]
So, now I know.
And I'm even more baffled than I was before about why it is being advertised in the Toronto subways.
posted by jacquilynne at 1:09 PM on April 19, 2015 [5 favorites]
You've made my point. As rich Westerners we can co-opt the voices of (and in the process dehumanize) the global poor to make just about any argument (or snarky comment) we like.
What dehumanize? Only 31% of Indians have access to improved sanitation and about 30% of the population are food insecure.
But yeah, by all means poor Indians can certainly post about their basic needs being unmet on Facebook courtesy of Mr Zuckerberg. Maybe then we can share their post and listen to them personally instead of some white guy pointing out that maybe more of the population could use a working fucking sewer system. We won't actually help them but we can raise awareness now! Just like how we all totally saw Slumdog Millionaire!
posted by Talez at 1:09 PM on April 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
What dehumanize? Only 31% of Indians have access to improved sanitation and about 30% of the population are food insecure.
But yeah, by all means poor Indians can certainly post about their basic needs being unmet on Facebook courtesy of Mr Zuckerberg. Maybe then we can share their post and listen to them personally instead of some white guy pointing out that maybe more of the population could use a working fucking sewer system. We won't actually help them but we can raise awareness now! Just like how we all totally saw Slumdog Millionaire!
posted by Talez at 1:09 PM on April 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
Just so long as we've a facebook bot, app, etc. that lets you download the Tor Browser Bundle and Tails with a plugable transport to connect to the Tor network using OTR encrypted Facebook messages. In that way, all these poor people from counties where Facebook is their whole internet can access facebookcorewwwi.onion securely over facebook.com.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:15 PM on April 19, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by jeffburdges at 1:15 PM on April 19, 2015 [2 favorites]
Giving away wikipeda: awesome.
Giving away facebook: thanks for the shit sandwich, asshole.
Yeah, it's certainly not altruism when his service is one of the few ones given away. Facebook is the opposite of a crucial internet service.
posted by el io at 1:19 PM on April 19, 2015 [9 favorites]
Giving away facebook: thanks for the shit sandwich, asshole.
Yeah, it's certainly not altruism when his service is one of the few ones given away. Facebook is the opposite of a crucial internet service.
posted by el io at 1:19 PM on April 19, 2015 [9 favorites]
Anyone who seriously says, "No, you mustn't give Wikipedia access to the world's poor unless you also give away access to the entire Internet," maybe needs to have their connectivity completely shut off for a year or two and then revisit the question after that.The internet, like water, is a utility that should be provided unrestricted or at minimal cost to everyone. It baffles me why someone for net neutrality would support this. You're basically saying that poor countries should be governed by different principles than rich countries.
posted by yaymukund at 1:22 PM on April 19, 2015 [10 favorites]
This sounds like the equivalent of having Brawndo come from the drinking fountains in Idiocracy.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:22 PM on April 19, 2015 [13 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:22 PM on April 19, 2015 [13 favorites]
"I sure could use some basic sanitation and food security."
It would be great if we could avoid putting words into people's mouths. Yes, basic sanitation and food security are things that are important to everyone, but
(a) not all of the people who lack affordable internet access lack basic sanitation and food security
(b) not all of the people who lack basic sanitation and food security will care about those to the exclusion of everything else
Working in one the poorest countries in the world, one of the things that is striking is simply how many things are considered out of reach - not because you're destitute, starving, and living in your own filth, but simply because they're expensive and you're cash-poor. What's also striking is how people's own opinions about what they want or need can be very different than what you expect. I might find it shocking to have to shit in a field, and imagine that in that situation what I'd want most of all is a toilet, but a toilet doesn't bring the same new opportunities that an internet connection might.
That's not to say that this is a good program, but dismissing access to the internet services as being somehow an unworthy subject of charity, by imagining that what they really want or need is other services, is really patronizing.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 1:24 PM on April 19, 2015 [9 favorites]
It would be great if we could avoid putting words into people's mouths. Yes, basic sanitation and food security are things that are important to everyone, but
(a) not all of the people who lack affordable internet access lack basic sanitation and food security
(b) not all of the people who lack basic sanitation and food security will care about those to the exclusion of everything else
Working in one the poorest countries in the world, one of the things that is striking is simply how many things are considered out of reach - not because you're destitute, starving, and living in your own filth, but simply because they're expensive and you're cash-poor. What's also striking is how people's own opinions about what they want or need can be very different than what you expect. I might find it shocking to have to shit in a field, and imagine that in that situation what I'd want most of all is a toilet, but a toilet doesn't bring the same new opportunities that an internet connection might.
That's not to say that this is a good program, but dismissing access to the internet services as being somehow an unworthy subject of charity, by imagining that what they really want or need is other services, is really patronizing.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 1:24 PM on April 19, 2015 [9 favorites]
but dismissing access to the internet services as being somehow an unworthy subject of charity
It's not access to Internet services. It's access to certain corporations' services with Wikipedia thrown in. This springs to mind.
posted by Talez at 1:29 PM on April 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
It's not access to Internet services. It's access to certain corporations' services with Wikipedia thrown in. This springs to mind.
posted by Talez at 1:29 PM on April 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
Way back in the (technically) 20th Century, Greg Costikyan (a great TSR-era game designer) wrote a book called First Contract...
