4 ms·

Cool pet project, admirable engineering etc. My comment is about something else: net neutrality, as someone already mentioned. I was teaching English in Laos

by kmarc 4y ago

Cool pet project, admirable engineering etc. My comment is about something else: net neutrality, as someone already mentioned. I was teaching English in Laos for school kids. I was amazed that some of their families struggle with providing (nutritious enough) food for their children, yet, everyone had smartphones with always-on 4G,even in the countryside - however, no WiFi almost anywhere. The brains of these kids are like sponge. They WANT to learn, they're shy, but they want to speak, to read, to practice English. They also like to (constantly) sing (something that is badly missing from western schools), so at one point I referred them to "simple English Wikipedia", where they can research their favorite singers with easy-to-process articles. Empty stares. "so instead of Wikipedia.org, you go to simple.wikipedia.org." Still nothing. I had to realize later that even if they knew that this free, always available encyclopedia exists, it's NOT included in their 4G subscription. Yes, you guessed correctly: those subscriptions are sponsored by big US / Chinese corps, so all these kids had were Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and TikTok, everything else costs ~10$ which is days worth of meals for whole families there.

867-5309 4y ago
in this instance a simple vpn or proxy should suffice. they could get by on free subscriptions for textual content
- Snowworm 4y ago
  If they whitelisted only social media rather than blacklisting websites, I highly doubt a VPN or proxy would work unless it was provided by Google, Facebook or Tiktok.
- kmarc 4y ago
  > vpn > proxy These are solutions for ME and YOU when we are there as tourists (if we really want to chop off that $10 from our travel budget). Probably not a solution for people who have never heard of websites like Wikipedia.
  - 867-5309 4y ago
    if you are introducing them to a new website, they will have to remember the address, or create a shortcut/homepage vpns have "set and forget" autoconnect functionality it's quite common practice for the more liberal East. how do you think they access the wider internet otherwise?
    - KolenCh 4y ago
      They are talking about people in Laos, and the sponsored $10 subscription is considered to be a significant portion of their spending already. Why are you then comparing to rich people in China where VPN is commodity?
      - 867-5309 4y ago
        >they could get by on free subscriptions
        yorwba 4y ago
        > all these kids had were Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and TikTok, everything else costs ~10$ I don't think any of those four products includes free VPN. You'd need to tunnel Wikipedia through WhatsApp instead, or something.
        867-5309 4y ago
        I don't think that's a representation of the full picture. a cheap android phone would undoubtedly also come with google preinstalled, thus cache/AMP access to Wikipedia I don't think a telecoms company or phone manufacturer could reliably restrict the ever changing landscape of internet access without affecting usability and social media consumption I don't think they are using customised iPhones where perhaps such limits may be imposed I don't think any determined Laotian kid would consider a free vpn an obstacle I don't think it's unreasonable to say where there's a will there's a way I don't think it's an impossible feat
- andrewxdiamond 4y ago
  How would a VPN work if there is an allowlist of domains? The VPN traffic would get blocked, no?
  - 867-5309 4y ago
    they operate at a lower OSI level and use various obfuscation techniques
    - FrenchDevRemote 4y ago
      I don't see how that change anything They obviously charge for anything that is no whitelisted And the IP of the VPN all the traffic would pass through is definetly not whitelisted... If they allow Google you could MAYBE host a VPN on google cloud but besides that there is absolutely no way this changes anything
McNutty 4y ago
If you know anyone still involved over there you should let them know about the Kiwix project! >Kiwix is an offline reader for online content like Wikipedia, Project Gutenberg, or TED Talks. It makes knowledge available to people with no or limited internet access. The software as well as the content is free to use for anyone.
- kmarc 4y ago
  Kiwix is nice. Also from your comment, I feel that I definitely fail to communicate what the actual problem is. The problem is NOT that the kids (and their teachers) cannot access certain sites. Although they might not be able to afford it, if they want. The problem is that they DON'T KNOW that internet sites exist. For a kid who was born into the era where a magical handheld thing can show his friends' life and funny videos, a "website" means nothing. I even didn't want to write handheld television screen, because most of them haven't even seen a television before. They don't know that wikipedia exists at all. Another anecdote (maybe I should summarize it in a post somewhere) is that the teachers were using Oxford Press's Headway [1] books. Excellent series, many of us in Europe learned English from these books. It improves your vocabulary a lot, teaches you words like "coin", "train conductor", "mp3 player" and so on. Now let's see what does NOT exist in Laos, at all: - mp3 players - TRAINS!!! - and, well, coins (Lao Kips start at 1.000 bills (10¢) IIRC and last time coins were issued was 40years ago. In the 2mo I stayed there, never saw a coin, nor the kids I was teaching). It's really a different world, it took me some time to even start my head wrap around it [1] https://elt.oup.com/student/headway/?cc=nl&selLanguage=en https://elt.oup.com/student/headway/?cc=nl&selLanguage=en
redeyedtreefrog 4y ago
That's interesting, inspired me to go down a bit of a wikipedia rabbit hole reading about internet.org, facebook zero, wikipedia zero, and zero-rating generally. It seems mobile wikipedia is zero-rated in many countries, but by no means all, as indicated by the table on this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-rating https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-rating Though many countries don't have any info in the above table (including Laos), and I think the "Zero Wikipedia" column may be obsolete as that project was apparently shut down in 2018.
harias 4y ago
https://internet-in-a-box.org/ https://internet-in-a-box.org/ might come in handy. Facebook tried the same in India but was quickly shutdown: https://www.wired.com/2016/02/facebooks-free-basics-app-is-now-banned-in-india/ https://www.wired.com/2016/02/facebooks-free-basics-app-is-n...
- Litost 4y ago
  Thanks I'd not heard of internet in a box, I love how it empowers people to determine their own requirements and solve their own issues rather than just be another excuse to form more dependencies on facebook.
- lelandfe 4y ago
  This stuff is such a gray area for me. I’m staunchly pro-net neutrality, but depriving people of the internet altogether means losing a huge asset for learning, a platform for financial success that otherwise is unattainable, and more. But then you read about the success of Facebook in emerging markets in Africa and it becomes even murkier. Basics has caused Facebook to become utterly dominant in many African countries[0], and that’s precisely what net neutrality tries to prevent. That’s so much power. I don’t know what the right answer is. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/20/facebook-second-life-the-unstoppable-rise-of-the-tech-company-in-africa https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/20/facebook-...
  - dTal 4y ago
    Is Facebook a "huge asset for learning [and] a platform for financial success"? The utter dominance of Facebook surely prevents competitors that are better suited to these things. I am not at all sure that Facebook-only is superior to no internet at all.
    - lelandfe 4y ago
      > I am not at all sure that Facebook-only is superior to no internet at all Insofar as the short term success of their users is considered, it's an unequivocal yes. There are an unbelievable number of African businesses that exist only because of the platform. As you correctly call out, it's the longer timelines that make it a dubious proposition.
KermitTheFrog 4y ago
You may try to write an email/better official mail or even visit personally to local cellulars marketing teams to include wikipedia to the subscriptions. You may propose them as PR action: future-care, education-care name it. Trust me it may definetelly works.(I did it many times("tune up" some events) but I worked inside the cellular companies) The main problem may be is to the break the "first line" of "corporative bureaucracy" defence.
- nikanj 4y ago
  Wikipedia contains non-disney-fied facts, like sex education and the Armenian genocide. Not sure if operators would be keen to include it. ”AT&T is subjecting our kids to blasphemy” is a real PR problem in many countries
- kmarc 4y ago
  It feels like this is a lost case... Since then I spent a couple months in Ecuador (and other SouthAmerican countries), and what I see, was similar: Less fortunate people, whose (only?) entertainment is TikTok/YouTube/Facebook constantly on their phones. Well, Claro (cell provider with one of the best 3G/4G coverage on Galapagos) greets you with a Facebook(!!!) page explaining that Facebook&sister apps are brought to you for free. There is zero incentive from any sides to fix this situation. The provider is not interested in ditching Meta, Meta is not interested in promoting anything else, and unfortunately most probably one of them (or both) already paid some gobernadores to shut up and keep the status quo of pointing people to ads, ads, and more ads.

