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Facebook, Still on a Mission To Bring People Online, Announces Connectivity (cnet.com)
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.
They could do with some right now.
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 are being denied the opportunity for a goddamned fucking Big Mac.
I swear, Facebook's leadership are collectively some of the biggest sacks of shit you can imagine.
Who the hell approved this story in the current form?
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
msmash
Bring them online as readers.
As for writers, well, Facebook will decide who they are, thank you very much.
Serious question: Where did all the clever people from Slashdot go? I used to enjoy the well thought out opinions in the comments section. It seems like every other article now is full of comments like the above.
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. They are attempting to gain control over any form of print or speech which supports Donald Trump which is why they went after Alex Jones and are going after other conservatives such as Diamond and Silk, SGT Report, ET Williams, and many others.
Again, Trump doesn't control the mainstream media or AT&T or Google, or Facebook, or Apple. so he isn't the nazi.
Remember, first they burn the books, then they burn the people.
"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.
When they bring back Alex Jones I'll believe they are serious about growing the online community.
FB can freeze in Hades, they're still dead to me
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
No, it's time for Facebook (which I ridicule and call 'Zuckerbook', btw) to just wind down and die already. People are seeing what a cancer it is, so put a bullet in Facebook and end it already.
They want to indoctrinate people with their political ideas too.
There, fixed that for you.
"What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Ralph Waldo Emerson
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 for billions.
If this thinking reaches a certain point of critical mass, it might be self-fulfilling. Facebook will really be the internet, and those locked out (like me) will find fewer online resources.
...omphaloskepsis often...