Slashdot Mirror
Facebook's Colonies
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.
Despite already well-known in his times mega-corporations (like Standard Oil), Orwell was not particularly concerned with them. Probably, because a corporation, however big, can not compel you to do anything at the point of a weapon.
No, he was worried about the power of government — an evil necessary only to protect citizens from crime and injustice... Today's Illiberals would've hated the man (as a "tea-bagging fucktard" or some such), if it weren't for those "Liberals" of the past adoring him...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I don't understand why people always bring up 1984 when we're living in a Brave New World.
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 get around the great firewall of China, but I still don't see how they get that number. I think it has something to do with a lot of duplicate accounts. I know a lot of people who have multiple facebook accounts. Some do it because they have different groups of "friends" they don't want to co-exist, and some people do it for games, so they can gift things to themselves. There's plenty of people with a lot of accounts. I'm sure there's gold farmers in Farmville if you look for it.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
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 have nukes, you must love israel and the usa. no. how about i just don't trust a theorcracy with nukes, AND i dislike american and israeli policy? why i can't i do both?
why is there this irrational tribalism at work in the world where expressing an opinion against something automatically means i am for something else, as only determined by blind prejudice?
it's possible to think about the problems in the world without categorizing people according to the one dimensional antagonistic stereotypes in your head
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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".