13 ms·

Mark Zuckerberg's Free Basics argument doesn't address conflicts of interest

173 points by williswee 11y ago

chenster 11y ago
Poor people needs food and shelter, not Internet. That comes later when basic life needs are met. Free Basic is not even Internet. It's just Facebook with perks.
adrian_kirk 11y ago
Slightly off-topic: What did you think of FB's 'Free Basics' campaign?
- kalpa 11y ago
  Their campaign was misleading and it got me to delete my FB acct
  - dayon 11y ago
    Would be awesome to see a mass exodus from Facebook. It's already passed its peak anyway, with many US teenagers using different, non-Facebook-owned networks and apps.
    - joshkpeterson 11y ago
      Yeah, we saw with Ello that people are hungry for something "not facebook". Too bad Ello was such a joke.
- simula67 11y ago
  What bothers me most about the campaign is that Facebook has easy access to a large number of people and is using it to influence government policy. A large number of people login to Facebook and read only Facebook's side of the argument. The critics have to work through a variety of media outlets available to them ( including Facebook ) to get their word out. This is too much power for one private company. I just hope that projects like diaspora can take off.
nitin_flanker 11y ago
nd at the end, FB addicts gonna use it rather than the poor section of Indian society. Zuckerberg has an evil plan is disguise which he considers that the world doesn't know, however, everyone knows.
- __Joker 11y ago
  I feel "evil plan" is a stretch. The worst case of malice you can attribute to FB is they are trying acquire huge untapped user base but disguising the fact under sheet of public good.
  - nitin_flanker 11y ago
    Yes, and if Zuck is that much interested to provide free internet to Indians, he can get in talks with the govt. of India and start providing free Wi-Fi to Indians. He may make a norm to have an FB account to get access to the Wi-Fi, for that matter. This could be a way more better option. He may not violate netneutrality plus can expand his user base also. But he may not go with this solution. It is less cost effective. But as it is a charity, cost shouldn't be a point. Zuck is masking his for-profit venture with charity.
  - jonathankoren 11y ago
    Well that's exactly what Internet.org and Free Basics is. Transparently so. FB has 1.5 billion users in a world with 7.3 billion people. It's not an exaggeration to say that pretty much everyone 13 and up with an Internet connection that wants a Facebook account, has one. That means that the only way you can grow your user base is to increase the number of people with an Internet connection. Zuck and Facebook do bill Free Basics as a charity, but yet, they're not giving the Internet, they're giving poor people what Zuckerberg wants. They're not hooking up Twitter are they? They say it's because of "agreements", but really it comes down to the fact that they are paying the telcoms money, and they want an audience for their ads. Now that's not immoral, but it's not a charity, so don't expect people to say how great and benevolent they are. Now FB could pay for the real Internet, but they don't, because they're not a charity. It's this mismatch between rhetoric and actions that really pisses people off. We saw this before when Google first started operating in China. The Google Triumvirate said, "Hey, isn't some Internet better than no Internet?" (The exact same argument that Zuck is making today.) Of course, the Chinese had Baidu at the time, and Baidu actually worked better for Chinese language search than Google as well. The real reason Google wanted in China wasn't to spread knowledge, but rather to get access to the 1.4 billion potential users, because pretty much everyone with an Internet connection outside of China already used Google.
senthilnayagam 11y ago
Why it is not called facebook.org and zero rating for only facebook? Many facebook posts include links/videos to other sites, and almost all of these will not work unless you pay facebook tax. Most indians use whatsapp as it is cheaper(free) and offers more features than SMS, that actually means people use data probably 2G, but vast majority of these customers are not using facebook. free basic is to get the whatsapp users to become facebook users.
- marcoperaza 11y ago
  It's not only Facebook; that's why. Anyone can apply to join the program. https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-org/how-to-submit https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-org/how-to-sub...
  - salgernon 11y ago
    Anyone can create a destination on the internet without having to ask Facebook for permission.
  - neximo4 11y ago
    With Facebook's permission of course.. There's the facebook platform and all sorts of startups that have been excluded for competing with Whatsapp or Facebook or being a threat to facebook.
rm2889 11y ago
> But it’s difficult to agree wholeheartedly with Zuckerberg’s mission in India when he’s apparently willing to make such a misleading, fallacy-ridden argument in an attempt to win more Indian supporters and discredit his opponents. Unfortunately this is a winning strategy politicians follow in India to garner support. Its getting better with education and the Internet, but it still works to some extent.
tim333 11y ago
I may be naive but I think Zuckerberg is actually trying to good rather than hoodwink India. It's a possibility anyway.
- statictype 11y ago
  I don't believe he's trying to hoodwink India. I believe he sees a lot of potential for business growth here and I think he also wants to do something good and feel like he's helped make a difference somewhere. The problem is that he's trying to kill both those birds with one stone.
dnautics 11y ago
This argument is a non-starter. We do indeed allow private organizations to create libraries. Moreover, the conflict of interest exists even when the state (not to be confused with society) participates. How do we make sure our public schools don't become institutions where the pupils are 'educated' to blind obedience to the current president, for example?
- vikiomega9 11y ago
  > We do indeed allow private organizations to create libraries. Are those for-profit and not readily regulated? > Moreover, the conflict of interest exists even when the state But in this case the state is a democracy. Ideally conflict of interest is non-existent.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - paulmd 11y ago
    Sure. Typically they are specialized in a single type of content. For example, JSTOR is a self-described "digital library" which provides journal access. Your local movie rental store (or its competitor Netflix) provide entertainment or educational content (movies and shows). Of course they can be regulated just like any business or service. So could this service, in fact. Forcing net neutrality for all service providers would cut out a lot of crap and I'm convinced it's a long-term boon.
