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Just Say No to Facebook's Internet.org, Says Inventor of World Wide Web
- mtgx 11y agoWhat bothered me most about some recent headlines was that they kept saying how Zuckerberg is trying to bring the "Internet" to Africa and whatnot, when in fact they were referring to "Internet.org", i.e. only about 50 websites of the whole World Wide Web - 50 websites that are completely "curated", per the local governments' wishes. Is that the kind of "Internet" we want the other 2-3 billion people to get? If Zuckerberg actually felt as philanthropic as he pretends to be, he should try to bring the real Internet to everyone, with no other hidden agendas (he is trying to portray Internet.org as a philanthropic thing not as a Facebook global domination strategy, after all).
- benwerd 11y agoI agree with you, but also: right now Facebook is effectively the main web browser for millions and millions of people. Even without Internet.org, those 50 websites are all a lot of people see. How can we change this model in a realistic, attractive, non-techno-utopian way? (Also, in light of Internet.org, Instant Articles seem like a pretty democratic thing to do - bringing external content that would otherwise be blocked into this context.)
- firasd 11y agoFacebook might be monopolistic in some contexts because that’s what people want to use but the issue with internet.org is that communications networks are licensing public spectrum and then cutting deals for preferential access to certain websites. Regulators and the public have a direct interest in figuring out whether these sorts of schemes are acceptable.
- eggie 11y agoFacebook is what people want to sue because many (maybe most) had no idea that you could hang out with friends online in a big broadcasty way until it came around. Will that be true when they realize they can make their own website or blog with their own style to share with friends and family, download torrents, edit Wikipedia, chat or IRC, or use Twitter and HN? I don't really know, but I hope they would go for the bazar over the cathedral. I don't see why Facebook should get a first shot at hiding the reality of the system from them.
- Namrog84 11y agoI remember reading something a while ago that many people tboguth Facebook and the internet were 2 seperate things. Stemming from so you use the internet much? Most said not that much. But when asked if they used Facebook much. They said all the time. And apparently even when asked. Thougt of them as distinct entities
- vbezhenar 11y agoThat might be because some providers have free facebook-only plans and paid internet plans.
- mangeletti 11y ago> Facebook is effectively the main web browser... I'm pretty sure that's exactly the problem. Internet.org sounds like an effort to create a monopoly by collaborating with governments, at the expense of real Internet access by the citizens those governments are supposed to represent, to ensure they're in charge of the Internet when these markets become robust. It sounds terribly corrupt, to me. If Facebook's corrupt efforts can help to define what "Internet" means for most of a continent, imagine the consequences.
- semi-extrinsic 11y agomain /= only. And I'd like to see a source for the assertion that it's the main browser for millions. Facebook is kinda out these days, most of my friends (predominantly not working in technology) don't post anything there except birthday greetings, use it as an event planning/invite tool, and send the occasional message.
- thrownaway2424 11y agoIsn't Google's approach "realistic"? They're just pulling fiber in Africa, without walled gardens. They now have better networks in Uganda than we have in the Bay Area. https://www.google.com/get/projectlink/ https://www.google.com/get/projectlink/
- jzd 11y agoDespite a lot of fiber in Africa, connectivity is hampered by ISPs refusing to pay for bandwidth, ultimately resulting in super slow connection speeds and horrible latency.
- tzm 11y agoPerhaps it's an idealistic view where "content pays for infrastructure", which on the surface appears like a Comcast move and against the grain of net neutrality.
- amk_ 11y agoThe browsing experience offered by internet.org isn't just some walled-off version of the open internet, with network costs underwritten by Facebook. They also do a lot of work to make sites offering health information, commodity prices, local job searches etc not only viewable (layout wise) on mobile but able to work on extremely slow networks and on low-end devices. See this review: https://medium.com/mwater-technology-for-water-and-health/review-of-the-internet-org-app-in-tanzania-42cdd7daa3c2 https://medium.com/mwater-technology-for-water-and-health/re...
- sa1 11y ago> They also do a lot of work to make sites offering health information, commodity prices, local job searches etc not only viewable (layout wise) on mobile but able to work on extremely slow networks and on low-end devices. None of this is made easier or possible by any technological framework provided by Internet.org. You are free to optimise mobile websites for slow connections on the normal Internet. Governments should be moving towards full and complete Internet with a restricted data cap instead. The next best thing would be something ad-supported, rather than this.
- humble_dev 11y agoIt's still free, no one is forced to use this. Companies exists to make a profit, if Facebook offers something for free of course it's not driven by philanthropy. I believe internet.org is better than no internet at all. Hopefully people in developing countries will be offered alternative in the near future but to get normal internet they need to earn enough to pay for it - internet.org is free with means people using it are the product.
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- stplsd 11y agoWell, internet.org is non-profit organisation, so...