by kmarc 4y ago

867-5309 4y ago

in this instance a simple vpn or proxy should suffice. they could get by on free subscriptions for textual content

Snowworm 4y ago
If they whitelisted only social media rather than blacklisting websites, I highly doubt a VPN or proxy would work unless it was provided by Google, Facebook or Tiktok.
kmarc 4y ago
> vpn > proxy These are solutions for ME and YOU when we are there as tourists (if we really want to chop off that $10 from our travel budget). Probably not a solution for people who have never heard of websites like Wikipedia.
- 867-5309 4y ago
  if you are introducing them to a new website, they will have to remember the address, or create a shortcut/homepage vpns have "set and forget" autoconnect functionality it's quite common practice for the more liberal East. how do you think they access the wider internet otherwise?
  - KolenCh 4y ago
    They are talking about people in Laos, and the sponsored $10 subscription is considered to be a significant portion of their spending already. Why are you then comparing to rich people in China where VPN is commodity?
    - 867-5309 4y ago
      >they could get by on free subscriptions
      - yorwba 4y ago
        > all these kids had were Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and TikTok, everything else costs ~10$ I don't think any of those four products includes free VPN. You'd need to tunnel Wikipedia through WhatsApp instead, or something.
        867-5309 4y ago
        I don't think that's a representation of the full picture. a cheap android phone would undoubtedly also come with google preinstalled, thus cache/AMP access to Wikipedia I don't think a telecoms company or phone manufacturer could reliably restrict the ever changing landscape of internet access without affecting usability and social media consumption I don't think they are using customised iPhones where perhaps such limits may be imposed I don't think any determined Laotian kid would consider a free vpn an obstacle I don't think it's unreasonable to say where there's a will there's a way I don't think it's an impossible feat
andrewxdiamond 4y ago
How would a VPN work if there is an allowlist of domains? The VPN traffic would get blocked, no?
- 867-5309 4y ago
  they operate at a lower OSI level and use various obfuscation techniques
  - FrenchDevRemote 4y ago
    I don't see how that change anything They obviously charge for anything that is no whitelisted And the IP of the VPN all the traffic would pass through is definetly not whitelisted... If they allow Google you could MAYBE host a VPN on google cloud but besides that there is absolutely no way this changes anything

