
Introducing the Internet.org App - djug
http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/07/introducing-the-internet-org-app/
======
quink
> The Internet.org app will be available first to Airtel subscribers in Zambia
> and we’ll continue to improve the experience and roll it out to other parts
> of the world.

And by coincidence this is how net neutrality as a concept will not be a thing
in Zambia going forward.

Screw you, Facebook. Your efforts to lock in the next few billion into an
ecosystem controlled by you are utterly despicable.
[http://i.imgur.com/5RrWm.png](http://i.imgur.com/5RrWm.png)

If you truly cared about doing something good, how about creating something
like standardising a low bandwidth HTTP header? How about just channelling
money into actual investments in infrastructure? How about working on
multicasting information cheaply out instead of unicasting it to every single
locked in member of your ecosystem? Why Wikipedia and not Urban Dictionary,
Internet Archive, Project Gutenberg or GitHub?

Please let us know if you're going to be the winners and losers picker in the
way I can see from the screenshots of your app so we may, and this may be a
tad hyperbolic, prepare your very well deserved destruction. Who exactly
elected Mr. Zuckerberg as Mr. "I decide what free (pun intended) speech is"?

~~~
walterbell
It's unfortunate that 7 commercial entities have adopted the internet.org
brand. When I read the headline, I assumed this was from the Internet Society,
but they are [http://www.internetsociety.org](http://www.internetsociety.org)
.

Anyone know which non-profit organizations have a governance role in
internet.org?

------
choffee
Is there somewhere to complain about the domain name being an .org as this
seems to be the opposite of the internet. Why don't they just give people
200Mb of free data if they really want to promote the internet. A better site
name might be corpnet.com lockinnet.com.

~~~
sfeng
They're giving people something for free. It's hard to complain about that.

~~~
walterbell
7 corporations get to decide what the word "internet" means or which
books/sites are free? What about the other N-7 corporations in the world?

------
raman325
The optimist in me applauds Facebook for the effort to provide basic data
access to the developing world.

The pessimist in me wonders if this is simply a brilliant strategy by Facebook
to acquire the 4.5 billion people who aren't currently connected without
having to compete with others. What's different between this and getting rid
of net neutrality aside from side stepping the government entirely and doing
it under the premise of helping the world become a better place?

The realist in me guesses that they probably see both sides and consider it a
win/win scenario. I mean, wouldn't you?

~~~
devcpp
>wouldn't you

No I wouldn't. I've hoped too many times that this kind of monopolist-but-
beneficial scheme would work for the best, only to be consistently
disappointed that the company behind it will use it only for its own interests
when it's in a bad situation. And then everyone wonders "why did we let this
happen?" Yeah...

~~~
whistlerbrk
Agreed, and questionable integrations like _this_ feel connected to me:
[http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/07/30/sprint-tries-a-
facebo...](http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/07/30/sprint-tries-a-facebook-
only-wireless-plan/)

------
aaronbrethorst
One of my sisters and her husband live in Zambia, where they do public health
work. Specifically, he works on malaria[1], and one of the greatest challenges
he faces is field data collection. Enabling everyone with a compatible phone
to send in data would, I'm sure, be incredibly valuable.

I'm bummed that there aren't any public health tools included in this app.
Hopefully they'll consider adding something like that in the future.

[1] Malaria affects almost 1/3 of the country's population annually:
[http://www.unicef.org/zambia/5109_8454.html](http://www.unicef.org/zambia/5109_8454.html)

~~~
cine
FactsForLife is included, doesn't that count as a public health tool? Not sure
what you mean specifically, but this appears to at least educate around a lot
of health topics.
[http://www.factsforlifeglobal.org/](http://www.factsforlifeglobal.org/)

I can see the value of data collection too though, but I think for a person
accessing the internet for the first time, they would be more interested in
gaining information than sending data about themselves into the void.

------
dm2
I guess it's official, Facebook isn't going anywhere and will continue to
become more and more part of our lives. They're getting close to the level of
Google (which I do trust with my data because they are transparent about most
issues before people start asking them to be).

[http://newsroom.fb.com/pages-directory/](http://newsroom.fb.com/pages-
directory/)

[http://newsroom.fb.com/resources-projects/](http://newsroom.fb.com/resources-
projects/)

We can avoid Facebook all we want but one of these days there is going to be
an app or product that's superior to all competitors and were going to be
required to use our Facebook login, for many of us it's already happened.

I wish they would allow us to restrict what information was given to apps,
whether or not the apps "required" it. I never login with Facebook but
sometimes check the permissions it asks for, all friends, all info, etc are
the norm. I don't want any service to have access to my list of friends,
photos (that not even friends can see), and any app my friends have can access
my information, I just don't trust the apps/services not to misuse the data or
to have the data stolen.