- sa1 11y ago> I believe internet.org is better than no internet at all. Its not a binary choice. What would your reaction be if ISPs made Netflix traffic outrageously exorbitant, and made its own competitor free?
- humble_dev 11y agoThen I would go for another ISP, that's the point I can choose because I live in Europe, but If I could choose between no internet and free internet from Facebook I would go for free from Facebook if noone else want to provide internet for people in Africa.
- evv 11y agoEdit: Disclosure: I work for Facebook, but not with Internet.org. I'm not aware of any master plan Zuckerberg has for it, other than spreading internet usage I'm surprised that Berners-Lee is taking this stance. If anyone, he should understand the critical importance of access to basic information and communication. Connectivity is a cornerstone for developing nations and allowing young minds to prosper. I feel this is a basic human right, but over half of the world's population is not online. They cannot afford it or they do not see the value it provides. It is grossly presumptuous to say that a small subset of the internet is worse than no internet access at all. The pure internet is obviously better than internet.org. Once people can see the vastness of the internet, nobody will want to be stuck behind a firewall. Tim Berners-Lee would rather impoverished people have no access to connectivity rather than access to Facebook's watered-down version. He wants them to reject and deny one of the most important things they now have access to. Would he also tell starving children to turn away food donations that are not organic? I guess he would tell them to "Just say no"
- skymt 11y agoIt would be good if you would mention that you work for Facebook when you enter this kind of discussion. That fact colors your argument.
- evv 11y agoEdited in that disclosure at the top. I am a stockholder, and I agree that colors the arguments. Honestly I didn't feel that it was very relevant because I don't work very closely with internet.org, and I don't think they have any secrets.
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- magicalist 11y agoYou're thinking of Vint Cerf, not Tim Berners-Lee...
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- exacube 11y agoWhy are people so insistent that Facebook's Internet.org is a bad thing? Is no internet really better than limited internet? These people have almost no internet right now. A lot of these countries can now use Google and Wikipedia. It's either total freedom for free, or no freedom at all?
- jzd 11y agoVery good point. I would like to see more debate about this particular issue.
- cubancigar11 11y agoWhat is there to debate? Question: Is being a slave really worse than being poor?
- crazy1van 11y ago> Question: Is being a slave really worse than being poor? Good question. I'd rather let people decide that for themselves than have wealthy people half way around the globe decide it for them by removing one option.
- firasd 11y agoThe geographic distance claim isn’t accurate; this program ran into its first organized opposition from net neutrality activists in India.
- peterhunt 11y agoDid you just equate Internet.org to slavery? I can't speak for dang, but I don't think that type of hyperbole is appreciated on HN.
- quadrangle 11y agoReductio ad absurdem ≠ hyperbole I am not the poster, but I abhor how people get offended over reductio ad absurdem. The argument says "you think X is ok? well, here's something horrendous that we all would agree is horrendous that is based on the same justification you used, therefore your justification is no good." A variation of this says, "Your same logic would support this horrendous example, so what is the distinction in your reasoning that would support your assertion but reject this extreme case?" This form of discourse DOES NOT say that the original claim is to be equated to the horrendous extreme, it only says that the two use the same logic for their support and therefore the logic is invalid. In these types of arguments, person one says badly-supported claim, person two shows the problem with the logic via a reductio ad absurdem example, and you are the only one here who is making hyperbolic claims, namely that a reductio ad absurdem reasonable point is equatable to actually asserting that the original view is the same as the absurd statement, which is a claim nobody was making. In this case, "Internet.org is okay because a limited, restricted network is better than no network" is the original claim, and it's implicit support reason is: "even if your freedoms and possibilities are limited, it's better than just lacking resources", and so "is it better to be a slave (and get fed and have shelter etc) than to be poor?" is a reasonable question to clarify the scope of the premise. It's not saying they are equitable. One of many possible logical responses could be: "limiting your freedoms for access online is okay because I think as long as you have basic physical freedom over your own body, other sorts of freedoms don't matter as much". An illogical and simply invalid response is: "You're equating restricted internet access with slavery!"
- JesperRavn 11y agoI hope this gives some pause for people who advocate the XKCD line on free speech[0]. While not every platform should be required to host every kind of content, when a platform becomes sufficiently dominant, its ability to censor content becomes a free speech issue. [0] https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/
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- 0xcde4c3db 11y agoWhile you bring up a valid issue (per e.g. [1]), it's not clear to me what you're trying to say about it. Even less clear to me is how any sort of coherent legal regime would be imposed on something like Internet.org, which presumably has access to sufficient resources to carve up its legal entities into the tastiest possible slices (such that e.g. the local entities only run the base stations while content approval decisions are ostensibly made by a mailbox in Panama or whatever). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v._Robins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v._R...