McNutty 4y ago

If you know anyone still involved over there you should let them know about the Kiwix project! >Kiwix is an offline reader for online content like Wikipedia, Project Gutenberg, or TED Talks. It makes knowledge available to people with no or limited internet access. The software as well as the content is free to use for anyone.

kmarc 4y ago
Kiwix is nice. Also from your comment, I feel that I definitely fail to communicate what the actual problem is. The problem is NOT that the kids (and their teachers) cannot access certain sites. Although they might not be able to afford it, if they want. The problem is that they DON'T KNOW that internet sites exist. For a kid who was born into the era where a magical handheld thing can show his friends' life and funny videos, a "website" means nothing. I even didn't want to write handheld television screen, because most of them haven't even seen a television before. They don't know that wikipedia exists at all. Another anecdote (maybe I should summarize it in a post somewhere) is that the teachers were using Oxford Press's Headway [1] books. Excellent series, many of us in Europe learned English from these books. It improves your vocabulary a lot, teaches you words like "coin", "train conductor", "mp3 player" and so on. Now let's see what does NOT exist in Laos, at all: - mp3 players - TRAINS!!! - and, well, coins (Lao Kips start at 1.000 bills (10¢) IIRC and last time coins were issued was 40years ago. In the 2mo I stayed there, never saw a coin, nor the kids I was teaching). It's really a different world, it took me some time to even start my head wrap around it [1] https://elt.oup.com/student/headway/?cc=nl&selLanguage=en https://elt.oup.com/student/headway/?cc=nl&selLanguage=en

redeyedtreefrog 4y ago

That's interesting, inspired me to go down a bit of a wikipedia rabbit hole reading about internet.org, facebook zero, wikipedia zero, and zero-rating generally. It seems mobile wikipedia is zero-rated in many countries, but by no means all, as indicated by the table on this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-rating https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-rating Though many countries don't have any info in the above table (including Laos), and I think the "Zero Wikipedia" column may be obsolete as that project was apparently shut down in 2018.

harias 4y ago

https://internet-in-a-box.org/ https://internet-in-a-box.org/ might come in handy. Facebook tried the same in India but was quickly shutdown: https://www.wired.com/2016/02/facebooks-free-basics-app-is-now-banned-in-india/ https://www.wired.com/2016/02/facebooks-free-basics-app-is-n...

Litost 4y ago
Thanks I'd not heard of internet in a box, I love how it empowers people to determine their own requirements and solve their own issues rather than just be another excuse to form more dependencies on facebook.
lelandfe 4y ago
This stuff is such a gray area for me. I’m staunchly pro-net neutrality, but depriving people of the internet altogether means losing a huge asset for learning, a platform for financial success that otherwise is unattainable, and more. But then you read about the success of Facebook in emerging markets in Africa and it becomes even murkier. Basics has caused Facebook to become utterly dominant in many African countries[0], and that’s precisely what net neutrality tries to prevent. That’s so much power. I don’t know what the right answer is. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/20/facebook-second-life-the-unstoppable-rise-of-the-tech-company-in-africa https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/20/facebook-...
- dTal 4y ago
  Is Facebook a "huge asset for learning [and] a platform for financial success"? The utter dominance of Facebook surely prevents competitors that are better suited to these things. I am not at all sure that Facebook-only is superior to no internet at all.
  - lelandfe 4y ago
    > I am not at all sure that Facebook-only is superior to no internet at all Insofar as the short term success of their users is considered, it's an unequivocal yes. There are an unbelievable number of African businesses that exist only because of the platform. As you correctly call out, it's the longer timelines that make it a dubious proposition.

KermitTheFrog 4y ago

You may try to write an email/better official mail or even visit personally to local cellulars marketing teams to include wikipedia to the subscriptions. You may propose them as PR action: future-care, education-care name it. Trust me it may definetelly works.(I did it many times("tune up" some events) but I worked inside the cellular companies) The main problem may be is to the break the "first line" of "corporative bureaucracy" defence.

nikanj 4y ago
Wikipedia contains non-disney-fied facts, like sex education and the Armenian genocide. Not sure if operators would be keen to include it. ”AT&T is subjecting our kids to blasphemy” is a real PR problem in many countries
kmarc 4y ago
It feels like this is a lost case... Since then I spent a couple months in Ecuador (and other SouthAmerican countries), and what I see, was similar: Less fortunate people, whose (only?) entertainment is TikTok/YouTube/Facebook constantly on their phones. Well, Claro (cell provider with one of the best 3G/4G coverage on Galapagos) greets you with a Facebook(!!!) page explaining that Facebook&sister apps are brought to you for free. There is zero incentive from any sides to fix this situation. The provider is not interested in ditching Meta, Meta is not interested in promoting anything else, and unfortunately most probably one of them (or both) already paid some gobernadores to shut up and keep the status quo of pointing people to ads, ads, and more ads.