SPOILERS AHOY
...wherein the benevolent aliens who have come to uplift Earth offer us a great deal: the sum total of their knowledge in exchange for mining rights on Jupiter.
The protagonist (a tech entrepreneur whose company becomes instantly worthless when the aliens' vastly superior technology arrives) points out to the government officials that they just gave away most of the non-stellar mass in the solar system in exchange for, essentially, the aliens' Encyclopedia Britannica. At the end of the book, the protagonist has started a company making cheap plastic crap (literally, a drink holder for spaceships). He negotiates a huge purchase order with an alien race that has no concept of limited liability corporation and tends to resolve contract disputes via genocide. He presents this purchase order as a fait accompli to world leadership, pointing out that unless the entire planet converts to making cheap plastic drink holders, the human race will be annihilated.
I really like that book. I think about it a lot when I think about globalization.
posted by Etrigan at 1:38 PM on April 19, 2015 [19 favorites]
SPOILERS AHOY
...wherein the benevolent aliens who have come to uplift Earth offer us a great deal: the sum total of their knowledge in exchange for mining rights on Jupiter.
The protagonist (a tech entrepreneur whose company becomes instantly worthless when the aliens' vastly superior technology arrives) points out to the government officials that they just gave away most of the non-stellar mass in the solar system in exchange for, essentially, the aliens' Encyclopedia Britannica. At the end of the book, the protagonist has started a company making cheap plastic crap (literally, a drink holder for spaceships). He negotiates a huge purchase order with an alien race that has no concept of limited liability corporation and tends to resolve contract disputes via genocide. He presents this purchase order as a fait accompli to world leadership, pointing out that unless the entire planet converts to making cheap plastic drink holders, the human race will be annihilated.
I really like that book. I think about it a lot when I think about globalization.
posted by Etrigan at 1:38 PM on April 19, 2015 [19 favorites]
I think we can all agree is that this promotion of facebook is not a charity effort, and should not be excluded from taxation.
facebook's business model relies on creating databases that we populate. this effort makes them money. how can it be considered a charity?
posted by eustatic at 1:41 PM on April 19, 2015 [4 favorites]
facebook's business model relies on creating databases that we populate. this effort makes them money. how can it be considered a charity?
posted by eustatic at 1:41 PM on April 19, 2015 [4 favorites]
Giving away wikipeda: awesome.
Giving away facebook: thanks for the shit sandwich, asshole.
Yeah, it's certainly not altruism when his service is one of the few ones given away. Facebook is the opposite of a crucial internet service.
The problem with this attitude is that many many many people love social media, and FB in particular. There's a large cohort that defines the internet as being primarily a tool for communication via short messages and photos. The big draws for most people will be social sites, information, and news.
And cats. Lots and lots of cats.
I am morally outraged by the lack of cat access.
posted by BlueHorse at 1:44 PM on April 19, 2015
Giving away facebook: thanks for the shit sandwich, asshole.
Yeah, it's certainly not altruism when his service is one of the few ones given away. Facebook is the opposite of a crucial internet service.
The problem with this attitude is that many many many people love social media, and FB in particular. There's a large cohort that defines the internet as being primarily a tool for communication via short messages and photos. The big draws for most people will be social sites, information, and news.
And cats. Lots and lots of cats.
I am morally outraged by the lack of cat access.
posted by BlueHorse at 1:44 PM on April 19, 2015
I'm going to bold something in my comment that you might have missed, Talez:
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 1:45 PM on April 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
That's not to say that this is a good program, but dismissing access to the internet servicesYour comments in this thread haven't been about the limitations of the service; they've been about how supposedly trivial the service is in comparison to basic sanitation and food security. That is what I was reacting to and characterizing as patronizing.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 1:45 PM on April 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
The problem with this attitude is that many many many people love social media, and FB in particular.
I think this is actually a very good point to make. For all of the problems with Facebook--for all that we might wish people would just give up on it and move on--people do want to use it. Not just for lack of options, either.
A lot of the people I know have Facebook pages even though they don't have regular access to the internet, because when they do get a chance to get online, they like to leave messages for friends/family, who might be pretty far away.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 1:53 PM on April 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
I think this is actually a very good point to make. For all of the problems with Facebook--for all that we might wish people would just give up on it and move on--people do want to use it. Not just for lack of options, either.
A lot of the people I know have Facebook pages even though they don't have regular access to the internet, because when they do get a chance to get online, they like to leave messages for friends/family, who might be pretty far away.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 1:53 PM on April 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
So presumably there is choice, and if you don't have access to the internet, then Internet.org is better than nothing, and eventually you can move on to a paid service with full access.
Well sure, in the short term. It's also a handy shield when you raise the prices for paid internet—"but there's a free one for people who can't afford this." Thus making the free-tier users even more captive.
posted by ctmf at 1:54 PM on April 19, 2015 [2 favorites]
Well sure, in the short term. It's also a handy shield when you raise the prices for paid internet—"but there's a free one for people who can't afford this." Thus making the free-tier users even more captive.
posted by ctmf at 1:54 PM on April 19, 2015 [2 favorites]
Wait, was this done by Mark Zuckerberg or Mark Zuckerberg.org?
posted by srboisvert at 2:02 PM on April 19, 2015
posted by srboisvert at 2:02 PM on April 19, 2015
Okay, so, for the past few years, I've been interviewing NGO representatives to write articles for a translation NGO's newsletter (Translators Without Borders). The most recent one I was asked to work on was internet.org. The initiative is managed by Bryan Hurren at FB, where he's the Business Development Manager. internet.org is not an NGO... I was rather quick to point out that it's a non-profit partnership of technology companies. (Link to the article I mostly-wrote there. It was heavily edited, we'll get to the "why".) WRT their content, it's actually other NGOs that come up with it; in the case of TwB, they work with those NGOs and less directly with internet.org.