  - michael_h 11y ago
    In Cincinnati there is a general purpose, private library: http://www.mercantilelibrary.com/ http://www.mercantilelibrary.com/ It's not regulated - not sure about the profit part. It is hugely dwarfed by the public library, but it is still quite popular. They have a smaller collection, but the percentage of the items that circulate is supposedly astronomical. It only has a 10,000 year lease though, so I suppose it's only temporary.
- firasd 11y ago
  This is why I don't like to use metaphors when discussing net neutrality. The current regulatory question in India is very specific: whether telecom services should be able to differentially price data. The internet is in a class of its own, and arguing net neutrality as an abstract principle applied to other contexts blurs the issue. Free Basics just happens to depend on differential pricing, and Facebook is running a campaign to preserve Free Basics, hence it has become lightening rod for the debate.
marcoperaza 11y ago
It's odd that the article regards privately owned schools, hospitals, and libraries as absurd abominations. Private schools are a huge part of the American education system, and they're not the problem. Even when the funding is public, lots of jurisdictions in the US are moving toward privately owned schools, i.e. charter schools. The Catholic Church runs private schools around the world and is widely lauded for it. A big portion (most?) of the best American universities are private. 80% of hospitals in the US are private. Private is good. Can someone explain for me how Free Basics would be harmful for anyone? If there's an alternative way to bring full internet connectivity to people who currently can't pay for it, wouldn't that alternative beat Free Basics in the market? The article briefly mentions "public internet access" as an alternative, but the Indian government has already failed the 400 million Indians without electricity, and 1 billion without internet. "The Indian government can probably get the money somewhere" reveals a total misunderstanding of the scale of the problem and places a laughable faith in the Indian government, the incompetence of which is in fact the single largest factor holding India back. Why not give market solutions a chance?
- bmmayer1 11y ago
  It should be mentioned that currently 40% of Indian children are enrolled in private ("independent") schools, which in turn make up 25% of the K-12 schools in India[1]. The public school system is viewed as such a poor education that demand for private schools is high, and thus can be quite affordable too; as low as $2 per month[2]. Which even in India is within the reach of most families (minimum wage there is ~$225/month). [1] http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/role-of-private-sector-on-K-12-education-in-India/$FILE/EY-role-of-private-sector-on-K-12-education-in-India.pdf http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/role-of-private-sec... [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/31/world/asia/for-indias-poor-private-schools-help-fill-a-growing-demand.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/31/world/asia/for-indias-poor...
  - icebraining 11y ago
    There's an interesting Econtalk episode on those schools: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/12/james_tooley_on.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/12/james_tooley_on.htm...
balls187 11y ago
1. Free Basics and Facebook (aka FB). Definitely not a coincidence. 2. What services are available on Free Basics? It does not seem very easy to figure out what you can get access to. 3. Internet.org by Facebook. 4. Facebook is the gatekeeper of what sites are available on Free Basics.
quanticle 11y ago
My main concern with Free Basics is that it's literally a reinvention of AOL, using a different shade of blue. Moreover, I find it extremely hypocritical of Mark Zuckerberg to push a system that would have prevent his own company from becoming as big as it has. Put another way, he would be screaming bloody murder if it was Google offering Free Basics, and forcing everybody to access the web through Google+.
- brownbat 11y ago
  Felt like I heard the Facebook/AOL comparison before... turns out it pops up in a lot of places: Kottke, 2007: http://www.kottke.org/07/06/facebook-is-the-new-aol http://www.kottke.org/07/06/facebook-is-the-new-aol Marketing tech blog, 2009: https://www.marketingtechblog.com/facebook-is-the-new-aol/ https://www.marketingtechblog.com/facebook-is-the-new-aol/ Stowe Boyd, 2010: http://stoweboyd.com/post/7928792532/the-decline-and-fall-of-facebook-cringely-on http://stoweboyd.com/post/7928792532/the-decline-and-fall-of... PC Mag, 2010: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2372729,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2372729,00.asp The Verge, 2015: http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/4/7488495/facebook-is-the-new-aol http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/4/7488495/facebook-is-the-new... NY Mag, 2015: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/03/facebook-is-the-new-aol.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/03/facebook-is-the...
- cm2187 11y ago
  But a free AOL. Net neutrality makes sense when you pay for it. When someone offers you a free service it is hard to complain about the quality. You might refuse to call it "charity" but I don't think there is anything wrong with it.
  - nabla9 11y ago
    It's not so simple. If the company who has monopoly power[1] provides free services, or if the free service can be used to gain monopoly power, there is possibility for market failure. If it would be OK to do anything as long as the service is free, it would make sense for Chinese government & Baidu & Huawei consortium to provide High Quality Free Basics for every American who wants it. --- [1] Remainder to avoid fruitless arguments: monopoly power ≠ monopoly http://www.economicsonline.co.uk/Market_failures/Monopoly_power.html http://www.economicsonline.co.uk/Market_failures/Monopoly_po...
dang 11y ago
We changed the outrageous title to something that more neutrally expresses the substance of the article. If anyone can suggest a more accurate neutral title, we can change it again.
ipsum2 11y ago
I don't get it. You can completely ignore using Facebook.com, and just use the free access to Wikipedia, among other useful local services. When I first got a Kindle, it had unlimited free access to Wikipedia. I thought this was the coolest thing ever, and didn't think about net neutrality, just a cool bonus that came with the device.
- firasd 11y ago
  Hmm this is an interesting question. Does a Kindle (or other device) that is connected to the internet, but can only access limited sites or services violate net neutrality? It really depends on applicable regulations or legislation, and how exactly the connection is setup (between the Kindle -> the Connection -> Amazon -> the Internet) but I think it's not an obvious violation...
