6 ms·

Facebook is talking to the White House about giving away ‘free’ Internet

41 points by af16090 10y ago

Overtonwindow 10y ago
Didn't this fail in India?
- daveloyall 10y ago
  Psst.. it mentions that in the article you are commenting on...
  - Overtonwindow 10y ago
    Sotto voce: I'm being sarcastically rhetorical. ;-)
- romanovcode 10y ago
  It has more chance to succeed in U.S. because they can buy political power directly and more easily.
  - DannyBee 10y ago
    Only engineers think this. It's really not that easy to buy power directly, because most senators/congressman/etc are already wealthy.
    - tptacek 10y ago
      Isn't like one of the biggest job satisfaction complaints Senators and Congresspeople have the amount of time they have to spend every week fundraising?
      - DannyBee 10y ago
        Yes. But fundraising is indirect, not direct :) Buying you directly would be "paying you for your time" or "paying you to pass a bill" Buying you indirectly would be "paying your company for someone's time, they assign you" or "paying your campaign to curry favor with you". In the first case, you get the money/benefit. In the second case, someone else gets the money/benefit. More importantly, in the first case, you are doing a thing with a goal of a direct effect. I pay you, you write bill. In the second case, you are doing thing with a goal of an indirect effect. I donate to your campaign, i hope this makes you write bill i like. You don't get to use your campaign money to buy a house or pay for your kid's education. In fact, depending, you may have to give it back :) In any case, I don't see how you can call that "directly buying power". You are doing a thing, you are hoping it has some indirect effect.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
    - romanovcode 10y ago
      What? Fundraising is buying power directly. FB: I give you money for fundraising, you approve bills that are good for me. Congressman: OK.
      - DannyBee 10y ago
        This is quite literally indirect. Because they are not giving money to the candidate themselves , they are giving money to a campaign, and the candidate can't touch it.
sumitgt 10y ago
Wow, India rejected this specifically because of the concerns surrounding net-neutrality. I am surprised they are trying this in the US.
- subie 10y ago
  Surprised? I'd guess it would be easier to pass it here.
  - sumitgt 10y ago
    On second thoughts, yes.
- toomanybeersies 10y ago
  We had free Facebook on mobile phones (not sure if we still do) here in New Zealand for years (0.facebook.com). I'm not sure if it was something that our mobile providers paid for, or something that FB offered for free though.
keyboardhitter 10y ago
I wonder if Zuckerberg would be helping with the current white house initiative, or if he wants to deploy his own 'free' internet? https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/09/21/new-steps-deliver-high-speed-broadband-across-united-states https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/09/21/new-steps-deliver...
x1798DE 10y ago
Why is it "'free' internet"? I would think that it should be "free 'internet'", since the issue isn't that there's a hidden price, but that it's not really the internet.
- jwtadvice 10y ago
  The hidden price is advertising, platform lock-in, surveillance-as-a-service and propaganda-as-a-service. So maybe "'free' 'internet'".
dopamean 10y ago
I don't want free internet. I'm not willing to concede whatever it is facebook wants in order for it to be free. We already have problems with ISPs injecting crap into requests. I don't trust facebook to provide something that crucial without screwing me over somehow.
- JTon 10y ago
  Agreed. But perhaps it's worth it for people who are unable or struggle to afford internet?
  - zachlatta 10y ago
    No. Nobody should have to pay for their freedom.
  - krapp 10y ago
    No. Facebook engages in propaganda and psychological manipulation. It would be better for those people to avoid the internet altogether than for their only connection to it to be an NSA Skinner box designed to distort their worldview, profile them and every one they know, and mine their identities for profit. edit: ok, "NSA Skinner box" may be a bit hyperbolic, but Facebook is still a PRISM participant that engages in emotional manipulation and ideological filtering, and they have a deeply vested interest in surveillance, profiling and correlating user data. Why would anyone trust them to act as a gateway for the internet? Ever?
    - ythl 10y ago
      > Facebook engages in propaganda and psychological manipulation. Wasn't Facebook caught scrubbing positive conservative news stories in the past? I could see secret deals between facebook and political parties regarding the consumers of their "free" internet.
      - fweespeech 10y ago
        > Wasn't Facebook caught scrubbing positive conservative news stories in the past? I could see secret deals between facebook and political parties regarding the consumers of their "free" internet. Yes but it wasn't because of a secret deal (and would likely never be such). SF/SV just leans more liberal and its conservatives are generally libertarians. So, natural biases were likely the only cause and why pay for what you can get for free? I think every Democrat would agree the GOP being killed off by the Libertarians would be a good thing simply because it narrows the scope to fighting over financial/economic issues and related civil rights issues. Rather than fighting over things like abortion and having the GOP quietly use building codes and other tricks to kill abortion clinics anyway.
