Mark Zuckerberg Equates Facebook ‘Free Basics’ to Net Neutrality

[tangor]

DISCLAIMER: This is a non-tech article regarding Facebook's FREE BASIC entry into the Indian sub-continent and how it is set up. As far as advertising it reveals FB's attempt to build a brand awareness "overnight" among Indians while tracking a few billion potential users' behavior with, perhaps, marketing and advertising coming at a later time.

In a Times of India post, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg compares his Free Basics pitch to public libraries, schools, and hospitals. Pay no attention to the fact that his latest humanitarian plan is intensely self-serving. Again.

The “Free Basics” plan that Zuckerberg touts with such moral gravity is, in fact, just a gateway to a massive untapped Facebook demographic. And that’s exactly what he wants to remedy; Free Basics will allow the unwashed masses of India access to his social media network, and very little else. Nothing, in fact, other than what Facebook has approved.

[breitbart.com...]

[tangor]

Facebook 'Free Basics' service frozen in Egypt
Facebook's “Free Basics” service - which bundles together the Social NetworkTM's pick of news, weather and health apps and delivers it via UAE telecoms giant Etisalat to millions of Egyptians - has been shuttered in the land of pyramids.

[theregister.co.uk...]

Rather than start a new thread, will collect other reports of Free Basic either as fail, challenge, or on hold here.

[toidi]

Oh look, his lips are moving, you know what that means.

[tangor]

Facebook under attack for its attacks on net neutrality
A group of 30 non-profits and net neutrality advocates have posted a snippy open letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg complaining about his "attacks" on Indian internet users.

Last month, the social media giant's Free Basics program, which provides free access to specific internet websites and services, was paused in India after the Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said it was reviewing it on net neutrality grounds. Soon after, the same program was frozen in Egypt.

Facebook has responded by taking out full-page ads in newspapers, urging its users to sign a petition to the TRAI, and Zuckerberg put his name to an editorial in the Times of India in which he argued "India must choose facts over fiction."

[theregister.co.uk...]

[tangor]

Facebook is no charity, and the ‘free’ in Free Basics comes at a price

Who could possibly be against free internet access? This is the question Mark Zuckerberg asks in a piece for the Times of India in which he claims Facebook’s Free Basics service “protects net neutrality”.

Free Basics is the rebranded Internet.org, a Facebook operation where by partnering with local telecoms firms in the developing world the firm offers free internet access – limited only to Facebook, Facebook-owned WhatsApp, and a few other carefully selected sites and services.

...

This is not a charity

First, despite his claims to the contrary, Free Basics clearly runs against the idea of net neutrality by offering access to some sites and not others. While the service is claimed to be open to any app, site or service, in practice the submission guidelines forbid JavaScript, video, large images, and Flash, and effectively rule out secure connections using HTTPS.

[theregister.co.uk...]