- vaporsnek 11y ago
  You might not use Facebook, but the vast majority of other users will and that's where the real problem lies. Unlimited free access to a non-profit website like Wikipedia alone would be great.
- marklgr 11y ago
  In theory, you could also ignore all ads in general, but in practice you can't really ignore them, so you'd better realize that you're trading off a service for some influence over you.
himprak 11y ago
Indian politics has trained people well to see through Zuck's strategy and his TOI article only exposes his immaturity about what works/doesn't work in India. It's not difficult for people to understand this initiative violates net neutrality and is an attempt to create a "separate internet" where budding entrepreneurs/content providers have no choice but to pay Zuck to be onboarded. This is akin to license raj (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licence_Raj https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licence_Raj) that was demolished way back in the 90s.
vedaprodarte 11y ago
"If Zuckerberg really wants to sell Free Basics, he needs to stop trying to convince people that it’s some self-sacrificing public service and admit what it actually is: a company offering a service that’s (supposedly) beneficial for both users and the company in question." This is a good argument. This is not a charity act but a business decision. Although it brings something good to the Indian, Indian also helps Facebook to expand its business.
- marklgr 11y ago
  As a note aside, that's what many religions have been doing for ages: help the poor, build schools etc. No doubt there have been mutual benefits.
  - praptak 11y ago
    Some much worse organizations do that too on territories they control, which makes the analogy even better. Does Zuckerberg want to preach good news or does he need a cheap source of cannon fodder?
- bko 11y ago
  There is nothing wrong with expanding a business by providing a service. Every service that we use voluntarily, charitable or otherwise, makes our lives better off otherwise we would not be using it. I can't help but think that the poorest in the world are more helped by the efforts of private profit motivated enterprise than that of governments and charitable organizations. > The World Bank and African Development Bank report there are 650 million mobile users in Africa, surpassing the number in the United States or Europe. In some African countries more people have access to a mobile phone than to clean water, a bank account or electricity, the agencies add. [0] Perhaps its time to rethink what organizations are best suited for raising the standard of living. [0] http://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/may-2013/africa%E2%80%99s-mobile-youth-drive-change http://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/may-2013/africa%E2%...
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
priyankt 11y ago
Check this link for some good arguments against Free Basics - http://www.firstpost.com/india/iit-iisc-professors-call-facebooks-free-basics-misleading-and-flawed-in-statement-to-trai-2565542.html http://www.firstpost.com/india/iit-iisc-professors-call-face...
nsns 11y ago
well, as you would say in Hindi: Kutte ki dum kabhi seedhi nahi hoti.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  English translation?
  - eklavya 11y ago
    A dog's tail can not be unbent.
jacquesm 11y ago
India should do what Romania did: nothing. Deregulate all telecommunications and create a free for all. They'll have the fastest internet and the cheapest phone system with a couple of yours. It's not as if Indians aren't as much or even more entrepreneurial than Romania (which still has a head start over the neighboring countries because of this). Corruption will likely not tolerate such a free market without getting a slice of the pie, that's the biggest stumbling block.
- Manishearth 11y ago
  Market forces are slow in some markets. It's very hard to get started in the telecom industry in india, so you pave the way for an oppressive ologopoly instead. There's no reason to believe that Romania's telecom industry and market is comparable to that of India.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    Hence my suggestion to make it a free for all, let the market sort it out. The long term beneficiaries of that strategy would be the general public rather than the current crop of incumbents. If there is one thing they hate it is a level (and unregulated) playing field with a bunch of upstarts with absolutely nothing to lose.
    - Manishearth 11y ago
      "let the market sort it out" only works if the market is easy to enter in the first place. Politics and high bootstrapping costs are roadblocks to entering the telecom market. If an oligopoly is formed, where everyone has terrible service at terrible prices, the market will stay stuck there. Capitalism isn't a magic wand you can wave over things and have them fix themselves.
  - humanfromearth 11y ago
    What are the reasons to believe that it wouldn't work? ANRC (the body that governs communication) in Romania I think did more (by doing very little) for the Romanian economy than any other government agency. It's funny because we used to hate them for not allowing us to get more ethernet cables on the public infrastructure (which we payed for a nominal price) because of some safety issues. I was working as and admin working for one of those free for all ISPs. It's crazy how good and cheep the internet has become since then. What happened is that in a small city (250k people) we had about 30 independent ISPs and we had gigabit peering between ourselves. Scroll 5 years, big companies come in and buys us all out, then slowly start replacing ethernet with fiber. Scroll another 5-10 years, most have fiber in the cities and gigabit connections at very low prices. It can be argued that the little guys (ISPs) got a little screwed especially those who haven't been bought, but overall the romanians got a really good internet and that's all that matters in the end. The take away here is that once people started getting used to low-cost mostly local network + internet within a highly competitive environment, the "big" ISPs had no choice than to provide at least an equal service. It's true, that was a different time, but now it's even better, because hardware is a lot faster and cheaper!
addicted 11y ago
