Techcrunch article by Jon Russell on how Facebook is pretending (very badly, like one unpracticed in the art) to be nice by opening up its Internet.org branch to a few more developers.
In case you are not familiar with this bit of exploitation of the poor, the claimed ‘public service’ aspect of Internet.org is that it gets people online who would otherwise be unable to afford it, specifically in the third world, by making access to (some) online services free of data charges. I’d have to agree, that sounds nice enough, and that’s certainly the spin Zuckerberg puts on it. The evil side of it is that it is essentially a portal to Facebook and a few hand-filtered other sites, not the Internet as we know it, it is immensely destructive to net neutrality, and is nothing more than a bare-faced attempt to make money out of people that have too little of it, and to hook them into Facebook’s all-consuming centralized people farm. Zuckerberg is allegedly proud of the fact that around half of the millions that have signed up thus far have moved on to paid plans that actually do allow access to the Internet – likely the reason for the (otherwise odd) inclusion of Google Search in the original small lineup of options, inasmuch as non-approved sites come with a warning that users need to buy the real thing now. Of course, by that time, they are already Facebook sign-ups too, which is what this is really about. This is much the same tactic used by drug dealers seeking new customers by giving out samples and it similarly immoral. It is absurd to suggest, as Zuckerberg apparently does, that allowing a few more people to develop for the platform and suggesting that they in turn allow access to further sites (as long as they conform to Facebook’s conditions) makes it in any way more open. It is coercing companies into using the app using much the same techniques it applies to building people’s social networks. A filtered internet via a Facebook-controlled app is not the free (as in speech) and open Internet and, ultimately, the most notable beneficiary is Facebook, though it is certainly doing the partner operators no harm either. The choice of domain name is cynical in the extreme – I’d admire the chutzpah if it were not so ugly. My respect goes to the many Indian companies that are pulling out in protest at its shameless destruction of net neutrality and greedy marketing under the false banner of philanthropy.
Address of the bookmark: http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/27/facebook-internet-org-one/
