India's Reliance Jio Partners With Facebook To Launch Literacy Program For First Time Internet Users (techcrunch.com) 19
An anonymous reader writes: Mukesh Ambani, India's richest man, has enabled tens of millions of people -- if not more -- to come online for the first time with his disruptive telecom network. He has changed how many Indians, once thrifty about each megabyte they spent browsing the internet, consume mobile data today. But many of these first time internet users are increasingly struggling with grasping the nuances of the internet -- often ending up trusting everything they see online and, in extreme cases, causing major chaos in the nation. Ambani now wants to help these people understand the ins and outs of the digital world.
His telecom network Reliance Jio announced today a literacy program called 'Digital Udaan' for first time internet users in India. The two-and-a-half-year-old telecom network, which has amassed more than 300 million subscribers, said it has partnered with Facebook to create "the largest ever digital literacy program" that will offer audio-visual training in 10 regional languages. As part of the Digital Udaan program, Reliance Jio will hold training sessions to help its users learn about internet safety, and how they should engage with popular services and its devices. The operator said it will hold these sessions each Saturday and also provide training videos and information brochures to users.
Re:Why are they doing this? (Score:4, Insightful)
The interesting thing about a world with about 7 billion people, is that a lot of things can happen at once.
The Argument of why is this person working on this problem, when there is an other one really is an invalid argument.
Ambani business is in the Internet. Not Plumbing. He knows how to invest his money in internet things, he knows the right questions to ask, has partnerships with people who can support him. Everyone one his dollars would be more efficient at solving this issue. Vs just putting a pool of money for a business he doesn't work with, possibly getting ripped off without his knowledge. Thus making such an investment less efficient.
I also expect his interests may not be purely altruistic. An Internet Literate person is more apt to self filter and judge the flood of crap, and would be cheaper then trying for a technology or business fix on his end to block bad data.
Re: (Score:1)
But it's just a series of tubes! If Ambani knows the Internet, then he must know about plumbing, too.
Re: Why are they doing this? (Score:1)
As an Indian I see it as another attempt at bypassing net neutrality that Reliance and Facebook tried some years ago by dressing it by an altruistic agenda.
Re: (Score:1)
Some Indians won't use indoor plumbing even when it is available. Open defecation [youtube.com] is considered to be natural and healthy to many there.
On top of this, even if someone were to install a septic system under their home, no one in India could be persuded to pump it out every few years. In Hinduism it basically ruins your soul if you touch human waste. That it's better to spread fucking cholera to all your neighbors by shitting in the fields.
Wealthy Indian families have huge expensive vaults built to hold multi
Re: India? (Score:1)
Slashdot has really become a haven for fake news peddlers. It is like all the intelligent people left and only the intentional fake news peddlers from far left and far right are remaining.
Please give him an H1B! (Score:3)
But many of these first time internet users are increasingly struggling with grasping the nuances of the internet -- often ending up trusting everything they see online and, in extreme cases, causing major chaos in the nation.
We badly need his service in the US, because we have the same problems here.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree the US needs better Internet literacy, however the US has a culture of Distrust, business to business usually needs a legal contract, when making big purchases we normally do some research, The Used Car Sales Man is considered a crook who barely follows the law.
The problem with the US and the internet, is that we love to cluster with our own kind, and basically feed our biases, with others with the same bias.
The PizzaGate guy who thought Hillery Clinton was trafficking children in a Pizza Paler was
Lesson Plan (Score:1)
Lesson 1: Post all your intimate, private thoughts on FB
Lesson 2: Post all your pictures to FB
Lesson 3: Give FB access to your contacts, persuade them to do steps 1-3
Lesson 4: Give FB access to all your files
Lesson 5: Purchasing an FB Portal
We need this ... (Score:3)
... in the US.
Goddam illiterate society thinks Facebook is an authoritative source for news, science, and political savvy.
It's a fucking cat video platform.
#deletefacebook
So FB is the new AOL for them (Score:3)
We're fucked!