I'm starting to trust Facebook a little more, but it's going to take time. I
do trust Facebook more than some sites like LinkedIn, but that's not saying
much, LinkedIn will never have my approval.

More open-source technologies (and services) and less requirements to "connect
your Facebook profile" would go a long way in my opinion. Give users the
option to connect Facebook and the adoption rate (and trust level) will be
much greater.

~~~
kome
How can you trust facebook? How a non net-neutral Internet is good for Zambia?

It's just clever marketing from facebook. Nothing else. Creating news
costumers _forced_ to use faceboook to keep his numbers high and growing.

Its shady privacy policy and unethical experiments (and don't forget the NSA
collaboration) makes of Facebook one of the worst corporations out there.

I invite you to close your account.

~~~
dm2
You're probably right, I'm just giving them the benefit of the doubt, they
have been trying very hard the past few years to recreate their image and
implement privacy controls.

I saw recently one person talking about when you delete your Facebook account
it's a true delete rather than a soft-delete, but I'm not sure how true that
is, stuff like that goes a long way and matters to me.

~~~
kybernetyk
> I'm just giving them the benefit of the doubt

You can't give them that benefit because their company culture was founded on
"They trust me — dumb fucks" [0]

[0]
[http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg)

------
Kinnard
Wait. I don't understand. Why not just give people http?

~~~
aw3c2
They would get the wrong idea. Access to information should not be free, the
internet as it happened to develop was a mistake. We must make sure we don't
let the third-world make the same.

~~~
reitanqild
Meta: For anyone who didn't recognize it at first sight, this is sarcasm.
Relevant such even if I and you don't necessarily agree.

(If you are about to downvote parent because he is wrong, read up on sarcasm
and count to ten. If you happen to think it was more irrelavant or more out-
of-place than most stuff here I can certainly see that, go ahead and downvote
: )

PS: This comment really shouldn't be necessary but I have seen examples lately
of people failing to not only appreciate well-placed sarcasm but also
recognize it, as seen by the fact that they will start arguing how the parent
comment is wrong. Sarcasm, well used, is^h^h used to be a very powerful
technique because of the way it can expose the stupidity of something.

~~~
pjc50
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law)

There are plenty of powerful people seriously arguing that the free internet
is a bad thing.

------
gioele
Welcome to the Internet where you exist only if you beg the powers that be to
include you in a list.

This is the first time in my life I see a "country" going from democracy to
aristocracy.

------
ChikkaChiChi
It's going to take Amazon being added to a list like this before the rest of
the Capitalists lose their minds over this.

* Where is the documentation about the methodology for selecting what apps are available?

* Why is Accuweather, a private company, offered top billing over other global wearther forecasting services?

* Why is Google given "Internet Search" billing over Bing or DuckDuckGo? What happens if a company in Zambia wants to create their own search engine? How can they penetrate a market?

I wasn't expecting the closed Internet to ramp up this quickly, but this is
absolutely terrifying to me from a consumer and business viewpoint.

------
skyebook
Net Neutrality issues aside (even though they scare me), it bothers me that
they'd produce this in English as only 16% of the population speaks
English.[0] A tiny percentage of Zambians claim English as their first
language, what about the rest of the people who either don't have access to
schools (where English is taught[1]) or don't have the level of comprehension
required to navigate.

I would venture a guess that by filtering the numbers of English speakers by
those who own mobile phones you'd jack up the percentage of English speakers,
still.. this feels like it was designed more as a play to drive new users to
sites than to genuinely get good information into the hands of those who need
it.

Of course, I can't actually find the app anywhere, so if it were to come out
that the app actually includes Bemba or Nyanja localizations.. I'd be taking a
different tone. (FWIW, Facebook doesn't appear to support either [2])

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-
sp...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-
speaking_population)

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Zambia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Zambia)

[2]
[https://www.facebook.com/translations/FacebookLocales.xml](https://www.facebook.com/translations/FacebookLocales.xml)

------
fred_durst
Interesting timing considering Sprint just announced the Facebook plan for
$12/month.

And internet.org reeks of imperialism in the worst way.

~~~
smanuel
Yep, and all the hypocrisy...

Internet.org — Every one of us. Everywhere. Connected.

When the blatant truth is:

Internet.org — Every one of us. Everywhere. Connected. Through Facebook.
Because we need MOAR users! To serve MOAR ads.

~~~
fred_durst
I don't know. I think its closer to the good ol' East India Company pushing
Opium around the world. No one needs Facebook. It's addictive and warps a
persons perspective of the world around them and their friends and family.

------
lucb1e
My perspective on this as I just said to someone:

It's an opportunity I wouldn't pass on I guess, but this is basically net
neutrality in reverse.

When companies start deciding which websites are free and for which you pay
the "normal" price, suddenly the normal price is extra.