angryredblock 10y ago
What? A megacorp trying to erode net neutrality under the guise of philanthropy? Shocking.
eggie 10y ago
I find it hard to believe that monopolistic control of the media is good for the happiness of people in totalitarian regimes. By analogy I think the maintenance of the public space in common is important for the good of all. Projects like this run up against that need, and should be blocked when promoted by profit or power-seeking entities. Net neutrality aside, let's consider the image promoted by the company. It is brazenly false advertising. A product where the user is made to do useful work for the company should cannot possibly be free to that person.
daveloyall 10y ago
Uh-oh, the average USAmerican probably doesn't know what "If you aren't paying for it, you're the product" means. :/
Jade_Jet 10y ago
And of course Facebook is considered a basic internet necessity by Facebook. I could potentially understand an argument for .gov addresses (still would be against it) but this is just a weakly veiled attempt at forcing Facebook down more people's throats. Sadly I wouldn't be surprised when this or something like it becomes a reality.
pessimizer 10y ago
This reeks of bipartisanship; either major presidential candidate will help push this if elected. Facebook is 99% likely to be able and 100% likely to be willing to book either of them for speeches once they're out of office. No threat of an "anti-colonial" mindset amongst US elites.
shkkmo 10y ago
I found this line intriguing: > In the wake of the uproar, Facebook updated its approach to Free Basics. It currently allows any third-party organization to offer its services as part of the program, provided that the organization's developers abide by terms that, for example, prohibit the use of high-definition images or video that could consume a great deal of mobile data. So I took a look at https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-org/participation-guidelines https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-org/participat... These jump out at me: >Your site(s) may be proxied to make your content available through Free Basics. You can let us know that you want to pull your site(s) from Free Basics at any time, but because we may need to make product and marketing adjustments, we may require 60 days from receipt of your notice to transition gracefully. >In order for your content to be proxied as described above, your URLs may be re-written and embedded content (like javascript and content originating from another domain) removed. In addition, secure content is not supported and may not load. Then looking deeper at the technical guidelines: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-org/platform-technical-guidelines https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-org/platform-t... >HTTPS support >We encrypt information for Free Basics wherever possible. When people use the Free Basics Android app, their traffic is encrypted end-to-end unless you specify that your service should be HTTP only. For the Free Basics website in a mobile browser, we use a “dual certificate” model to encrypt traffic between a person's device and our servers in both directions. If your server supports HTTPS, we will also encrypt traffic between our servers and yours. Even if your service doesn't yet support HTTPS, where possible we will encrypt that information between our servers and people's devices unless you ask us to not use dual certificate HTTPS. 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. So anybody using 'Free Basics' is giving Facebook full access to their encrypted data. That seems like significantly more than just the 'not using high-definition images or video' claim the article makes.
- shkkmo 10y ago
  And does: >Any data (e.g., proxy requests) or reporting we provide is deemed Facebook confidential information and cannot be used by you for any advertising purposes or shared with third parties. Mean that facebook now owns your request logs and you can't share them with third parties?
bdrool 10y ago
Free internet, or just free Facebook (plus a few token sites to look like they're trying)? Seriously, is there anyone left who isn't fully aware this is just a ploy to create more lock-in and entrenchment, disguised as charity?
joelrunyon 10y ago
This was the plot of Kingsmen. It didn't turn out too well...
ikeboy 10y ago
Ring plus and Freedompop and T-Mobile already offer basic free internet for various amounts of data. I don't see a need for this.
trengrj 10y ago
We need to be absolutely strict on net neutrality and zero rating or we will end up with something a lot worse than Facebooks "free" internet. It is hard to argue against free Netflix etc but the end goal of these activities is clearly to centralise the internet (targeting poorer / disadvantaged people first), and turn the internet into a modern television-like propaganda machine.
resonantjacket5 10y ago
Ive been thinking about it and Im fine with ""Free Basics"" of lets say wikipedia or some city/ weather.org websites or other Non-profits. However I have no idea why Facebook should be the gatekeeper nor why Facebook or any large corporation should be on Free Basics.