I had to do a hefty re-focusing of the FB response I got; a response which was... disappointing to say the least. In it FB stressed how they had "pioneered" crowd-sourcing translations, of Facebook. Translation of that from a professional translator: that's a way of saying they got people to do for-profit translation work, which should be paid, for free. The response was also disappointing in that, indeed, it focused on localizing content not from NGOs, but from corporate partners looking to infiltrate new markets.
People at TwB did additional heavy edits using their direct experience to make it more relevant to, you know, actual people and countries. FB's response was so corporate-centered that it didn't even contain any language names or countries apart from "English", "India" and "United States". India was in this sentence (which I removed, because it was off-topic in an NGO context): "For Free Basic Services, we strive to offer content from partners in languages that provides 90% population coverage by language (for example, Facebook already offers Facebook in 10 languages in India)." I had never encountered that in any interview before.
It doesn't take much reading between the lines to notice that FB's also working directly with governments to determine what content is distributed.
posted by fraula at 2:03 PM on April 19, 2015 [21 favorites]
I had to do a hefty re-focusing of the FB response I got; a response which was... disappointing to say the least. In it FB stressed how they had "pioneered" crowd-sourcing translations, of Facebook. Translation of that from a professional translator: that's a way of saying they got people to do for-profit translation work, which should be paid, for free. The response was also disappointing in that, indeed, it focused on localizing content not from NGOs, but from corporate partners looking to infiltrate new markets.
People at TwB did additional heavy edits using their direct experience to make it more relevant to, you know, actual people and countries. FB's response was so corporate-centered that it didn't even contain any language names or countries apart from "English", "India" and "United States". India was in this sentence (which I removed, because it was off-topic in an NGO context): "For Free Basic Services, we strive to offer content from partners in languages that provides 90% population coverage by language (for example, Facebook already offers Facebook in 10 languages in India)." I had never encountered that in any interview before.
It doesn't take much reading between the lines to notice that FB's also working directly with governments to determine what content is distributed.
posted by fraula at 2:03 PM on April 19, 2015 [21 favorites]
The problem with this attitude is that many many many people love social media, and FB in particular.
Sure they do, but it also makes his 'philanthropic efforts' look incredibly self-serving; because they are incredibly self-serving. If he was also giving away access to 2 or 3 other social media sites, that'd be great. But what he's doing is creating a captive audience for his advertising platform. Seriously, fuck this guy.
posted by el io at 2:12 PM on April 19, 2015 [5 favorites]
Sure they do, but it also makes his 'philanthropic efforts' look incredibly self-serving; because they are incredibly self-serving. If he was also giving away access to 2 or 3 other social media sites, that'd be great. But what he's doing is creating a captive audience for his advertising platform. Seriously, fuck this guy.
posted by el io at 2:12 PM on April 19, 2015 [5 favorites]
This is best understood as a type of deliberately anticompetitive dumping; because there is demand for social networking services in India, and because there's the threat of some other social network becoming dominant there (or even of Indians crafting their own social network systems), Zuck is trying to ensure that access to Facebook and nothing else is free and easy.
Like, it doesn't take Sherlock to figure this game out; I honestly have trouble figuring out how anyone could think this was somehow a benevolent act, or even a win-win for Indians and Facebook. Tech imperialism is absolutely the best way to understand what's going on here, either that or old-school mercantilism. India is allowed to supply the raw materials — eyeballs looking at social media — but forbidden to make those materials into finished products (which in this case means new local tech companies).
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 2:32 PM on April 19, 2015 [35 favorites]
Like, it doesn't take Sherlock to figure this game out; I honestly have trouble figuring out how anyone could think this was somehow a benevolent act, or even a win-win for Indians and Facebook. Tech imperialism is absolutely the best way to understand what's going on here, either that or old-school mercantilism. India is allowed to supply the raw materials — eyeballs looking at social media — but forbidden to make those materials into finished products (which in this case means new local tech companies).
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 2:32 PM on April 19, 2015 [35 favorites]
It seems sort of telling that a lot of people are speaking of this as more or less an infrastructure issue, when it is in fact an issue of Zuckerberg being able to broker a deal in which only his suite of sites is exempted from stifling data caps imposed by the providers themselves.
I mean, practically speaking, it's great that there's the possibility of less restricted internet access. But please forgive me if I'm not so excited about the restrictions, and the "benevolent" solutions to them, being two sides of the same shady business dealings.
posted by teponaztli at 2:34 PM on April 19, 2015 [8 favorites]
I mean, practically speaking, it's great that there's the possibility of less restricted internet access. But please forgive me if I'm not so excited about the restrictions, and the "benevolent" solutions to them, being two sides of the same shady business dealings.
posted by teponaztli at 2:34 PM on April 19, 2015 [8 favorites]
Hey, cmon. He probably thought he was making a great win/win solution. He's only like, 17.
posted by ctmf at 2:44 PM on April 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by ctmf at 2:44 PM on April 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
Truth be told, *nothing* is ever free. Granted, some internet is better than nothing.
