
Internet.org Is Not Neutral, Not Secure, and Not the Internet - panarky
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/05/internetorg-not-neutral-not-secure-and-not-internet
======
vshan
I don't know what Zuckerberg has in mind, but in India at least, there have
been literally a million[1] mails sent to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of
India in favour of Net Neutrality: and hence India has taken a negative stance
on Internet.org, since it sets a wrong precedent.

So yeah, we don't need first world people to speak for us saying how it's
helping the poor and stuff.

If they are so interested in connecting the poor, then they can just allocate
a certain amount of data for consumption rather than act as gatekeepers.

Also, Facebook is a corporation aiming to increase their shareholders money.
Why would anybody trust them with Internet.org? Wikipedia is non-profit, so
it's fine with me if it's offered for free.

[1] : [http://gadgets.ndtv.com/internet/news/trai-receives-
over-1-m...](http://gadgets.ndtv.com/internet/news/trai-receives-
over-1-million-petitions-on-net-neutrality-685028)

~~~
zorked
This is so right. It's not that the rich countries can't do anything to help,
but that they are so often clueless in their approach. Internet.org is one
such example even if you assume it's well-meaning.

This reminds me of all the ridiculous cheap laptops for the Third World
projects - all of which completely failed. Meanwhile the factories in China
keep churning out ever-cheaper laptops and phones which are having a real
impact without any of the grandiose talk about Helping The Poor.

Cheaper laptops work. Laptops with hand-cranks because The Poor Don't Have
Electricity don't. Internet.org is at best the Internet with a hand-crank.
It's not even a step towards solving the problem.

~~~
imakesnowflakes
And I wonder what the problem is exactly? Getting internet to the poor?

How about the mobile network providers first stop robbing them blind with
numerous scams and offers with hidden costs and ambiguous claims?

"New offer! Reduce your call charge to .9 Rs per 60 seconds when when you
charge[1] for 350 Rs".

\--Charges with 350 Rs.--

"Congratulations. Now you just need to charge again to enjoy the offer you
just paid 350 Rs for!!"

Yes, that is the kind of exploitation that can happen with things like this,
and there is not one damn thing that the poor can do about it.

[1]. Around here in India, "Charging" refers to adding prepaid talk time to a
mobile connection often by purchasing a coupon.

~~~
briandear
This is sort of veering off topic, but it does seem appropriate to mention in
this context..

They have similar nonsense in Mexico, Carlos Slim (incidentally the majority
shareholder of the NY Times) make billions off of the backs of the poor in
Mexico. The cell phone costs in Mexico are more expensive than in the US. So
when adjusted by purchasing power, cell phones represent a huge financial
burden on those least able to afford it but most likely to need it (due to
decayed or non-existent telecom infrastructure in many parts of the country.)

If you want to see the effects of limiting competition (especially on the
poor), Mexico is a case study. Before the Downvote Brigade starts naming
Telcel competitors, one must remember that Carlos had an over 5 year monopoly
on telecoms in Mexico before other market entrants were allowed to join the
market, so essentially Carlos Slim and Co. were able to own the market before
they had to compete, however by the time competition happened, they had a
massive head start. Slim also owns/controls Telmex giving him almost total
control of the internet infrastructure (and land lines) as well as cellular
infrastructure. Mexico is a place where your cell phone plan might include "5
SMS messages a month" as part of your plan. That's right, 5. There's a reason
WhatsApp just went nuts down there.

------
pavanky
> By setting themselves up as gatekeepers for free access to (portions of) the
> global Internet, Facebook and its partners have issued an open invitation
> for governments and special interest groups to lobby, cajole or threaten
> them to withhold particular content from their service. In other words,
> Internet.org would be much easier to censor than a true global Internet.

IMO, this is the key argument against Internet.org. Internet needs to be
decentralized to truly remain a populist medium. Facebook knowingly or
unknowingly is sowing the seeds for fracturing and killing off free,
unrestricted access to the internet.

~~~
pjbrunet
It's a Microsoft strategy.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish)

Doesn't Zuck have enough of the Internet?

~~~
xorcist
Or the AOL strategy. Both failed, but that doesn't mean this will.

I can imagine Facebook would have thrived on AOL or MSN (or teletext). Zuck
wouldn't have been able to start it from his college room though.

~~~
berkes
> Both failed, but that doesn't mean this will.

In the end, yes, they did fail. But untill that day, they managed to stiffle
progress and do great harm to otherwise good and valuable initiatives and
technologies.

So, even if internet.org will fail at some point in future, it has a great
potential for harm untill that day.

------
freen
"You can have all the free Monsanto brand water you want, but only to irrigate
Monsanto seeds. You know, the ones that require Roundup by Monsanto to grow
and don't create viable seeds of their own to replant or resell. You can't
drink it, and you certainly can't build your own seed business that might
compete with Monsanto either."

Getting any bits there and back at all is the hard and expensive part. A forum
full of people who make a living because the internet is an open, p2p network,
and we are really in favor of turning it into a TV with only one channel for
billons of people just so Facebook can get a better ROI?