41 points by af16090 10y ago

Overtonwindow 10y ago

Didn't this fail in India?

daveloyall 10y ago
Psst.. it mentions that in the article you are commenting on...
- Overtonwindow 10y ago
  Sotto voce: I'm being sarcastically rhetorical. ;-)
romanovcode 10y ago
It has more chance to succeed in U.S. because they can buy political power directly and more easily.
- DannyBee 10y ago
  Only engineers think this. It's really not that easy to buy power directly, because most senators/congressman/etc are already wealthy.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    Isn't like one of the biggest job satisfaction complaints Senators and Congresspeople have the amount of time they have to spend every week fundraising?
    - DannyBee 10y ago
      Yes. But fundraising is indirect, not direct :) Buying you directly would be "paying you for your time" or "paying you to pass a bill" Buying you indirectly would be "paying your company for someone's time, they assign you" or "paying your campaign to curry favor with you". In the first case, you get the money/benefit. In the second case, someone else gets the money/benefit. More importantly, in the first case, you are doing a thing with a goal of a direct effect. I pay you, you write bill. In the second case, you are doing thing with a goal of an indirect effect. I donate to your campaign, i hope this makes you write bill i like. You don't get to use your campaign money to buy a house or pay for your kid's education. In fact, depending, you may have to give it back :) In any case, I don't see how you can call that "directly buying power". You are doing a thing, you are hoping it has some indirect effect.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - romanovcode 10y ago
    What? Fundraising is buying power directly. FB: I give you money for fundraising, you approve bills that are good for me. Congressman: OK.
    - DannyBee 10y ago
      This is quite literally indirect. Because they are not giving money to the candidate themselves , they are giving money to a campaign, and the candidate can't touch it.

sumitgt 10y ago

Wow, India rejected this specifically because of the concerns surrounding net-neutrality. I am surprised they are trying this in the US.

subie 10y ago
Surprised? I'd guess it would be easier to pass it here.
- sumitgt 10y ago
  On second thoughts, yes.
toomanybeersies 10y ago
We had free Facebook on mobile phones (not sure if we still do) here in New Zealand for years (0.facebook.com). I'm not sure if it was something that our mobile providers paid for, or something that FB offered for free though.

keyboardhitter 10y ago

I wonder if Zuckerberg would be helping with the current white house initiative, or if he wants to deploy his own 'free' internet? https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/09/21/new-steps-deliver-high-speed-broadband-across-united-states https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/09/21/new-steps-deliver...

x1798DE 10y ago

Why is it "'free' internet"? I would think that it should be "free 'internet'", since the issue isn't that there's a hidden price, but that it's not really the internet.

jwtadvice 10y ago
The hidden price is advertising, platform lock-in, surveillance-as-a-service and propaganda-as-a-service. So maybe "'free' 'internet'".

dopamean 10y ago

I don't want free internet. I'm not willing to concede whatever it is facebook wants in order for it to be free. We already have problems with ISPs injecting crap into requests. I don't trust facebook to provide something that crucial without screwing me over somehow.

JTon 10y ago
Agreed. But perhaps it's worth it for people who are unable or struggle to afford internet?
- zachlatta 10y ago
  No. Nobody should have to pay for their freedom.
- krapp 10y ago
  No. Facebook engages in propaganda and psychological manipulation. It would be better for those people to avoid the internet altogether than for their only connection to it to be an NSA Skinner box designed to distort their worldview, profile them and every one they know, and mine their identities for profit. edit: ok, "NSA Skinner box" may be a bit hyperbolic, but Facebook is still a PRISM participant that engages in emotional manipulation and ideological filtering, and they have a deeply vested interest in surveillance, profiling and correlating user data. Why would anyone trust them to act as a gateway for the internet? Ever?
  - ythl 10y ago
    > Facebook engages in propaganda and psychological manipulation. Wasn't Facebook caught scrubbing positive conservative news stories in the past? I could see secret deals between facebook and political parties regarding the consumers of their "free" internet.
    - fweespeech 10y ago
      > Wasn't Facebook caught scrubbing positive conservative news stories in the past? I could see secret deals between facebook and political parties regarding the consumers of their "free" internet. Yes but it wasn't because of a secret deal (and would likely never be such). SF/SV just leans more liberal and its conservatives are generally libertarians. So, natural biases were likely the only cause and why pay for what you can get for free? I think every Democrat would agree the GOP being killed off by the Libertarians would be a good thing simply because it narrows the scope to fighting over financial/economic issues and related civil rights issues. Rather than fighting over things like abortion and having the GOP quietly use building codes and other tricks to kill abortion clinics anyway.