But that having been stated, while internet access arguably can count as a right, insofar as knowledge and current events, etc., go, fast internet is only a privilege. I mean, internet allows for freedom of information. Fast is preferrable, but it's not mandatory. If you use tor, it's slower than without it: however you use it to gain better freedom, because the [lack of] speed is better than being censored, i.e., in China.
If I'm getting internet in a generally resource-bereft area, I'd take it and run. I would definitely want fast internet, but it's not required. It's just a necessity, there's a difference.
Again, however, nothing is truly "free," so while it aims to be a charity, it's more of a ....cover-show for PR purposes, in my opinion. He wouldn't give it away without particular benefit coming back to him. Only when it's truly one-way to less fortunate folks, that it is charity. I still, yet, wouldn't call it "racism."
posted by Grease at 2:45 PM on April 19, 2015
But that having been stated, while internet access arguably can count as a right, insofar as knowledge and current events, etc., go, fast internet is only a privilege. I mean, internet allows for freedom of information. Fast is preferrable, but it's not mandatory. If you use tor, it's slower than without it: however you use it to gain better freedom, because the [lack of] speed is better than being censored, i.e., in China.
If I'm getting internet in a generally resource-bereft area, I'd take it and run. I would definitely want fast internet, but it's not required. It's just a necessity, there's a difference.
Again, however, nothing is truly "free," so while it aims to be a charity, it's more of a ....cover-show for PR purposes, in my opinion. He wouldn't give it away without particular benefit coming back to him. Only when it's truly one-way to less fortunate folks, that it is charity. I still, yet, wouldn't call it "racism."
posted by Grease at 2:45 PM on April 19, 2015
The fact is there are an awful lot of supposedly charitable initiatives and foundations which dress up the principal's ambitions in philanthropic drag. It's kind of disgusting. Point it out and there are always those who push back with something to the effect that you're letting the better be the enemy of the good, but I take some persuading to believe that on balance the net effect is in fact good at all.
posted by George_Spiggott at 3:00 PM on April 19, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by George_Spiggott at 3:00 PM on April 19, 2015 [5 favorites]
Imperialism and racism are old bedfellows.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 3:18 PM on April 19, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 3:18 PM on April 19, 2015 [5 favorites]
The irony of this increasingly volatile debate, per the Indian news for the last couple of weeks, for me, has been the fact taht pipes and engines that run this shit are mostly run from good old Bengaluru.
No shortage of geeks who know what's going on.
In fact, the Indian hubbub is making the African tech savvy peeps sit up and think about it. From all angles.
In the meantime, my 2 rupees worth.
posted by infini at 3:18 PM on April 19, 2015 [5 favorites]
No shortage of geeks who know what's going on.
In fact, the Indian hubbub is making the African tech savvy peeps sit up and think about it. From all angles.
In the meantime, my 2 rupees worth.
posted by infini at 3:18 PM on April 19, 2015 [5 favorites]
How difficult would it be to repurpose the connection to a more general access (as per jeffburges' comment), and to what extent might we expect that to happen in India?
posted by Grangousier at 3:22 PM on April 19, 2015
posted by Grangousier at 3:22 PM on April 19, 2015
The Government of India has a plan in place to deliver rural broadband. Zero rating may not even be required for more than a couple of years.
posted by infini at 3:31 PM on April 19, 2015
posted by infini at 3:31 PM on April 19, 2015
And I'm even more baffled than I was before about why it is being advertised in the Toronto subways.
Because "Look at this great thing we're doing for all those poor people!" is part of the core mission.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:55 PM on April 19, 2015 [2 favorites]
Because "Look at this great thing we're doing for all those poor people!" is part of the core mission.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:55 PM on April 19, 2015 [2 favorites]
Metafilter: the opposite of a crucial internet service.
posted by uosuaq at 4:12 PM on April 19, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by uosuaq at 4:12 PM on April 19, 2015 [2 favorites]
Facebook chat is Jabber/XMPP, Grangousier, so one could connect from any XMPP client. And OTR works fine. Adam Langely's xmpp-client is a command-line XMPP client written in Go that supports OTR. And you can develop pluggable transports in Go using goptlib (example). It'd take some work, but all the components exist.
posted by jeffburdges at 4:35 PM on April 19, 2015
posted by jeffburdges at 4:35 PM on April 19, 2015
Breaking: Billionaire tech philanthropists confused why "poor" throw back "freebies" in their face.
posted by infini at 5:14 PM on April 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by infini at 5:14 PM on April 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
Facebook can choose which XMPP connections to reject, for instance, all non-Facebook connections.
posted by davel at 5:16 PM on April 19, 2015
posted by davel at 5:16 PM on April 19, 2015
Facebook chat is Jabber/XMPP
Correction: That's being shut off on April 30th. So... correct, but only for about 2 more weeks.
posted by CrystalDave at 5:35 PM on April 19, 2015 [4 favorites]
Correction: That's being shut off on April 30th. So... correct, but only for about 2 more weeks.
posted by CrystalDave at 5:35 PM on April 19, 2015 [4 favorites]
I went reading in order to understand the situation a little more.