Congratulations: your next startup won't be viable in third world countries
and your job is safe from all those people who might start their own start up
or learn to code there.

Make no mistake: this is business development, not charity.

------
gabeio
[https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-
org/participat...](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-
org/participation-guidelines)

> Any data (e.g., proxy requests) or reporting we provide is deemed Facebook
> confidential information and cannot be used by you for any advertising
> purposes or shared with third parties.

So they are putting a giant adblock on all of the internet.org sites? How is
that in any way neutral/productive/fair?

~~~
joelrunyon
So...they can be the ones that serve ads. This is pretty obvious, isn't it?

~~~
spicyj
Facebook doesn't serve ads on facebook.com when accessed via Internet.org.

~~~
joelrunyon
...yet

~~~
evincarofautumn
Facebook serves ads only in countries where it is actually profitable to do
so. Why would this change?

~~~
joelrunyon
You're assuming it's not profitable to run ads in 3rd world countries? Have
you tried that?

You're assuming that that won't change? Countries won't gain capital
influence? You don't think that might affect spending habits & advertisers
won't adjust? You really want to make that bet?

~~~
evincarofautumn
I’m not assuming anything. I’m only stating a fact. It might very well change.
If people don’t have disposable income, how could it be profitable to
advertise to them? But if the country itself develops a stronger economy,
sure, then it may become profitable to advertise to its people. And at that
point, everybody is winning.

~~~
joelrunyon
> Have you tried that?

You didn't answer the question.

Oftentimes, other languages or undeveloped areas are MORE profitable because
there's less competition.

Also, I laid out out how it might actually CHANGE - which was a direct
response to your question "why would it change?" Now you're asserting it very
well might change?

I don't understand your argument.

~~~
saint_fiasco
There is also less regulation. And there are also lots lots of people. And
their economies grow much faster than the first world's. And they haven't yet
maxed all their credit cards.

The ammount of money that can be made in the thirld world is staggering.
Another case of shlep blindness?

------
jasonkester
It's the classic Seinfeld "muffin tops" problem:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6jGeIwebvk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6jGeIwebvk)

Giving away free stuff isn't enough. People feel entitled to _the best stuff_
for free, not just the free stuff you gave them. And if you offer the
alternative of "then don't use the free stuff we're trying to give you" all
you'll do is make them more angry at you.

You just can't stop people from looking a gift horse in the mouth.

~~~
efdee
How would you feel about me giving your kids free cigarettes and painkillers?

~~~
chc
As far as I can tell, Facebook is offering free access to websites whose
operators agree not to be burdensome on the network. That is nothing like
cigarettes, and analogizing poor people to children seems a bit degrading.

------
droopyEyelids
I hear people try and describe this Internet.org in terms of how Facebook will
have control over what information huge numbers of people can access.

Thats a distortion of the the way Zuckerberg presents the effort though. He
seems to really want to give the impression that this is about helping people—
and not about the power of being the filter through which all information and
commerce has to flow. The poor in India etc will almost surely have the option
of giving up their free plan and paying for the Internet, and then Facebook
will have just served as a stepping stone and aid along the way to 'full'
Internet access.

~~~
pavanky
> The poor in India etc will almost surely have the option of giving up their
> free plan and paying for the Internet, and then Facebook will have just
> served as a stepping stone and aid along the way to 'full' Internet access.

This is not going to happen the way the Indian telecoms are screwing up Net
Neutrality. Internet.org is only part of the problem. Indian telecoms want to
charge extra for OTT (over the top) services. This includes many internet
messaging (ex: whatsapp) and VOIP (ex: skype) services. Internet.org sets a
bad precedent where the telecoms can come up with various packages that are
"free" while charging exorbitant amounts of money for the rest of the
internet.

~~~
chitresh
I'm all for keeping the net neutral. But let me play the devil's advocate
here: When the telecoms have paid for the spectrum (there was an auction for
the spectrum), how can you dictate what services they should charge for and
what services they shouldn't charge for ? The spectrum is a public resource,
but when the telecoms have paid for it, aren't they entitled to charge for the
services they provide ?

~~~
amazon_not
When the telecoms have paid for the spectrum, why can't they dictate what
phone numbers you can call?

~~~
chitresh
To be sure, there are numbers that are toll free and the receiving party is
charged for calling, much like the arrangement that Indian telecoms are
proposing to get into with e-com sites like Flipkart. Toll-free numbers can be
seen as incentives to call a particular number more than others. Aren't they
violating the "Telephony Neutrality" principle ?

~~~
amazon_not
Yes, I am aware of toll free numbers and the like. The phone number analogy is
not quite suitable as a counterargument against internet.org, but it was not
meant to be one either. It was more a conter to the devil's advocate line of
questions.

The tariff and regulatory structure of telephony is different from internet
access. "Telephony Neutrality" basically says that you can call anybody you
like as long as you can afford it _and_ you are free to receive phone calls
from anybody.

Internet.org is thus more like: "you can call these toll free numbers, but you
cannot receive calls from anybody we haven't preapproved".

------
suyash
Facebook and other companies are trying to make a fool out of people in
developing words, Internet.org is trying to break the internet actually.