</open-internet>

\---

So yeah a Facebook app that offers Facebook access for free. How convenient,
right? For good measure throw in another few services that look good but are
still limited (google search without being able to click any links? Lovely)
and we have something that we can present as a good thing to the world.

~~~
walterbell
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town)

~~~
jonnykry
Wow. I feel deceived for thinking this was a good idea.

I mean, it is a good idea... but this link's relevance is troubling.

~~~
walterbell
Facebook PR has the analytics benefit of a big database of human emotions.
Much opportunity for fine tuning of messages :(

------
martius
It's hard to have a clear perspective on this.

Obviously it's again net neutrality, and there are probably a lot of better
ways to give access to Internet to people who don't have it. On the other end,
I'd like to think it can be really useful to some people.

I regret however that the conditions and the process to be integrated to the
app are not clearly stated.

For instance, it should be required that a service is accessible without
restriction of any kind, and be interoperable... and Facebook Messenger
doesn't meet these requirements.

------
happyshadows
Seems like a throwback to the days of the web portal (ala Yahoo.)

~~~
frik
yes, like a mixture of:

* original _The Microsoft Network_ (1994-1995) the MSN client that shipped with Win95 (instead of a web browser) that was meant as an alternative to the WWW; or similar limited portal services like America Online, CompuServe that are now obsolete

* portal websites with widgets like Yahoo, AltaVista, MSN (1996+)

* HTML5 web app store (btw. the Mozilla smartphone shown in the video already has an official Mozilla web app store)

------
sniuff
I don't understand why is everyone here crying how evil this is. They are
going to provide FREE Internet access to the basic websites and how that is a
bad thing?

~~~
__david__
It's not free "internet" access. The "Internet" is the place where I can route
arbitrary IP packets to any other host on the net. It is _not_ 7 or 8 sites
chosen by God speaking HTTP on port 80 (443 if you're lucky).

------
miralabs
I dont get the included Google Search. If you have limited sites where you can
use the data, what's the use of searching the internet?

------
recursion1133
Wow, this is annoying. But, people should have access to the internet, so it's
good I suppose. It really looks like someone's trying a new form of
censorship. Here's hoping Google brings free speech to people (facebook is the
king of sleezily building reputation). Also looks like facebook's trying to
get rid of Google.

------
frik
The _internet.org_ website is down:
[http://www.isitdownrightnow.com/internet.org.html](http://www.isitdownrightnow.com/internet.org.html)

    
    
      500 Internal Server Error
    

\-- [http://www.internet.org](http://www.internet.org)

~~~
pations9
Site is working here without a problem.

~~~
frik
Internet.org was down for everyone two hours ago. I checked it also with
isitdownrightnow.com and downforeveryoneorjustme.com. Probably the
Reddit/Slashdot/HN effect or a DNS cache on their side.

It works fine now.

------
sgarbi
you want the internet to be widespread? Promote things like long-range wifi
and mesh networks.

~~~
dm2
This is a great idea for Facebook! They're in the perfect position to have
widespread adoption quickly and the service would be invaluable. Privacy would
be key though, they'd have to opensource it and prove to people that it's
secure and private.

~~~
bithive123
Ideally Facebook would engineer itself out of existence, but I'm not holding
my breath.

~~~
dm2
Won't happen, I've been waiting for them to become like MySpace but it just
hasn't happened.

Facebook is the best at social media, there's no denying that. I would support
them if they would have stayed small, simple, and private, but they kept
adding, tracking, Sharing, Liking, Poking, etc.

------
djtidau
What a good way to do some social good whilst also opening up a new userbase
that was not previously accessible.

With Facebook and FaceBook Messages both in the available applications, they
get a foothold there ahead of their competitors.

~~~
thejosh
Ah yes, because the very poor have a good disposable income.

------
wegi
If they want to privde Internet for everyone, why don't they use their money
to fund, for example, DTN research? Ah right, then they couldn't collect every
move the internet user makes onlne.

------
SimeVidas
“Internet.org is a global partnership between technology leaders, nonprofits,
local communities and experts…” - Which nonprofits? Not listed in the founding
members.

------
alokyadav15
Its nice to see , Indian Telecom giant "Airtel" is one of the partners of
internet.org

------
fiatjaf
Somalia has fast internet everywhere despite not having had a State for almost
20 years.

Despite?

------
aestetix
I love how this is posted on facebook.com and not internet.org.

------
sparkzilla
First Ebola, now Facebook.

------
exit
this is anti net neutrality

------
volent
It's funny how they describe the app as "providing a set of [...] basic
services" and they include Facebook.

Not a basic service at all in my opinion.

(Also there is no Twitter, what a surprise !)

~~~
octo_t
communication is a basic service (and human right!)

~~~
__david__
Are you implying that access to Facebook is a human right?