Few people would argue against an initiative to offer free access to Wikipedia for those who can least afford it. However, Facebook Zero and Google Free Zone are pretty clearly biasing the market for digital services. This would make it much harder for any startup wanting to go head to head with FB and Google on any of their services. But for the consumer, the answer is pretty simple. It’s like scissor cuts paper. Bad access trumps no access every single day of the week. Will this lead to African nations filled with mindless Google / Facebook zombies mindlessly doing what their digital overlords tell them? No or at least no more so than anyone with full Internet access. We’ve seen this scenario already in the 1990s in the United States. Companies like AOL, Compuserve, and MSN attempted to created walled gardens that inhibited users from straying on the Internet. Competition solved this problem when customers chose unfettered Internet access.
I respect the author's authority on these topics however I'm not sure if this blithe hand waving "competition will solve the problem" will apply in the Indian or African context.
1. Where will the competition come from? How will it emerge? Will it be able to grab the necessary user base at the pre revenue stage if it has a cost involved, or if network effect is already holding people in place?
2. I was in the US when AOL swamped our doorstep with CD Roms. What exactly was the "competition" that solved the problem? Facebook?
When I first read the op-eds in the Indian papers going on about how only 150-200 million people would benefit from net neutrality as it meant they could hog the bandwidth with free Viber and Whatsapp, squeezing the poor telcos dry (the lobbying is as OTT as the Bollywood scripts) I thought yeah, well, the geeks were the elite and the internet would stay urban and all the usual, until I read this article further and realized that its those very 150-200 million who need a neutral internet in order to innovate.
Hariharan says a non-neutral net can damage India's technology sector severely, "set it back by years". [...] It was pointed out by experts that venture capitalists would be less willing to fund ideas if they didn't have equal access to Internet. If startups are required to pay telcos or ISPs to get equal access as big players, they will put off investors. The result? Today's flourishing entrepreneurial ecosystem will start dying.
This isn't about throttling bandwidth. Its about throttling innovation, startups and future competition. I mean back home in the Valley, majority of immigrant founders are likely to come from where exactly?
This is probably why the East African VC I follow on Twitter woke up and said this India thing should be watched more closely.
posted by infini at 6:24 PM on April 19, 2015 [5 favorites]
Few people would argue against an initiative to offer free access to Wikipedia for those who can least afford it. However, Facebook Zero and Google Free Zone are pretty clearly biasing the market for digital services. This would make it much harder for any startup wanting to go head to head with FB and Google on any of their services. But for the consumer, the answer is pretty simple. It’s like scissor cuts paper. Bad access trumps no access every single day of the week. Will this lead to African nations filled with mindless Google / Facebook zombies mindlessly doing what their digital overlords tell them? No or at least no more so than anyone with full Internet access. We’ve seen this scenario already in the 1990s in the United States. Companies like AOL, Compuserve, and MSN attempted to created walled gardens that inhibited users from straying on the Internet. Competition solved this problem when customers chose unfettered Internet access.
I respect the author's authority on these topics however I'm not sure if this blithe hand waving "competition will solve the problem" will apply in the Indian or African context.
1. Where will the competition come from? How will it emerge? Will it be able to grab the necessary user base at the pre revenue stage if it has a cost involved, or if network effect is already holding people in place?
2. I was in the US when AOL swamped our doorstep with CD Roms. What exactly was the "competition" that solved the problem? Facebook?
When I first read the op-eds in the Indian papers going on about how only 150-200 million people would benefit from net neutrality as it meant they could hog the bandwidth with free Viber and Whatsapp, squeezing the poor telcos dry (the lobbying is as OTT as the Bollywood scripts) I thought yeah, well, the geeks were the elite and the internet would stay urban and all the usual, until I read this article further and realized that its those very 150-200 million who need a neutral internet in order to innovate.
Hariharan says a non-neutral net can damage India's technology sector severely, "set it back by years". [...] It was pointed out by experts that venture capitalists would be less willing to fund ideas if they didn't have equal access to Internet. If startups are required to pay telcos or ISPs to get equal access as big players, they will put off investors. The result? Today's flourishing entrepreneurial ecosystem will start dying.
This isn't about throttling bandwidth. Its about throttling innovation, startups and future competition. I mean back home in the Valley, majority of immigrant founders are likely to come from where exactly?
This is probably why the East African VC I follow on Twitter woke up and said this India thing should be watched more closely.
posted by infini at 6:24 PM on April 19, 2015 [5 favorites]
Or as the less PC Brits I know like to say "We taught you English"
posted by infini at 6:53 PM on April 19, 2015
posted by infini at 6:53 PM on April 19, 2015
DAMN IT ZUCKERBERG, STOPPING GIVING PEOPLE FREE SHIT!
DAMN IT ZUCKERBERG, STOP GIVING PEOPLE SHIT AND TELLING THEM TO EAT UP 'CAUSE IT'S FREE!--jamjam
Obligatory.