I don't get why Zuckerberg's or Facebook's intentions are even relevant. It's a fairly simple question. If Free Basics, which violates net neutrality (Facebook has never denied this, instead responding by saying that poor people internet is more important than net neutrality) is allowed, then every ISP in India will have the legal ability to violate net neutrality. Indian providers are already terrible, and will almost certainly abuse their powers to have both website providers, and customers, pay more to access services. They will be providing different packages with the lowest tier only giving Facebook access, the next one adding Bing, etc... What we know as the internet, and the best parts of the internet, which allowed companies like Facebook and Google to flourish in the first place, cannot exist without net neutrality. Allowing Free Basics is essentially India kissing the internet good bye, in favor of AOL style walled gardens. Admittedly, there will be a wide variety of walled gardens to choose from, and some of them may even allow you to talk to your friend in a different walled garden. But the internet won't exist anymore.
chdir 11y ago
What's mind boggling is the amount of money FB is spending on advertisements & lobbying so that they can be allowed to be "charitable". What's funny is that Mark's getting upset that people don't want "disingenuous charity". There are a thousand effective ways in which you can help the underprivileged. Partnering with ISPs to decide what's "basic" internet is not one of them. P.S. Many professors from India's top tech institutes, startups, entrepreneurs & other eminent people have spoken against "Free Basics". https://github.com/net-neutrality/no-free-basics https://github.com/net-neutrality/no-free-basics - Feel free to add more with a Pull Request.
- pinkunicorn 11y ago
  This one point alone is enough for me to reject Free Basics: "HTTPS support: We encrypt information for Free Basics wherever possible." Huh? As a service provider, why would I want YOU to encrypt traffic between my customer and me? I mean, it defeats the purpose of HTTPS. Its literally saying "I'm going to be a Man in the Middle and for a change, I'll also have the keys to decrypt the traffic". Yeah, right.
  - chdir 11y ago
    More wonky stuff : https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-org/platform-technical-guidelines https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-org/platform-t... "When people use the Free Basics mobile website, information is temporarily decrypted on our secure servers to ensure proper functionality of the services and to avoid unexpected charges to people."
    - pinkunicorn 11y ago
      Facebook servers will be saying, "Hold on, so you want to buy a Camera, noted down(I've recommendations for you by the way). We're good now and I can send you to your destination. All for performance reasons of course." I had respect for Zuckerberg, have lost it completely.
      - 11y ago
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
chris_wot 11y ago
It seems like the same old mentality of someone from outside a particular society trying to impose rather imperious ideals in a manner that leaves them open for criticism of their motives. Zuckerberg might spend a lot of money on this, but an entire continent's opinion is turning against him. This is not going to go well for him.
awalGarg 11y ago
If it isn't too much of self-promotion, I'd like to leave a link to an article I drafted when I first saw that advertisement: http://awal.js.org/blog/thoughts/2015/09/12/internet-org-facebook-little-zoo.html http://awal.js.org/blog/thoughts/2015/09/12/internet-org-fac... tl;dr: even if we agree that FB isn't aiming at personal benefits here, internet.org isn't useful. reasons in the article.
golergka 11y ago
> instead of building a public library, the town allowed a private publishing company to build and operate a library But that's not what the alternative is. It would be correct to write "instead of having _no library at all_".
- pkd 11y ago
  That's incorrect. People in India already have access to pretty cheap internet. A one day ~50MB GPRS pack costs $0.1 and can be voluntarily renewed daily. That's ₹10. And for the extremely poor(who are being targeted by Facebook) that's not a big sum to pay. You'd consider that if they can spend $50 on a phone, they can spend that much once in a while to access critical information like whether and crop prices. This is disregarding that monthly edge packs for up 3GB data are available for less than $5 from most providers and the speeds are very usable. There is not such a huge barrier as is being portrayed by Facebook. A better comparison would be a very cheap book rental store which can lend you anything you want to a free private library which controls what and how you read.
  - golergka 11y ago
    Cheap != free. Free option on a market where cheap options exist != "instead".
SixSigma 11y ago
Facebook's free 'basic internet services' have been shut down for 3 million Egyptians http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-free-basic-internet-services-shut-down-in-egypt-2015-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-free-basic-internet-...
ikeboy 11y ago
>Free Basics might still be the best short-term solution for some people. I’m not interested in trying to decide for others what might be right for them. Oh, so you agree that it shouldn't be banned, which means you're taking Facebook's side, against the advocates that do want to ban it. Glad that's clear.
bluecalm 11y ago
So Mark Zuckerberg made billions selling people's data contributing to a business model which makes the world a worse place in exchange for a bit of entertainment. Whatever, at least people semi-voluntarily signed up for that (it wasn't obvious to many what the deal is before they got a big chunk of their life locked in there) and they are getting their fix on regular basis. So how is Mark using the billions now? Right, actively trying to make the world much worse and closed place. A place which would prevent him from starting his business in the first place. What world we live in that such individuals are so successful :(
V-2 11y ago
"imagine that instead of building a public school, the area allowed a private company to build and operate the local schools. If you lived in the area, would you be in favor of these plans? Of course not, because the opportunity for conflicts of interest is too great". It really irks me when someone tries to convince me by speaking on my behalf. Yes, I might be in favor on these plans. "Exxon could build a school and then teach kids in its science classes that fossil fuels are the healthiest way forward for our planet" And states don't do that? Pick up a history book from American, French and Russian public school, see if they tell the same story... "Penguin could build a library and stock it in a way that pushed more people towards reading (and buying) Penguin’s books" So what, as long as other publishers aren't forbidden from doing the same thing??
lazzlazzlazz 11y ago
Is it better or not, for Indians, to have this or not? It sounds like a significant advantage to Indians, and to Facebook, for this to go through.
MxHuang2 11y ago
test