- JesperRavn 11y agoI wasn't saying that Facebook should be regulated like shopping malls. I was saying that people who say that private censorship is not problematic, do not have an answer for things like internet.org. Facebook are legally free to set up programs like this, but people are also right to criticize Facebook for setting up a system that takes away from the freedom of the open internet. The shallow analysis of the XKCD comic ignores these issues, yet I often see that comic posted when people complain about left wing censorship online.
- 0xcde4c3db 11y agoA daily comic isn't the medium that one usually chooses for subtlety or depth. A lot of people complaining about "left-wing censorship" (or "right-wing censorship", for that matter) are in serious need of a clue-by-four and wouldn't bother reading a deep analysis if it were given to them.
- ape4 11y agoFacebook is a parasite of the real internet. Videos from other sites are embedded in your Facebook feed. You watch them on Facebook, comment on Facebook.
- krapp 11y agoThat's not parasitism, embedding content is the way the "real internet" is supposed to work. And all of that embedded content on Facebook links back to the original site, anyway. People add meta tags and social graph tags to their sites for a reason. And anyway, that seems an odd criticism to make on a forum built around the same basic principle - people link content here, and discuss it here as well.
- pen2l 11y agoIt's parasitic because of its particular approach. For example, it could embed youtube videos... so that the real creators get their pay, but no, Facebook would rather that the videos be Facebook videos, thereby the original creator getting zero profit from his hard work. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6A1Lt0kvMA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6A1Lt0kvMA for a first-hand account of the situation.
- orik 11y agoSometimes people even post the videos to HN or Reddit, and people comment on there as well.
- corv 11y agoFacebook has made it very difficult to share videos from their platform with other services.
- hkmurakami 11y agoIt's not even just video. I often want to share an article link to another application starting from the FB app's internal web view, and I always have to use safari as an intermediary before being "allowed" (can't believe im Jain this word but his really is what it comes down to) to do so.
- reagency 11y agoBefore you say No to I.org, propose something better to say Yes to.
- sa1 11y agoInternet.org brings no new infrastructure. It is not easier to bring to the poor by alternative infrastructure. Free neutral Internet with a small data cap is much better than this, if you want to give 'some' Internet to the poor. "No internet" vs "subset of Internet" is a glaring false dichotomy if I ever saw one.
- ddorian43 11y agoJust change the name so people know that it's not Internet but it's Facebooknet.
- xorcist 11y agoI'd like to see Wikipedia, or some other project that is in on this, to launch some subversive open proxy functionality in this becomes reality. I understand it can't happen like that, but you get the general idea. (Something like "general purpose computing FTW". One can dream, right?)
- gfodor 11y agoI'd have much less of a problem with this if it wasn't being branded as "Internet". The whole premise of the Internet is that it's, well, the Internet. As in, a singular global network of connected machines. If they want to launch FacebookNet or MiniNet or FooNet or whatever, more power to them, but this isn't the Internet and shouldn't be branded as such.
- userbinator 11y agoReminds me of this... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwangmyong_(network) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwangmyong_(network) Upon a request, whole websites may be downloaded from the Internet, undergo review and censorship, and be published on Kwangmyong
- DrFunke 11y agoThe question being asked here is if Internet.org’s curated content negates access itself. Given the recent, unprecedented restructuring in mobile ads, maybe there’s a better question: Does Facebook really believe the internet can be restricted to 50 sites?
- rasz_pl 11y agoWhen asked to elaborate Tim Berners-Lee replied "not enough DRM for my liking".
- newsignup 11y agoThis thread is interesting, finally people have started to complain that they are only against the name instead of saying that internet.org will skew the market (which it might). This shift of thinking is vividly interesting, it is quite possible that next time people won't object.
- sa1 11y agoThis line of thinking is dangerous too, since Facebook has already changed the name. It's now called Free Basics by Facebook. However, it is still a limited internet because it runs on top of IP networks provided by existing ISPs, who are using public spectrum. This public spectrum was auctioned for telecom and Internet services, the public and regulators still need to look at how this will skew the market and competition.
- dheera 11y agoSo in China, Iran et al., you can get past censorship with VPNs. If I understand this correctly, China's GFW blocks about maybe 20% of the internet, while Facebook's proposed free ISP blocks perhaps 90%. Perhaps there's room within the remaining 10% to create a VPN and fudge access to the free internet? Perhaps using TCP-over-DNS, or even something ridiculous like TCP-over-Facebook-chat?
- jobeirne 11y agoThe sense of entitlement here is amazing. Is dying of thirst really preferable to a free Coke?
- ceras 11y agoApparently it is when someone else is dying for your free Coke.
- astaroth360 11y agoWay to make something that should be philanthropy at its finest into opportunism Mark Zuckerberg. What a dick.
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- start-up-woes 11y agoPeople should have learnt by now to stop resisting change. It will happen eventually.