Slashdot Mirror
India Telecom Regulator Pooh-Poohs Facebook's Orchestrated Lobbying Campaign
theodp writes: After India's telecom regulator asked a local company to temporarily stop Facebook's Free Basics service amid questions about whether it violates net neutrality, Facebook launched a controversial lobbying campaign, encouraging FB users to write to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), which oversees the country's Internet policy, urging the service be preserved. As of Jan. 7, the deadline for accepting comments, the regulator said it had received nearly two million comments from accounts affiliated with the site, including the domain names "@supportfreebasics.in" and "@facebookmail."
But many of these comments, the regulator said in a statement, are "basically template responses and the content are identical in nature." TRAI's we-ain't-buying-it response to the orchestrated flood of millions of comments (from both sides) differs markedly from the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, which recently told the Court (PDF) it couldn't possibly comply with a Judge's six-month deadline to address issues with the OPT STEM Extension Program because it was overwhelmed by "the approximately 50,500 comments" (about what the average Slashdot reader reviews in a day!) from individuals urged on by the White House and other organizations. By the way, among the comments received by DHS was one from NAFSA — the lobbying powerhouse that represents 3,500 colleges and universities — calling for DHS to have OPT extensions expanded to include all fields of study (PDF).
But many of these comments, the regulator said in a statement, are "basically template responses and the content are identical in nature." TRAI's we-ain't-buying-it response to the orchestrated flood of millions of comments (from both sides) differs markedly from the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, which recently told the Court (PDF) it couldn't possibly comply with a Judge's six-month deadline to address issues with the OPT STEM Extension Program because it was overwhelmed by "the approximately 50,500 comments" (about what the average Slashdot reader reviews in a day!) from individuals urged on by the White House and other organizations. By the way, among the comments received by DHS was one from NAFSA — the lobbying powerhouse that represents 3,500 colleges and universities — calling for DHS to have OPT extensions expanded to include all fields of study (PDF).
Has theodp finally gone off the deep end? I know he hates Indians and H1B's, but there is no point in this diatribe.
If I remember correctly this was a full page desktop ad that came up and weepingly asked for me to click the send button so the poor babbies in india could get free "internet access".
I ctrl-a/x'ed the form, put in my own verbage about Fuckerberg and his bitch mother and sent that instead.
From the summary: "the approximately 50,500 comments" (about what the average Slashdot reader reviews in a day!)
No, the average Slashdot reader does not read that many comments per day. At the rate of one comment per second, that's almost 14 hours straight.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
While Facebook's motives are certainly not selfless and altruistic, they are talking about giving free connectivity to people who'd otherwise have nothing.
That's their argument, but it's based on false premises.
Zero-rated content is problematic because it supplants other means of getting universal access to the internet. We agree that the argument for zero-rating is: 'It's better than nothing.' But that's begging the question. Why does 'nothing' have to be the alternative?
Telco revenues in the developing world have nearly doubled in the last 10 years. Virtually all revenue growth in the telco sector is in the developing world. And yet... not only are we not keeping up with the rate of increase in bandwidth, subscription base and accessibility in the developed world, we're actually falling behind.
Service levels are improving by leaps and bounds in the developed world, in a sector with *stable* income. And yet they're not improving nearly as much in a part of the world that's seen 50% revenue growth in 10 years.
How is it that the only way we can get actual services—you know, the thing telcos are given partial monopolies to deliver—is when customers are commoditised and effectively sold on an exclusive basis to an information service operator?
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
Maybe the Free Interweb idea had its merits, but FB and their advertisement / PR goons went about publicizing the worst way possible...the ads showed poor people beaming with joy as if internet access is going to eradicate hunger, poverty and other social ills. This was the 21st century version of "fairness cream" advertisement.
What FB should have was test the service in selected areas, or may be one or two circles before planning a pan-Indian roll out.
Also, I doubt if the feature phones used by a majority of poor / lower income strata citizens (including some of the tech agnostic well off crowd) will have any meaningful browsing experience.
Tat Tvam Asi
Easy - because the alternative IS nothing.
No, it's fucking not. I live in a Least Developed Country and spent a decade assisting it in making region-leading progress in technology. Last year, the UN gave our country an award for its advances. Our Universal Access Policy dictates that 98% of the population will have access to 21/12Mbps bandwidth by the beginning of 2018.
These things are possible when a country actually bucks the lobbyists and industry reps and sets some real goals.
So unless you have some actual real-world insight into this, perhaps you could quit reiterating the same tired point that's just been debunked. 'Is so!' isn't much of an argument, you know.
This is not about free internet for anyone. This is about affordable access to the internet—all of it. Even poor people have money, and they value the internet and the ability to communicate widely. They will pay for the service if it's only offered fairly and affordably.
You say, 'companies don't want to do X' as if that were sufficient reason not to do X. But a country allows a telco a partial monopoly in exchange for a contribution to the public welfare. That includes providing affordable fucking internet to the people of the country.
It astonishes me how people buy the telco line without even questioning it for one second. If you had read the article I linked to, you'd know that telco revenues doubled in the last ten years in the developing world, but services have not grown nearly fast enough to keep up with the developed world. Contrast that with the developed world, where revenues are pretty much flat, but bandwidth use and residential broadband penetration are flying off the top of the X axis on the chart.
Do not try to tell me that telcos can't turn a profit making affordable internet available to most of the developed world. I know that's false, because I'm watching it happen here.
HTH HAND
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.