India just about accuses Facebook of faking Free Basics fandom India's argument with Facebook rages on, with the nation's Telecoms Regulatory Authority (TRAI) sending The Social NetworkTM a stinging letter in which it accuses the company of astro-turfing* a campaign in support of its Free Basics service. A quick recap: Free Basics is Facebook's curated collection of web sites it deems …
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Since the internet selects for natural monopolies, we need progressive net neutrality. Nerf the shit out of Facebook and other American sites, to give local solutions room to grow.
All sites are neutral. But some sites are more neutral than others.
As for those "sites deemed to be useful to those in the developing world by a condescending Westerner", they'll promote American big business solutions which won't help, and will actually make things worse.
There's a saying that Africa solves Africa's problems, and India will be no different. (Home-grown solutions will solve the problem in a way unforeseen by someone who isn't born and bred in that environment)
Debatable. There's plenty of evidence that the education of women is at least as much a cause as a consequence of raising a country out of poverty and the internet is pretty effective at spreading new ideas to populations that are ready to receive them. (Ask any totalitarian dictator.)
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Education of women is well established as being a huge factor in lifting people out of poverty, but it has nothing to do with Facebook nor the Internet.
If you want to help impoverished women gain an education and a means to earn an income, donate to Rubia.
http://www.rubiahandwork.org/
The regulator therefore labels Facebook's actions “a crudely majoritarian and orchestrated opinion poll” rather than a genuine consultation following India's standard procedures for such matters.
What gets me is that Zuckerberg probably isn't even embarrassed. You're not in Kansas anymore.
You're right, when caught with your pants around your ankles trying to double down and bluff it out just makes you look shiftier.
He seems to have taken his modest social currency from "donating huge amounts of his wealth to charity" and squandered it in the most cynical of moves. Want to help people? Solve malaria, solve AIDS, donate to universities, get girls educated worldwide, don't try to expand your private empire under the banner of philanthropy. Kinda makes you look like a cunt.
A lesson Billy Boy Gates had to learn as well (his initial philanthropy was to give away copies of windows in first world schools). I would say Zuck is too big a douche bag to learn but in order to get an DUI in Albuquerque in the 1970s you would have had to be a douche nozzle of the first order which Gates was so maybe Zuck (who is still damn young) will learn with time or end up with a woman that does like Bill did.
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Here's an idea for facebook,
If they are so keen on getting people out of poverty by giving them interwebs open it up so they can access any sites as well as yours, feel free to advertise your site and let people choose.
Alternatively create a free newspaper as it's the same idea as free basics but they can wipe their arse with that as that's all it's good for.
Here's an idea for India.
They have this once chance to keep Facebook out forever.
Take China. The prevailing American narrative is that the Chinese feel oppressed by their government, and if only the government would end their censorship, a billion Chinese people would rush to the sweet sweet freedom of Facebook, Google et al.
I guarantee you that isn't the case. Within the protectionist/isolationist sinosphere, Chinese companies have created tools which solve all the universal problems, but in a distinctly Chinese way. Even if the barriers all came down tomorrow, it's now simply too late to compete with the established local brands which everyone uses (network effect).
All India has to do is hold back the American imperialists for a couple of years. India will have it's own Hindi/Bengali social networks keeping the wealth at home, and Facebook will be completely and utterly fucked.
"A quick recap: Free Basics is Facebook's curated collection of web sites it deems useful to those in the developing world. The company works with telcos to make those sites available with “zero rating” so that viewing them doesn't count against subscribers' download caps. "
I wonder if that zero rating will also apply to all the crap the sites undoubtedly load from third party domains - lots of scripts, and any advertising?
(Plus all the other criticisms above...)
This is a great example of outside "help" not really quite being what it at first seems (the game here being to get a sizeable chunk of the world's population sucking eagerly on Zuck's ad-engine).
History is littered with dodgy outside help. Take our wonderful record of 'help' in the middle east, or our lovely friends, the Saudis, and their dutiful funding of schools in the UK hoping to turn out the next generation of bigots.
Poor old Africa has it from pretty well everyone. The chinese are the latest to 'help'.
In summary: Won't people think of the childerun?
In summary: Won't people think of the childerun?
Oh but they are, just not in a way you'd think. They want an audience of wallets and the urge to buy. Some places also toss in "obedience to the government at all levels". Television advertisers have learned.. reach the children and the advertiser/marketer will own the adults. Now apply this to FB, Google, etc.
He doesn't get this makes him look like an utter twunt... "but, but, I'm trying to HELP the poor Indians..."
And I don't know which is worse, the patronising or the imperialism. Actually, it's the combination.
Be careful with that brand Zucker, hard to build easy to tear down.
>More like AOL. It's like the 1990's never ended...
Can you imagine if CD's were still in vogue? Every house hold on the planet would probably have at least a dozen Facebook CD's by now.
Sometimes you need to look to the past to check on how the likes of AOL failed with this walled garden attitude, it failed then and it'll fail now.
Facebook has been allowed to get away with a lot of private data by a lot of people (and most know what they are getting themselves into), but if they start feeding shit to the mushrooms they're going to have a riot on their hands. People aren't as stupid as Facebook thinks.
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