173 points by williswee 11y ago

Poor people needs food and shelter, not Internet. That comes later when basic life needs are met. Free Basic is not even Internet. It's just Facebook with perks.

adrian_kirk 11y ago

Slightly off-topic: What did you think of FB's 'Free Basics' campaign?

kalpa 11y ago
Their campaign was misleading and it got me to delete my FB acct
- dayon 11y ago
  Would be awesome to see a mass exodus from Facebook. It's already passed its peak anyway, with many US teenagers using different, non-Facebook-owned networks and apps.
  - joshkpeterson 11y ago
    Yeah, we saw with Ello that people are hungry for something "not facebook". Too bad Ello was such a joke.
simula67 11y ago
What bothers me most about the campaign is that Facebook has easy access to a large number of people and is using it to influence government policy. A large number of people login to Facebook and read only Facebook's side of the argument. The critics have to work through a variety of media outlets available to them ( including Facebook ) to get their word out. This is too much power for one private company. I just hope that projects like diaspora can take off.

nitin_flanker 11y ago

nd at the end, FB addicts gonna use it rather than the poor section of Indian society. Zuckerberg has an evil plan is disguise which he considers that the world doesn't know, however, everyone knows.

__Joker 11y ago
I feel "evil plan" is a stretch. The worst case of malice you can attribute to FB is they are trying acquire huge untapped user base but disguising the fact under sheet of public good.
- nitin_flanker 11y ago
  Yes, and if Zuck is that much interested to provide free internet to Indians, he can get in talks with the govt. of India and start providing free Wi-Fi to Indians. He may make a norm to have an FB account to get access to the Wi-Fi, for that matter. This could be a way more better option. He may not violate netneutrality plus can expand his user base also. But he may not go with this solution. It is less cost effective. But as it is a charity, cost shouldn't be a point. Zuck is masking his for-profit venture with charity.
- jonathankoren 11y ago
  Well that's exactly what Internet.org and Free Basics is. Transparently so. FB has 1.5 billion users in a world with 7.3 billion people. It's not an exaggeration to say that pretty much everyone 13 and up with an Internet connection that wants a Facebook account, has one. That means that the only way you can grow your user base is to increase the number of people with an Internet connection. Zuck and Facebook do bill Free Basics as a charity, but yet, they're not giving the Internet, they're giving poor people what Zuckerberg wants. They're not hooking up Twitter are they? They say it's because of "agreements", but really it comes down to the fact that they are paying the telcoms money, and they want an audience for their ads. Now that's not immoral, but it's not a charity, so don't expect people to say how great and benevolent they are. Now FB could pay for the real Internet, but they don't, because they're not a charity. It's this mismatch between rhetoric and actions that really pisses people off. We saw this before when Google first started operating in China. The Google Triumvirate said, "Hey, isn't some Internet better than no Internet?" (The exact same argument that Zuck is making today.) Of course, the Chinese had Baidu at the time, and Baidu actually worked better for Chinese language search than Google as well. The real reason Google wanted in China wasn't to spread knowledge, but rather to get access to the 1.4 billion potential users, because pretty much everyone with an Internet connection outside of China already used Google.

senthilnayagam 11y ago

Why it is not called facebook.org and zero rating for only facebook? Many facebook posts include links/videos to other sites, and almost all of these will not work unless you pay facebook tax. Most indians use whatsapp as it is cheaper(free) and offers more features than SMS, that actually means people use data probably 2G, but vast majority of these customers are not using facebook. free basic is to get the whatsapp users to become facebook users.

marcoperaza 11y ago
It's not only Facebook; that's why. Anyone can apply to join the program. https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-org/how-to-submit https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-org/how-to-sub...
- salgernon 11y ago
  Anyone can create a destination on the internet without having to ask Facebook for permission.
- neximo4 11y ago
  With Facebook's permission of course.. There's the facebook platform and all sorts of startups that have been excluded for competing with Whatsapp or Facebook or being a threat to facebook.

rm2889 11y ago

> But it’s difficult to agree wholeheartedly with Zuckerberg’s mission in India when he’s apparently willing to make such a misleading, fallacy-ridden argument in an attempt to win more Indian supporters and discredit his opponents. Unfortunately this is a winning strategy politicians follow in India to garner support. Its getting better with education and the Internet, but it still works to some extent.

tim333 11y ago

I may be naive but I think Zuckerberg is actually trying to good rather than hoodwink India. It's a possibility anyway.

statictype 11y ago
I don't believe he's trying to hoodwink India. I believe he sees a lot of potential for business growth here and I think he also wants to do something good and feel like he's helped make a difference somewhere. The problem is that he's trying to kill both those birds with one stone.

dnautics 11y ago

This argument is a non-starter. We do indeed allow private organizations to create libraries. Moreover, the conflict of interest exists even when the state (not to be confused with society) participates. How do we make sure our public schools don't become institutions where the pupils are 'educated' to blind obedience to the current president, for example?

