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Facebook The Internet Technology

Facebook's Colonies 53

sarahnaomi writes: Facebook this week released a major report on global internet access, as part of the company's Internet.org campaign, which aims to bring cheap internet to new markets in partnership with seven mobile companies. Facebook says 1.39 billion people used its product in December 2014, and it's natural for the company to try to corral the other four-fifths of the planet. But aside from ideals and growth markets, the report highlights a tension inherent to the question of access: When Facebook sets sail to disconnected markets, what version of the internet will it bring? In its report, Facebook advocates for closing the digital divide as quickly as we can, which is a good thing. But when Facebook argues that, "as use of the internet continues to expand, it will exert a powerful effect on the global economy, particularly in the developing world," it's arguing that any increase in access is inherently good, which isn't necessarily the case.
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Facebook's Colonies

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  • arguing that any increase in access is inherently good, which isn't necessarily the case

    Of course, not. If the access was provided by a greedy KKKorporation, rather than the benevolent government, it is already suspect.

    And if the provided link somehow prioritizes the said KKKorporation (or anybody else), that's outright evil — better to not have any access at all.

    (Gebyy zl nff...)

    • buried in your hyperbole is a real point though: some people blindly hate government and irrationally trust corporations. other people blindly hate corporations and and irrationally trust government

      why can't someone be both?

      me: i don't trust government. i also don't trust corporations

      is such a person possible in your world?

      if i express my distrust of corporations, in your mind that means i automatically love government? why?

      it's kind of like those arguments about iran and nukes: if you don't want iran to ha

    • If the access was provided by a greedy KKKorporation, rather than the benevolent government, it is already suspect.

      It may be suspect, but almost any access is better than no access. If the access to the Internet includes access to Facebook (which is usually among the first things blocked by oppressive regimes), and other sites that allow peer-to-peer communication, then that is even better. So I have a hard time seeing why any increase in access is not "inherently good".

    • Why? Who cares how greedy the corporation is, so long as they provide a route to unrestricted communication?

      As long as they don't censor users, said users will interact and if necessary, place regulations upon the company. It's an unavoidable consequence of providing a medium from which a social system can emerge.

  • Facebook might have intercepted traffic from a goodly number of people via the stupid content that they inject at so many places, but 1.39B people didn't "use" Facebook...that many might have been used by Facebook, but that's a different thing. I also highly doubt a quarter of the population of the planet was on Facebook last month. How can they imagine to justify such metrics? Is making such ridiculous claims the only reason Facebook is able to stay in business? Since when do bots, people using multipl
    • I really don't get how they can report numbers like this and not be called out on it all the time. Just from a quick Google, it looks like there's around 3 billion internet users. I would probably believe that. What they are saying is that almost half of all internet users used their site last month. Considering that Facebook is blocked in China, and China makes up 0.6 billion internet users, it makes the likelihood of them having that many users to be completely ludicrous. I know that there are ways to g
  • by Anonymous Coward

    I will NEVER EVER, EVER, nomatter how necessary or ubiquitous or convenient, use Facebook for ANY PURPOSE, as a result of their shenanigans.

  • Then the third world can quickly become as woefully unproductive as the first world.
  • Facebook can connect the world, I have no problem with that. But if they screw with anything they are not allowed to call it "internet".

    May I suggest the All Obnoxious Liars system?

    Same should apply to Net Neutrality - do anything except route packets and you lose common carrier status and the right to "internet". I offer this one-sentence regulation to the FCC for free.

  • As long as Fecebook blocks my access to their content, I doubt they really want to let more of the world on the internet. They want more in their proprietary corner of the internet. Others (non info-sharing, non-members ...) are not welcome.

  • Benefits outweigh immediate downsides. And it will accelerate the resolution of conflicts that give rise to said downsides by throwing the root tensions into sharp relief, allowing for a faster collapse of the dialectic.

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