Facebook, Still on a Mission To Bring People Online, Announces Connectivity (cnet.com) 53
The social network's initiatives to connect people to the internet, including Internet.org and new data analytics tools, are now part of Facebook Connectivity. From a report: A half decade after launching Internet.org, seen by many as the coming-out party for Facebook's connectivity programs, the company said it's shaking up its efforts to bring internet access to the 4 billion people who still don't have it. On Friday, Facebook rounded up all its disparate broadband and infrastructure projects and housed them under a new umbrella organization called Facebook Connectivity. "There's no silver bullet for connecting the world," Yael Maguire, vice president of engineering for Facebook Connectivity, said in an interview Thursday. "There isn't going to be a magic technology or business plan or single regulatory policy change that's going to change this. We really believe that it is a wide and diverse set of efforts that's required to do this."
The Connectivity group houses projects including Terragraph, which aims to connect high-density urban areas; OpenCellular, an open-source platform working on rural connectivity; and the Telecom Infra Project, a joint initiative with the wireless industry for creating faster networks. Facebook said the umbrella will also include Internet.org, which drew controversy with its Free Basics product that offered a pared-down version of the internet in emerging markets. While Internet.org has been synonymous with Facebook's connectivity efforts for the past five years, the new Connectivity brand may signal the company trying to distance itself from the backlashes surrounding Internet.org.
The Connectivity group houses projects including Terragraph, which aims to connect high-density urban areas; OpenCellular, an open-source platform working on rural connectivity; and the Telecom Infra Project, a joint initiative with the wireless industry for creating faster networks. Facebook said the umbrella will also include Internet.org, which drew controversy with its Free Basics product that offered a pared-down version of the internet in emerging markets. While Internet.org has been synonymous with Facebook's connectivity efforts for the past five years, the new Connectivity brand may signal the company trying to distance itself from the backlashes surrounding Internet.org.
How about some internet to Ethiopia (Score:1)
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Hmmmm .... (Score:1)
Maybe the 4 billion people without internet connections have far more fucking pressing things to worry about than getting access to the internet and Facebook so they can be tracked by Zuckerfuck and his merry band of assholes?
You know, food, shelter, not being shot at.
Sorry, but I view this rather cynically. Facebook has no motives beyond profit here, they don't give a fuck if those people have access to the internet for any other reason.
This is like McDonald's lamenting poor people in war torn countries
The story title sounds like an advert (Score:2)
Who the hell approved this story in the current form?
THE PEOPLE'S CHAMPION (Score:1)
msmash
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Who the hell approved this story in the current form?
Facebook paid for it . . . fair & square . . .
as readers (Score:2)
Bring them online as readers.
As for writers, well, Facebook will decide who they are, thank you very much.
What happened to Slashdot? (Score:2, Interesting)
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A better question is where did innovation go? Now that everyone is on the internet, they just copy what is there and paste it into what they are doing, hard to innovate by doing that.
Internet killed innovation.
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They went somewhere else I imagine. Or, they left the Internet in total. The way things are going these days (take your pick) it seems like a viable option.
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Most have left the Internet.
Those people aren't on the Internet? Good thing there's an initiative to get people onto the Internet [slashdot.org]
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If you don't mind the SV slant then hacker news is decent enough (and its counterpart http://n-gate.com/ [n-gate.com]).
I've been wondering the same thing (Score:1)
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They moved on with their lifes since they got old. :(
CONTROL (Score:1)
Yet another example of a monopoly trying to get even more control over people.
The nazi's were able to do the evil things they did for one reason; because they were in control of communications. They were in control of Radio, telephone, newspaper, magazines, and all public speech, as well as education.
Today, clearly Trump is not in control of the mainstream media, it's mostly under the control of liberal globalist and their puppet corporations such as Facebook, Google, Apple, Spotify, and many others. The
but enough silver bullets to throw customers (Score:1)
"There's no silver bullet for connecting the world," Yael Maguire, vice president of engineering for Facebook Connectivity, said in an interview Thursday...
But facebook has enough silver bullets to throw customers under the bus.
Alex Jones (Score:1)
When they bring back Alex Jones I'll believe they are serious about growing the online community.
Monetizing people is not connectivity (Score:2)
FB can freeze in Hades, they're still dead to me
Like they did with Alex Jones? (Score:1)
They want to indoctrinate people with their political ideas too.
correction (Score:2)
There, fixed that for you.
Connecting . . . not just some of us (Score:2)
I took a very brief look at internet.org and found this:
"Connecting the world
Means the whole world, not just some of us"
Facebook wants all those Asians & Africans and others deprived of the Facebook social network to join in. That's disturbing me as I recall the days of AOL and CompuServe. Millions of people went to those services and believed that they were the internet. It never occurred to them that there was more than just AOL. And today the same thinking is applied to Facebook. It *is* the internet