vikiomega9 11y ago
> We do indeed allow private organizations to create libraries. Are those for-profit and not readily regulated? > Moreover, the conflict of interest exists even when the state But in this case the state is a democracy. Ideally conflict of interest is non-existent.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- paulmd 11y ago
  Sure. Typically they are specialized in a single type of content. For example, JSTOR is a self-described "digital library" which provides journal access. Your local movie rental store (or its competitor Netflix) provide entertainment or educational content (movies and shows). Of course they can be regulated just like any business or service. So could this service, in fact. Forcing net neutrality for all service providers would cut out a lot of crap and I'm convinced it's a long-term boon.
- michael_h 11y ago
  In Cincinnati there is a general purpose, private library: http://www.mercantilelibrary.com/ http://www.mercantilelibrary.com/ It's not regulated - not sure about the profit part. It is hugely dwarfed by the public library, but it is still quite popular. They have a smaller collection, but the percentage of the items that circulate is supposedly astronomical. It only has a 10,000 year lease though, so I suppose it's only temporary.
firasd 11y ago
This is why I don't like to use metaphors when discussing net neutrality. The current regulatory question in India is very specific: whether telecom services should be able to differentially price data. The internet is in a class of its own, and arguing net neutrality as an abstract principle applied to other contexts blurs the issue. Free Basics just happens to depend on differential pricing, and Facebook is running a campaign to preserve Free Basics, hence it has become lightening rod for the debate.

marcoperaza 11y ago

It's odd that the article regards privately owned schools, hospitals, and libraries as absurd abominations. Private schools are a huge part of the American education system, and they're not the problem. Even when the funding is public, lots of jurisdictions in the US are moving toward privately owned schools, i.e. charter schools. The Catholic Church runs private schools around the world and is widely lauded for it. A big portion (most?) of the best American universities are private. 80% of hospitals in the US are private. Private is good. Can someone explain for me how Free Basics would be harmful for anyone? If there's an alternative way to bring full internet connectivity to people who currently can't pay for it, wouldn't that alternative beat Free Basics in the market? The article briefly mentions "public internet access" as an alternative, but the Indian government has already failed the 400 million Indians without electricity, and 1 billion without internet. "The Indian government can probably get the money somewhere" reveals a total misunderstanding of the scale of the problem and places a laughable faith in the Indian government, the incompetence of which is in fact the single largest factor holding India back. Why not give market solutions a chance?

bmmayer1 11y ago
It should be mentioned that currently 40% of Indian children are enrolled in private ("independent") schools, which in turn make up 25% of the K-12 schools in India[1]. The public school system is viewed as such a poor education that demand for private schools is high, and thus can be quite affordable too; as low as $2 per month[2]. Which even in India is within the reach of most families (minimum wage there is ~$225/month). [1] http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/role-of-private-sector-on-K-12-education-in-India/$FILE/EY-role-of-private-sector-on-K-12-education-in-India.pdf http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/role-of-private-sec... [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/31/world/asia/for-indias-poor-private-schools-help-fill-a-growing-demand.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/31/world/asia/for-indias-poor...
- icebraining 11y ago
  There's an interesting Econtalk episode on those schools: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/12/james_tooley_on.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/12/james_tooley_on.htm...

balls187 11y ago

1. Free Basics and Facebook (aka FB). Definitely not a coincidence. 2. What services are available on Free Basics? It does not seem very easy to figure out what you can get access to. 3. Internet.org by Facebook. 4. Facebook is the gatekeeper of what sites are available on Free Basics.

quanticle 11y ago

My main concern with Free Basics is that it's literally a reinvention of AOL, using a different shade of blue. Moreover, I find it extremely hypocritical of Mark Zuckerberg to push a system that would have prevent his own company from becoming as big as it has. Put another way, he would be screaming bloody murder if it was Google offering Free Basics, and forcing everybody to access the web through Google+.

brownbat 11y ago
Felt like I heard the Facebook/AOL comparison before... turns out it pops up in a lot of places: Kottke, 2007: http://www.kottke.org/07/06/facebook-is-the-new-aol http://www.kottke.org/07/06/facebook-is-the-new-aol Marketing tech blog, 2009: https://www.marketingtechblog.com/facebook-is-the-new-aol/ https://www.marketingtechblog.com/facebook-is-the-new-aol/ Stowe Boyd, 2010: http://stoweboyd.com/post/7928792532/the-decline-and-fall-of-facebook-cringely-on http://stoweboyd.com/post/7928792532/the-decline-and-fall-of... PC Mag, 2010: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2372729,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2372729,00.asp The Verge, 2015: http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/4/7488495/facebook-is-the-new-aol http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/4/7488495/facebook-is-the-new... NY Mag, 2015: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/03/facebook-is-the-new-aol.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/03/facebook-is-the...
cm2187 11y ago
But a free AOL. Net neutrality makes sense when you pay for it. When someone offers you a free service it is hard to complain about the quality. You might refuse to call it "charity" but I don't think there is anything wrong with it.
- nabla9 11y ago
  It's not so simple. If the company who has monopoly power[1] provides free services, or if the free service can be used to gain monopoly power, there is possibility for market failure. If it would be OK to do anything as long as the service is free, it would make sense for Chinese government & Baidu & Huawei consortium to provide High Quality Free Basics for every American who wants it. --- [1] Remainder to avoid fruitless arguments: monopoly power ≠ monopoly http://www.economicsonline.co.uk/Market_failures/Monopoly_power.html http://www.economicsonline.co.uk/Market_failures/Monopoly_po...

dang 11y ago

We changed the outrageous title to something that more neutrally expresses the substance of the article. If anyone can suggest a more accurate neutral title, we can change it again.

ipsum2 11y ago

I don't get it. You can completely ignore using Facebook.com, and just use the free access to Wikipedia, among other useful local services. When I first got a Kindle, it had unlimited free access to Wikipedia. I thought this was the coolest thing ever, and didn't think about net neutrality, just a cool bonus that came with the device.

