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Facebook Is Talking To the White House About Giving You 'Free' Internet (washingtonpost.com)
Facebook is in talks with the government and wireless carriers to bring its 'Free Basics' internet service to the United States, reports Washington Post, citing sources. If everything goes as planned for Facebook, it would target "low-income and rural Americans who cannot afford reliable, high-speed internet at home or on smartphones," (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternate source) the paper adds. From the report: Exactly what specific services would be offered in the U.S. app has not been determined. But the idea to bring Free Basics to the United States is likely to rekindle a long-running debate about the future of the Internet. On one side are those who view services such as Facebook's as a critical tool in connecting underserved populations to the Internet, in some cases for the first time. On the other side are those who argue that exempting services from data caps creates a multitiered playing field that favors businesses with the expertise and budgets to participate in such programs. The fight over this tactic, known as "zero-rating," has largely taken place overseas where local start-ups are mixing with globally established firms in still-nascent Internet economies. But a launch of Free Basics would bring the discussion to U.S. shores in a major way.India banned Free Basics program in the country earlier this year, stating that Facebook's initiative violates net neutrality. The government told Facebook to open Free Basics so that underserved Indians could access any website that would like -- as opposed to select websites handpicked by Facebook. The government added that if it is not feasible for Facebook to offer unlimited access to every website, it could look into introducing limited monthly data plans (like 500MB or 1GB for users). India was not open to the idea of Facebook offering users access to select websites.
Memo to Zuckerberg: If you want to give poor people 'free internet', then give them free internet, not the 2016 version of AOL. I agree with India on this: This idea violates the concept of net neutrality. You either give people complete access, or give them no access, you should not get to decide what they do and do not have access to.
If free basics was 64kbps to access anything on the web (basically what tmobile, etc.. do when you run out of data) then I might be ok with it.
If free basics was html only and no video/multimedia then this again might be ok.
I'm completely against zero rating but if you did it this way then you are basically giving a low bandwidth "text only" version of the web away for free.
It makes no sense the other way where facebook is exempt but linkedin isn't because it didn't pay the right person.
Now if facebook wants to pay my my cellular provider for my bandwidth usage (and pay the same consumer rate I do) then I would be ok with that too.
It would have to be closely watched though so that you don't end up with a tiered web where the only sites most people visit are the ones that are "free".
Let me translate that: "Free" meaning "Give Facebook all your personal information and let us monitor everything you do."
We all know Facebook sells influence, and being able to tap into a new market allows them the opportunity to sell more influence. I have yet to find a truly charitable cooperation so it a guarded approach makes sense. Kudos to India for seeing through this, allowing an entity influence over your poor is a fools move.
This isn't a question about whether poor people should have free internet access. (there will be a lot of people for and against that for various reasons).
This is against Facebook abusing and manipulating their power to promote specific websites and potentially strangling their rivals using government money to do so.
Everyone should be able to agree that Facebook shouldn't be able to take government funds to strengthen their own product and weaken their rivals in a pseudo-claim that they're doing it for the poor. That's called corruption.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Actually some access may be worse than nothing, if they limit, control, or deny access to sites that the de facto censors don't like.
It is the first step to create a monopoly. Why eat in other restaurants or even cook your own food when you get food for free in McDonald's?
Why pay for internet when you get FaceBook and certified websites for free? Not only are the people restricted on the internet since they can only visit what Facebook wants them to visit, but website builders are also forced to get their website certified. But how do you make your website available on FaceBook's free internet? I'm certain it will not be free as in free speech, probably only free as in free beer.
Theoretically it was possible for every individual to start his own radio or television station in the past. But the bandwidth of antenna's was limited so the governments had to hand out certifications. This was not ideal, but was necessary due to technical limitations.
The internet is rather unlimited, everyone can build their own websites, put many radio and television streams online, and there is no restriction as long as you can be found on search engines. This requires a neutral search engine in the first place, and it is already worrisome that private companies with their own agenda control what can and can't be found. But having a company like FaceBook handing out free internet will be a nightmare. Only a handful of selected pages will be available to the users of the 'free' internet. Free in this case doesn't mean free at all, and the users will not even know they are stuck in a gated online world once they get used to it. Compare it to the big blue E equals internet only 15 years ago. People didn't even know there were other browsers. But even the Internet Explorer only websites are far from the evils of FaceBook certified internet gates. It's almost like the dark ages were people didn't move out of their villages and didn't even know there were things like books or cities or irrigation or....
It is a very bad idea. There should not even be a talk in the white house. Just imagine this would become a success.
It only requires like 10-20% of the Internet users to use free FaceBook internet to control future elections. It is like a Chinese firewall, but the other way around. Websites aren't simply blocked but only made available within the walled garden (of Eden with the forbidden tree of knowledge that our Lord Zuckerberg protects, say something wrong and Lord Zuckerberg will throw you out of the garden of Eden together with an 'original sin'). There would be even no ability to use VPN or build your own website behind the firewall.
Just imagine that about 40% uses FaceBook's free internet and Zuckerberg decides to make useful and popular websites only available through free internet and hides it for non free internet.