I wonder how people would feel about this if Fox News was offering free internet (consisting entirely of Wikipedia and Fox News) to America's poor. Most large corporations would really, really love to see this become acceptable. Start small, and move your way up!
posted by eye of newt at 9:03 PM on April 19, 2015 [8 favorites]
DAMN IT ZUCKERBERG, STOP GIVING PEOPLE SHIT AND TELLING THEM TO EAT UP 'CAUSE IT'S FREE!--jamjam
Obligatory.
I wonder how people would feel about this if Fox News was offering free internet (consisting entirely of Wikipedia and Fox News) to America's poor. Most large corporations would really, really love to see this become acceptable. Start small, and move your way up!
posted by eye of newt at 9:03 PM on April 19, 2015 [8 favorites]
This is not about giving people access to the internet, it's about giving facebook access to people.
posted by walrus at 11:03 PM on April 19, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by walrus at 11:03 PM on April 19, 2015 [8 favorites]
I mean it's already been said above, but yea, i'm amazed at how many people on this site that was pretty much unilaterally pro net neutrality are going "omg perfect is the enemy of the good!" and but but-ing at this.
A real charitable move would be "we're using our server farms, sweet ass proprietary tweaked compression and bandwidth management code in combination with low bandwidth but pervasive wireless to give essentially universal access. you can't really stream video, but you can access basically all the non-embedded text and info on the internet". Something like an ISP or backend that's zero-rated through local isp's(plus investment therein) + a beefier amazon silk. Hell, i'd side eye but approve of them giving more bandwidth to their own services in that context
This is, as was said above, something like the brawndo water fountains in idiocracy, and i loathe referencing or making comparisons to that movie... but holy shit.
A lot of people here seem to forget that facebook is a one way street black hole for data. Everything they make is AOL levels of walled off from the rest of the internet. It's impossible to search. There's no way to contact a real human, and content gets nuked on a whim. There's no real function to search through any old content on any community pages, etc. It's just bad news.
I'm amazed i'm saying this, but i'd feel a lot better if google, amazon, or microsoft were doing this. Google would probably dole out the whole internet in exchange for tracking everything you do, as would amazon(while trying to sell you shit). Who knows what microsoft would do, but it wouldn't be "you can only use bing and wikipedia lol!".
If wikipedia is any good anymore, they'll find some way to proxy a lot more of the internet through their site in some obfuscated way and present it to this system in a relatively randomized and hard to block way. Or just put up a "Hi people using this system, here's how to set up tor and bypass it on every conceivable OS with handy videos and photo directions!"
posted by emptythought at 11:37 PM on April 19, 2015 [5 favorites]
A real charitable move would be "we're using our server farms, sweet ass proprietary tweaked compression and bandwidth management code in combination with low bandwidth but pervasive wireless to give essentially universal access. you can't really stream video, but you can access basically all the non-embedded text and info on the internet". Something like an ISP or backend that's zero-rated through local isp's(plus investment therein) + a beefier amazon silk. Hell, i'd side eye but approve of them giving more bandwidth to their own services in that context
This is, as was said above, something like the brawndo water fountains in idiocracy, and i loathe referencing or making comparisons to that movie... but holy shit.
A lot of people here seem to forget that facebook is a one way street black hole for data. Everything they make is AOL levels of walled off from the rest of the internet. It's impossible to search. There's no way to contact a real human, and content gets nuked on a whim. There's no real function to search through any old content on any community pages, etc. It's just bad news.
I'm amazed i'm saying this, but i'd feel a lot better if google, amazon, or microsoft were doing this. Google would probably dole out the whole internet in exchange for tracking everything you do, as would amazon(while trying to sell you shit). Who knows what microsoft would do, but it wouldn't be "you can only use bing and wikipedia lol!".
If wikipedia is any good anymore, they'll find some way to proxy a lot more of the internet through their site in some obfuscated way and present it to this system in a relatively randomized and hard to block way. Or just put up a "Hi people using this system, here's how to set up tor and bypass it on every conceivable OS with handy videos and photo directions!"
posted by emptythought at 11:37 PM on April 19, 2015 [5 favorites]
… i'm amazed at how many people on this site that was pretty much unilaterally pro net neutrality are going "omg perfect is the enemy of the good!" and but but-ing at this.
Are you referring to metafilter dot com? Because I count one person who made the 'perfect is the enemy of the good' argument and a few others who are not wholly against Zuckerberg's shit sandwich. That's … not a lot of people. I understand that you can be amazed that even one person on this site is making that argument, but I'd caution heavily against overstating the representation of the opposing side. It's an easy thing to do — and something I see quite a bit on MeFi — and it's worth keeping an eye on.
posted by wemayfreeze at 12:29 AM on April 20, 2015
Are you referring to metafilter dot com? Because I count one person who made the 'perfect is the enemy of the good' argument and a few others who are not wholly against Zuckerberg's shit sandwich. That's … not a lot of people. I understand that you can be amazed that even one person on this site is making that argument, but I'd caution heavily against overstating the representation of the opposing side. It's an easy thing to do — and something I see quite a bit on MeFi — and it's worth keeping an eye on.
posted by wemayfreeze at 12:29 AM on April 20, 2015
emptythought: "I mean it's already been said above, but yea, i'm amazed at how many people on this site that was pretty much unilaterally pro net neutrality are going "omg perfect is the enemy of the good!" and but but-ing at this."