firasd 11y ago
Hmm this is an interesting question. Does a Kindle (or other device) that is connected to the internet, but can only access limited sites or services violate net neutrality? It really depends on applicable regulations or legislation, and how exactly the connection is setup (between the Kindle -> the Connection -> Amazon -> the Internet) but I think it's not an obvious violation...
vaporsnek 11y ago
You might not use Facebook, but the vast majority of other users will and that's where the real problem lies. Unlimited free access to a non-profit website like Wikipedia alone would be great.
marklgr 11y ago
In theory, you could also ignore all ads in general, but in practice you can't really ignore them, so you'd better realize that you're trading off a service for some influence over you.

himprak 11y ago

Indian politics has trained people well to see through Zuck's strategy and his TOI article only exposes his immaturity about what works/doesn't work in India. It's not difficult for people to understand this initiative violates net neutrality and is an attempt to create a "separate internet" where budding entrepreneurs/content providers have no choice but to pay Zuck to be onboarded. This is akin to license raj (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licence_Raj https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licence_Raj) that was demolished way back in the 90s.

vedaprodarte 11y ago

"If Zuckerberg really wants to sell Free Basics, he needs to stop trying to convince people that it’s some self-sacrificing public service and admit what it actually is: a company offering a service that’s (supposedly) beneficial for both users and the company in question." This is a good argument. This is not a charity act but a business decision. Although it brings something good to the Indian, Indian also helps Facebook to expand its business.

marklgr 11y ago
As a note aside, that's what many religions have been doing for ages: help the poor, build schools etc. No doubt there have been mutual benefits.
- praptak 11y ago
  Some much worse organizations do that too on territories they control, which makes the analogy even better. Does Zuckerberg want to preach good news or does he need a cheap source of cannon fodder?
bko 11y ago
There is nothing wrong with expanding a business by providing a service. Every service that we use voluntarily, charitable or otherwise, makes our lives better off otherwise we would not be using it. I can't help but think that the poorest in the world are more helped by the efforts of private profit motivated enterprise than that of governments and charitable organizations. > The World Bank and African Development Bank report there are 650 million mobile users in Africa, surpassing the number in the United States or Europe. In some African countries more people have access to a mobile phone than to clean water, a bank account or electricity, the agencies add. [0] Perhaps its time to rethink what organizations are best suited for raising the standard of living. [0] http://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/may-2013/africa%E2%80%99s-mobile-youth-drive-change http://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/may-2013/africa%E2%...
- TeMPOraL 11y ago

priyankt 11y ago

Check this link for some good arguments against Free Basics - http://www.firstpost.com/india/iit-iisc-professors-call-facebooks-free-basics-misleading-and-flawed-in-statement-to-trai-2565542.html http://www.firstpost.com/india/iit-iisc-professors-call-face...

nsns 11y ago

well, as you would say in Hindi: Kutte ki dum kabhi seedhi nahi hoti.

jacquesm 11y ago
English translation?
- eklavya 11y ago
  A dog's tail can not be unbent.

jacquesm 11y ago

India should do what Romania did: nothing. Deregulate all telecommunications and create a free for all. They'll have the fastest internet and the cheapest phone system with a couple of yours. It's not as if Indians aren't as much or even more entrepreneurial than Romania (which still has a head start over the neighboring countries because of this). Corruption will likely not tolerate such a free market without getting a slice of the pie, that's the biggest stumbling block.

Manishearth 11y ago
Market forces are slow in some markets. It's very hard to get started in the telecom industry in india, so you pave the way for an oppressive ologopoly instead. There's no reason to believe that Romania's telecom industry and market is comparable to that of India.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  Hence my suggestion to make it a free for all, let the market sort it out. The long term beneficiaries of that strategy would be the general public rather than the current crop of incumbents. If there is one thing they hate it is a level (and unregulated) playing field with a bunch of upstarts with absolutely nothing to lose.
  - Manishearth 11y ago
    "let the market sort it out" only works if the market is easy to enter in the first place. Politics and high bootstrapping costs are roadblocks to entering the telecom market. If an oligopoly is formed, where everyone has terrible service at terrible prices, the market will stay stuck there. Capitalism isn't a magic wand you can wave over things and have them fix themselves.
- humanfromearth 11y ago
  What are the reasons to believe that it wouldn't work? ANRC (the body that governs communication) in Romania I think did more (by doing very little) for the Romanian economy than any other government agency. It's funny because we used to hate them for not allowing us to get more ethernet cables on the public infrastructure (which we payed for a nominal price) because of some safety issues. I was working as and admin working for one of those free for all ISPs. It's crazy how good and cheep the internet has become since then. What happened is that in a small city (250k people) we had about 30 independent ISPs and we had gigabit peering between ourselves. Scroll 5 years, big companies come in and buys us all out, then slowly start replacing ethernet with fiber. Scroll another 5-10 years, most have fiber in the cities and gigabit connections at very low prices. It can be argued that the little guys (ISPs) got a little screwed especially those who haven't been bought, but overall the romanians got a really good internet and that's all that matters in the end. The take away here is that once people started getting used to low-cost mostly local network + internet within a highly competitive environment, the "big" ISPs had no choice than to provide at least an equal service. It's true, that was a different time, but now it's even better, because hardware is a lot faster and cheaper!