angryredblock 10y ago

What? A megacorp trying to erode net neutrality under the guise of philanthropy? Shocking.

eggie 10y ago

I find it hard to believe that monopolistic control of the media is good for the happiness of people in totalitarian regimes. By analogy I think the maintenance of the public space in common is important for the good of all. Projects like this run up against that need, and should be blocked when promoted by profit or power-seeking entities. Net neutrality aside, let's consider the image promoted by the company. It is brazenly false advertising. A product where the user is made to do useful work for the company should cannot possibly be free to that person.

daveloyall 10y ago

Uh-oh, the average USAmerican probably doesn't know what "If you aren't paying for it, you're the product" means. :/

Jade_Jet 10y ago

And of course Facebook is considered a basic internet necessity by Facebook. I could potentially understand an argument for .gov addresses (still would be against it) but this is just a weakly veiled attempt at forcing Facebook down more people's throats. Sadly I wouldn't be surprised when this or something like it becomes a reality.

pessimizer 10y ago

This reeks of bipartisanship; either major presidential candidate will help push this if elected. Facebook is 99% likely to be able and 100% likely to be willing to book either of them for speeches once they're out of office. No threat of an "anti-colonial" mindset amongst US elites.

shkkmo 10y ago

I found this line intriguing: > In the wake of the uproar, Facebook updated its approach to Free Basics. It currently allows any third-party organization to offer its services as part of the program, provided that the organization's developers abide by terms that, for example, prohibit the use of high-definition images or video that could consume a great deal of mobile data. So I took a look at https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-org/participation-guidelines https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-org/participat... These jump out at me: >Your site(s) may be proxied to make your content available through Free Basics. You can let us know that you want to pull your site(s) from Free Basics at any time, but because we may need to make product and marketing adjustments, we may require 60 days from receipt of your notice to transition gracefully. >In order for your content to be proxied as described above, your URLs may be re-written and embedded content (like javascript and content originating from another domain) removed. In addition, secure content is not supported and may not load. Then looking deeper at the technical guidelines: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-org/platform-technical-guidelines https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-org/platform-t... >HTTPS support >We encrypt information for Free Basics wherever possible. When people use the Free Basics Android app, their traffic is encrypted end-to-end unless you specify that your service should be HTTP only. For the Free Basics website in a mobile browser, we use a “dual certificate” model to encrypt traffic between a person's device and our servers in both directions. If your server supports HTTPS, we will also encrypt traffic between our servers and yours. Even if your service doesn't yet support HTTPS, where possible we will encrypt that information between our servers and people's devices unless you ask us to not use dual certificate HTTPS. 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. So anybody using 'Free Basics' is giving Facebook full access to their encrypted data. That seems like significantly more than just the 'not using high-definition images or video' claim the article makes.

shkkmo 10y ago
And does: >Any data (e.g., proxy requests) or reporting we provide is deemed Facebook confidential information and cannot be used by you for any advertising purposes or shared with third parties. Mean that facebook now owns your request logs and you can't share them with third parties?

bdrool 10y ago

Free internet, or just free Facebook (plus a few token sites to look like they're trying)? Seriously, is there anyone left who isn't fully aware this is just a ploy to create more lock-in and entrenchment, disguised as charity?

joelrunyon 10y ago

This was the plot of Kingsmen. It didn't turn out too well...

ikeboy 10y ago

Ring plus and Freedompop and T-Mobile already offer basic free internet for various amounts of data. I don't see a need for this.

trengrj 10y ago

We need to be absolutely strict on net neutrality and zero rating or we will end up with something a lot worse than Facebooks "free" internet. It is hard to argue against free Netflix etc but the end goal of these activities is clearly to centralise the internet (targeting poorer / disadvantaged people first), and turn the internet into a modern television-like propaganda machine.

resonantjacket5 10y ago

Ive been thinking about it and Im fine with ""Free Basics"" of lets say wikipedia or some city/ weather.org websites or other Non-profits. However I have no idea why Facebook should be the gatekeeper nor why Facebook or any large corporation should be on Free Basics.