Indeed. As hinted by infini's links above, the tech media in India is currently abuzz with the fallout of Bharti Airtel (250m+ subscribers in India alone) and their Airtel Zero offering. Airtel Zero allows companies to pay Airtel huge sums of money so that subscribers get unmetered access to their sites. In effect, this is the Netflix ISP tax commoditized.
Large online retailer Flipkart initially signed up for Airtel Zero and then dropped out, due to net neutrality concerns. I don't see any difference at all between Airtel Zero giving us free access to Flipkart's online shop vs what Zuckerberg is doing with Facebook.
Wikipedia access is murkier of course. There are plenty of people here on the blue who complain when students treat Wikipedia as a primary resource. But what if they couldn't use anything else? Is Wikipedia as great when you can't follow links to citations?
posted by vanar sena at 12:30 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Indeed. As hinted by infini's links above, the tech media in India is currently abuzz with the fallout of Bharti Airtel (250m+ subscribers in India alone) and their Airtel Zero offering. Airtel Zero allows companies to pay Airtel huge sums of money so that subscribers get unmetered access to their sites. In effect, this is the Netflix ISP tax commoditized.
Large online retailer Flipkart initially signed up for Airtel Zero and then dropped out, due to net neutrality concerns. I don't see any difference at all between Airtel Zero giving us free access to Flipkart's online shop vs what Zuckerberg is doing with Facebook.
Wikipedia access is murkier of course. There are plenty of people here on the blue who complain when students treat Wikipedia as a primary resource. But what if they couldn't use anything else? Is Wikipedia as great when you can't follow links to citations?
posted by vanar sena at 12:30 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Are you referring to metafilter dot com? Because I count one person who made the 'perfect is the enemy of the good' argument and a few others who are not wholly against Zuckerberg's shit sandwich. That's … not a lot of people.
Rereading, that was indeed a premature quip-jaculation. I could at most make a case for three people. I just sort of fired fairly quickly on mobile, since most of the "jeeze, it's not THAT bad" type comments are very front-loaded on the thread. There's quite a bit of good stuff in here demolishing this.
posted by emptythought at 12:49 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Rereading, that was indeed a premature quip-jaculation. I could at most make a case for three people. I just sort of fired fairly quickly on mobile, since most of the "jeeze, it's not THAT bad" type comments are very front-loaded on the thread. There's quite a bit of good stuff in here demolishing this.
posted by emptythought at 12:49 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
While you were waiting, you were taken to some boys who were playing with their cheap mobile phones and they showed you how they access content and how they use their Facebook page on their humble Chinese smartphones by accessing it through the crawling 2G network and what they could have shown in a jiffy if they had a choice of 3G network.
When they were showing you how they use the Internet and Facebook, they were never prompted on their screen saying, “You cannot access this content unless you subscribe xyz telecom network.”
Even these people newly connected to the Internet know they can access any website or service and there is no disparity on the basis of their caste, creed, monthly income or geographical location or their loyalty to a particular Internet service provider or a telecom operator.
Open Letter to Zuck
posted by infini at 5:22 AM on April 20, 2015
When they were showing you how they use the Internet and Facebook, they were never prompted on their screen saying, “You cannot access this content unless you subscribe xyz telecom network.”
Even these people newly connected to the Internet know they can access any website or service and there is no disparity on the basis of their caste, creed, monthly income or geographical location or their loyalty to a particular Internet service provider or a telecom operator.
Open Letter to Zuck
posted by infini at 5:22 AM on April 20, 2015
I've been seeing ads for Internet.org around Australia, and I've never really known what it is. If I used it I guess having services that don't incur our horrible bandwidth caps is a good thing, and most ISPs already have a few sites or services - Netflix, Xbox, etc - that you can use unmetered.
I do see one ad that's like 'The more human encyclopedias of music we connect the better' and I always think 'no, those people are really irritating'.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 9:10 PM on April 20, 2015
I do see one ad that's like 'The more human encyclopedias of music we connect the better' and I always think 'no, those people are really irritating'.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 9:10 PM on April 20, 2015
why would india fall for it? don't they have 99% of the world's IT graduates? Aren't all the IT graduates in america from india? (general impression i got) NB Epic Browser is indian and it's good. I like it cos it stays fast because i can't junk it up with history, i use it when i need to do one thing quickly
posted by maiamaia at 9:17 AM on April 21, 2015
posted by maiamaia at 9:17 AM on April 21, 2015
Um, rich guy underestimates poor people seems to me to be the epitome of economic racism.
I mean, India's just teeming with hungry big bellied kids innit?
posted by infini at 9:39 AM on April 21, 2015
I mean, India's just teeming with hungry big bellied kids innit?
posted by infini at 9:39 AM on April 21, 2015
My big question: how much more does it cost to ship all of the other bits? I mean really? TCP/IP connectivity at all is the hurdle. Everything else is marginal. Don't be a dick: give people the real internet.
Otherwise it's like building a throughway to a remote area but only allowing trucks carrying cheeze whiz and sprinklers to travel on it. Sure, sprinklers don't suck, and cheeze whiz is in fact edible, but what the fuck, antibiotics anyone?
posted by Freen at 2:53 PM on April 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
Otherwise it's like building a throughway to a remote area but only allowing trucks carrying cheeze whiz and sprinklers to travel on it. Sure, sprinklers don't suck, and cheeze whiz is in fact edible, but what the fuck, antibiotics anyone?
posted by Freen at 2:53 PM on April 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
The form of Net neutrality the Indian Twitterati is espousing is an impractical answer to a largely imagined problem. The right approach to keeping the Internet free is to adopt a liberal spectrum regime, along with vigorous enforcement of India’s antitrust laws, without the perceived need for prophylactic network neutrality rules.
