

Facebook for All - detcader
http://davidsasaki.name/2013/08/facebook-for-all/

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gfodor
This article falls into the common trap of being a concern troll by assuming
the next generation is not as clever as the one of the author's. There was a
time when AOL was "going online" too. Corporate interests always go in this
direction and the hackers hack around it eventually.

If Facebook runs a line to a village that only allows Facebook-only access,
you can bet your bottom dollar that that connection and hardware will be
hacked and exploited to its maximum effect, software restrictions be damned,
by the very teenagers the author assumes are too stupid, ignorant, or
whatever, to do it. I'd rather this be the status quo than no connection at
all.

What we really need to be worried about is not if Facebook is going to
restrict Facebook-only access with software and hardware tricks, but if the
_local government_ is going to back those restrictions up with guns. Send the
Mexican teenagers locked down phones, sure, but also leave it up to them what
they want to do with them. Somehow I doubt a Mexican village's law enforcement
is going to spend its time chasing down teenagers who are abusing their
Facebook-subsidized Internet connection.

Who knows, maybe Zuckerberg himself will ignore this too, much like Microsoft
and Adobe have never come down hard on kids pirating their software since it's
in their best interest the kids learn to hack and use their software in the
long run. The Facebook-only aspect to this program may very well just be what
was necessary to get the board to sign off on everything. (This is all
speculation of course.) It's in Zuck's best interest not to just get people to
use Facebook, but for kids to continue to learn how to hack and build stuff so
he can hire the smartest ones.

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Ihmahr
How could anyone believe in a facebook/zuckerberg do-good movement when their
last movement (FWD.US) was so incredibly backwards?

~~~
antihero
What was backwards about FWD.us? I thought Facebook was trying to make it
easier for companies to hire internationally?

I'm not saying I disagree, and am of course sceptical of Facebook however, you
provide _nothing_ to the debate.

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namenotrequired
Let's hope Facebook's move will lead others to try and get the same market.

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johnvschmitt
Yes, "Facebook for All" is not the same as "Internet for All".

But, it certainly won't end there. I'm sure that many people who are users of
any tech, will someday become makers in tech.

I was a user first, before I was a builder, in any platform. First you use it.
Then, you figure it out. You take it apart & study it, see similar things all
around you now. Then, you repurpose it, combine it, fix it, build something
better than it, etc.

It's not a bad thing to get corporate sponsors underwriting basic connectivity
to those who don't have any.

~~~
detcader
[From a wider standpoint (and at the risk of stating the obvious) I think it's
at least a little bit outrageous that, when people the world over lack basic
human rights even under the US government, Facebook is opining about whether
connection to the internet should be added to a list that is ignored and non-
unanimous anyway. The type of rights that protect people from violence should
be ensured to everybody first, just my opinion]

How do you take apart an iPad? I think that is the point.

~~~
visakanv
I used to feel very strongly about these things too, but ultimately I think
everybody is up to build and pursue whatever they like. We can't force other
people to do things our way. We can attempt to persuade them to, or guilt-trip
them to, but we can't force them to care about what we care about.

That said, humans have always have had "odd" priorities that might not make
sense from the lens of rational cost-benefit analysis. Venkat Rao wrote quite
an interesting piece about this- about how some people genuinely prefer the
occasional escapism of movies to, say, proper sanitation.

We don't sit down and rationally work on our worst problems, we're
aspirational, we're idealistic. People working on humanitarian projects have
found that the threat of death and the promise of salvation from death DON'T
actually stop people from defecating in the streets, etc.

It may be that people want Facebook more than they want protection from
violence. That might seem utterly crazy, but it might also be true. That said,
Facebook is free to do as it pleases. C'est la vie.

~~~
johnvschmitt
Great points. Yes, Maslow's Pyramid explains why different rational people
will have different priorities.

But, we are not all rational all the time. And, studying emotions & psychology
are indeed full of answers & puzzles as well.

It's good to see the discussions on HN diverge to an even more interesting
point than the OP.

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cinquemb
For some reason as of late, I keep trying to frame what is going on now with
socioeconomic events of the past. Then the idea wandered into my mind about
something I see emerging, where data is not only gaining more economic value,
but it is increasingly available to people to monetize if they can "connect
the dots" with whatever they seek to provide value in (or how someone starts
seeing value where you previously did not), which seems to be landing us in an
age of the data robber barons. Where the ability to offer people something
they might value, in return for data about not only them, but the world they
live in through the way they see it.

Maybe I'm over thinking things, but as someone in the midst of it all, I can't
help but try to make sense of what is going on in relation to other things.

~~~
detcader
From Wikipedia: "Historical materialism is a methodological approach to the
study of society, economics, and history first articulated by Karl Marx
(1818–1883) as the materialist conception of history. It is a theory of
socioeconomic development according to which changes in material conditions
(technology and productive capacity) are the primary influence on how society
and the economy are organised. Historical materialism looks for the causes of
developments and changes in human society in the means by which humans
collectively produce the necessities of life. Social classes and the
relationship between them, plus the political structures and ways of thinking
in society, are founded on and reflect contemporary economic activity." [1]

From about.com: "Carol Hanisch's essay explains the idea behind the phrase
"the personal is political." A common debate between "personal" and
"political" questioned whether women's consciousness-raising groups [during
the late 1960s and 1970s] were a useful part of the political women's
movement. According to Hanisch, calling the groups "therapy" was a misnomer,
as the groups were not intended to solve any women's personal problems.
Instead, consciousness-raising was a form of political action to elicit
discussion about such topics as women's relationships, their roles in
marriage, and their feelings about childbearing." [2]

It is essential from any angle to talk about and recognize social, cultural,
and economic historical and present systems in any discourse, even about one's
personal experience. Activists and academics have been recognizing this for
centuries, and the principle applies as much to supposedly democratic,
egalitarian "technology" as any facet of life

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism)

[2]
[http://womenshistory.about.com/od/feminism/a/consciousness_r...](http://womenshistory.about.com/od/feminism/a/consciousness_raising.htm)