addicted 11y ago

I don't get why Zuckerberg's or Facebook's intentions are even relevant. It's a fairly simple question. If Free Basics, which violates net neutrality (Facebook has never denied this, instead responding by saying that poor people internet is more important than net neutrality) is allowed, then every ISP in India will have the legal ability to violate net neutrality. Indian providers are already terrible, and will almost certainly abuse their powers to have both website providers, and customers, pay more to access services. They will be providing different packages with the lowest tier only giving Facebook access, the next one adding Bing, etc... What we know as the internet, and the best parts of the internet, which allowed companies like Facebook and Google to flourish in the first place, cannot exist without net neutrality. Allowing Free Basics is essentially India kissing the internet good bye, in favor of AOL style walled gardens. Admittedly, there will be a wide variety of walled gardens to choose from, and some of them may even allow you to talk to your friend in a different walled garden. But the internet won't exist anymore.

chdir 11y ago

What's mind boggling is the amount of money FB is spending on advertisements & lobbying so that they can be allowed to be "charitable". What's funny is that Mark's getting upset that people don't want "disingenuous charity". There are a thousand effective ways in which you can help the underprivileged. Partnering with ISPs to decide what's "basic" internet is not one of them. P.S. Many professors from India's top tech institutes, startups, entrepreneurs & other eminent people have spoken against "Free Basics". https://github.com/net-neutrality/no-free-basics https://github.com/net-neutrality/no-free-basics - Feel free to add more with a Pull Request.

pinkunicorn 11y ago
This one point alone is enough for me to reject Free Basics: "HTTPS support: We encrypt information for Free Basics wherever possible." Huh? As a service provider, why would I want YOU to encrypt traffic between my customer and me? I mean, it defeats the purpose of HTTPS. Its literally saying "I'm going to be a Man in the Middle and for a change, I'll also have the keys to decrypt the traffic". Yeah, right.
- chdir 11y ago
  More wonky stuff : https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-org/platform-technical-guidelines https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-org/platform-t... "When people use the Free Basics mobile website, information is temporarily decrypted on our secure servers to ensure proper functionality of the services and to avoid unexpected charges to people."
  - pinkunicorn 11y ago
    Facebook servers will be saying, "Hold on, so you want to buy a Camera, noted down(I've recommendations for you by the way). We're good now and I can send you to your destination. All for performance reasons of course." I had respect for Zuckerberg, have lost it completely.
    - 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

chris_wot 11y ago

It seems like the same old mentality of someone from outside a particular society trying to impose rather imperious ideals in a manner that leaves them open for criticism of their motives. Zuckerberg might spend a lot of money on this, but an entire continent's opinion is turning against him. This is not going to go well for him.

awalGarg 11y ago

If it isn't too much of self-promotion, I'd like to leave a link to an article I drafted when I first saw that advertisement: http://awal.js.org/blog/thoughts/2015/09/12/internet-org-facebook-little-zoo.html http://awal.js.org/blog/thoughts/2015/09/12/internet-org-fac... tl;dr: even if we agree that FB isn't aiming at personal benefits here, internet.org isn't useful. reasons in the article.

golergka 11y ago

> instead of building a public library, the town allowed a private publishing company to build and operate a library But that's not what the alternative is. It would be correct to write "instead of having _no library at all_".

pkd 11y ago
That's incorrect. People in India already have access to pretty cheap internet. A one day ~50MB GPRS pack costs $0.1 and can be voluntarily renewed daily. That's ₹10. And for the extremely poor(who are being targeted by Facebook) that's not a big sum to pay. You'd consider that if they can spend $50 on a phone, they can spend that much once in a while to access critical information like whether and crop prices. This is disregarding that monthly edge packs for up 3GB data are available for less than $5 from most providers and the speeds are very usable. There is not such a huge barrier as is being portrayed by Facebook. A better comparison would be a very cheap book rental store which can lend you anything you want to a free private library which controls what and how you read.
- golergka 11y ago
  Cheap != free. Free option on a market where cheap options exist != "instead".

SixSigma 11y ago

Facebook's free 'basic internet services' have been shut down for 3 million Egyptians http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-free-basic-internet-services-shut-down-in-egypt-2015-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-free-basic-internet-...

ikeboy 11y ago

>Free Basics might still be the best short-term solution for some people. I’m not interested in trying to decide for others what might be right for them. Oh, so you agree that it shouldn't be banned, which means you're taking Facebook's side, against the advocates that do want to ban it. Glad that's clear.

bluecalm 11y ago

So Mark Zuckerberg made billions selling people's data contributing to a business model which makes the world a worse place in exchange for a bit of entertainment. Whatever, at least people semi-voluntarily signed up for that (it wasn't obvious to many what the deal is before they got a big chunk of their life locked in there) and they are getting their fix on regular basis. So how is Mark using the billions now? Right, actively trying to make the world much worse and closed place. A place which would prevent him from starting his business in the first place. What world we live in that such individuals are so successful :(

V-2 11y ago

"imagine that instead of building a public school, the area allowed a private company to build and operate the local schools. If you lived in the area, would you be in favor of these plans? Of course not, because the opportunity for conflicts of interest is too great". It really irks me when someone tries to convince me by speaking on my behalf. Yes, I might be in favor on these plans. "Exxon could build a school and then teach kids in its science classes that fossil fuels are the healthiest way forward for our planet" And states don't do that? Pick up a history book from American, French and Russian public school, see if they tell the same story... "Penguin could build a library and stock it in a way that pushed more people towards reading (and buying) Penguin’s books" So what, as long as other publishers aren't forbidden from doing the same thing??

lazzlazzlazz 11y ago

Is it better or not, for Indians, to have this or not? It sounds like a significant advantage to Indians, and to Facebook, for this to go through.

MxHuang2 11y ago

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