Whole article is informative.
posted by infini at 2:09 PM on April 22, 2015
Whole article is informative.
posted by infini at 2:09 PM on April 22, 2015
Infini, the article you link describes efforts to maintain net neutrality as it is generally understood as "retrospective regulatory terrorism." Yes, terrorism. After the author has accused proponents of net neutrality of being overly evangelical and polemical. Oh and it calls them zealots. Not really doing a whole lot for their argument, such resorting to name calling.
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 7:56 AM on April 23, 2015
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 7:56 AM on April 23, 2015
The authors are described as
Payal Malik is advisor and head of the economics division, Competition Commission of India. Avirup Bose is an honorary visiting faculty of competition law at the Jindal Global Law School and a former expert consultant to the commission. The views are personal.
And all I said was that the article was informative. My RT does not imply endorsement. Or do we only share information that supports our own views and perspectives? I came across the article by the way of a research policy think tank whose work is towards what's best for the bottom of the pyramid.
Interesting, how they all see this, isn't it?
posted by infini at 2:06 PM on April 23, 2015
Payal Malik is advisor and head of the economics division, Competition Commission of India. Avirup Bose is an honorary visiting faculty of competition law at the Jindal Global Law School and a former expert consultant to the commission. The views are personal.
And all I said was that the article was informative. My RT does not imply endorsement. Or do we only share information that supports our own views and perspectives? I came across the article by the way of a research policy think tank whose work is towards what's best for the bottom of the pyramid.
Interesting, how they all see this, isn't it?
posted by infini at 2:06 PM on April 23, 2015
Wasn't suggesting anything untoward Infini, was just a bit surprised by that article as it seems that anyone who disagrees with them is dismissed as a zealot, etc. It's the kind of rhetorical approach I'd expect to see in a newspaper comments section, not so much from two senior experts.
But yes it is interesting, and there is definitely an issue regarding who pays for increasing bandwidth capacity, particularly in developing economies like India which rely much more heavily on wireless/cellular data networks. However, in my experience relying on anti-trust regulations isn't an optimal approach. It's reactive, time consuming, expensive, and can easily be unevenly applied due to political interference. In the meantime ISPs can leverage their position to extract payments for access to their customers, which obviously advantages larger companies at the expense of smaller and potentially more innovative companies. Simply having a robustly level playing field, ie. net neutrality, makes a lot more sense, both in terms of equity for end consumers and for encouraging open competition between service/content providers.
And putting my cynical media academic hat on, the authors also have a potential vested interest in arguing for the system they prefer, as it would be the organisation they work/have worked for that would be calling the shots about what are acceptable practices.
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 3:43 PM on April 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
But yes it is interesting, and there is definitely an issue regarding who pays for increasing bandwidth capacity, particularly in developing economies like India which rely much more heavily on wireless/cellular data networks. However, in my experience relying on anti-trust regulations isn't an optimal approach. It's reactive, time consuming, expensive, and can easily be unevenly applied due to political interference. In the meantime ISPs can leverage their position to extract payments for access to their customers, which obviously advantages larger companies at the expense of smaller and potentially more innovative companies. Simply having a robustly level playing field, ie. net neutrality, makes a lot more sense, both in terms of equity for end consumers and for encouraging open competition between service/content providers.
And putting my cynical media academic hat on, the authors also have a potential vested interest in arguing for the system they prefer, as it would be the organisation they work/have worked for that would be calling the shots about what are acceptable practices.
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 3:43 PM on April 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
Thank you for the insightful read of the same article, Hello I'm David McGahan - I'd only seen it as one more voice/opinion but not from the frame of reference you articulate.
What do you think is best for countries with high levels of low income populations yet everyone has a phone?
posted by infini at 12:49 AM on April 24, 2015
What do you think is best for countries with high levels of low income populations yet everyone has a phone?
posted by infini at 12:49 AM on April 24, 2015
Frankly, an open internet protected by the principle of net neutrality. Probably government investment if their not idiots. Then trust that locals will provide a service that Facebook and/or Google can't match.
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 11:15 PM on April 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 11:15 PM on April 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
What'll be really interesting is how internet.org deals with Nigeria* - they've announced their entry but reports on social media use show that while FB user numbers have been growing, the number of active users is down. Nigerians prefer communicating with each other to "networking" per se and so the top social platforms are mobile messaging apps *and* an interesting Lithuanian social network called Eskimi.
Will zero rating make a difference? I'm watching with interest.
India, I think, will work it out.
posted by infini at 1:15 AM on April 25, 2015
Will zero rating make a difference? I'm watching with interest.
India, I think, will work it out.
posted by infini at 1:15 AM on April 25, 2015
I've thought about it and I wish Facebook would roll this out in Australia. Having Facebook not count toward my mobile data usage would be awesome.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 5:19 AM on April 28, 2015
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 5:19 AM on April 28, 2015
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posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:02 PM on April 19, 2015 [8 favorites]