~~~
ljk
world _

------
amenghra
I posted about internet.org not supporting SSL/TLS two weeks ago, didn't get
any upvotes:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9493253](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9493253)

I'm really glad the EFF is making a broader audience aware of some of these
issues.

------
ekianjo
There's a lot of back and forth between "we applaud Facebook for this
initiative" and "But that's not the right way to do it" in this piece. I
usually find EFF articles well written but this one was particularly painful
to read and not really insightful either.

~~~
dmix
If you prefer polarized opinions you can find that on any mainstream news
venue. In real life people tend to have nuanced and conflicted opinions about
many things.

~~~
ekianjo
> If you prefer polarized opinions you can find that on any mainstream news
> venue

I'm fine with balanced opinions but there is no need to do the back and forth
multiple times through the same article.

~~~
geoffw8
I actually respected the way they did that.

They're trying to make some very serious criticisms without detracting too
much from the fact that Internet.org actually got off their arses to do
something about the digital divide.

I think its fair. They're trying to give some degree of credit where its due,
as opposed to an all out attack. Its hard for me personally to agree with an
all out attack piece when I'm conscious of the seemingly good intentions of
the project (conspiracies aside).

------
billwilliams
This article is straight up more nuanced than I was expecting.

------
hectorperez
There is an open letter signed by 65 advocacy organizations in 31 countries
against Internet.org [https://www.facebook.com/notes/accessnoworg/open-letter-
to-m...](https://www.facebook.com/notes/accessnoworg/open-letter-to-mark-
zuckerberg-regarding-internetorg-net-neutrality-privacy-and-/935857379791271)

------
aaron695
This is pretty easy to stop.

Supply the poor with open free internet.

Oh wait, then you'd have to stop being a bunch of whiny privileged people and
spend your own time and, god forbid some of your own money helping the poor.

Helping the true poor is going to have a catch, there is no utopian society
that's going to do it instead, grow up.

Television, which is generally consider to be very positive in impoverished
countries, especially around issues like equality, had ads.

And the stations lock users down to their content often using monopolies in
radio spectrum. All the while the world goes on as it always does, helping not
at all.

~~~
cmdrfred
I have an even easier way, lets find a hack. Lets find a way to use this pipe
that Facebook is building to allow access to the wider internet. Lets make it
easy, like popcorn time and then lets give it away for free.

~~~
userbinator
Popularise tunneling? It can already be done, and they can't easily stop
people from sharing information between Facebook and the outside, the _real_
Internet.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8171477](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8171477)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9203946](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9203946)

What they can do, however, is severely limit the bandwidth this way; it's not
net-neutral at all, but tunneling does effectively break out of the walled
garden.

------
BorisMelnik
This is one of those things that I don't understand, don't have time to
research but just inherently don't trust because it is a corporation that I
don't trust disguised as a "dot org" when I can just feel their are ulterior
motives.

~~~
gabeio
dot org isn't like dot edu where you have to verify anything. I actually
bought a dot org it was as easy as a dot com. It's not really meant to look/be
"trustworthy"...

~~~
stephenr
That the .org TLD is open to anyone is a shame, and that it's used like this
is even worse.

I know it will probably be an unpopular view here, but I actually quite like
the approaches taken by Australia (where I grew up) and Thailand (where I live
and run my business now)

In Australia you have to be a registered non-profit to get a .org.au domain,
and you have to have an ABN or ACN to get a .com.au or .net.au. In the case of
commercial domains, while it isn't checked at registration, if your domain
name isn't somehow related to your company/brand name, (or even if it is and
you aren't using it actively) you can lose it.

In Thailand, your .co.th domain name _must_ match your company name - e.g. if
you have HappyHamburger Co., Ltd, you can only register happyhamburger.co.th -
this means new companies don't need to rush out and make sure they get the
domain matching their company name (or even that it might be taken) to prevent
squatters.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
It being open to anyone isn't bad. It allows groups not formally incorporated
as charities to have them, and many of those groups are befitting of a .org
domain.

~~~
stephenr
I don't know about the U.S., but in Australia a non-profit org is not
necessarily a charity.

------
Supersaiyan_IV
One does not simply call oneself the 'Internet', and act in its name, and
behalf. There's all kinds of wrong with this.

~~~
9872
No, that's pretty much the only thing I find wrong with it. And if they are
willing to share the name once other groups start their own similar programs,
I would even withdraw that objection.

------
bunkydoo
2/3 of humanity isn't connected to the internet they say, but the problem here
is that 2/3 of the population probably isn't having their basic needs met on a
day to day basis. Just take for example the bathroom situation in India, let
alone Africa. I don't think these people give much of a damn about getting on
the internet to update their status.

~~~
Istof
maybe someone with unmet basic needs would make a better use of the Internet
then the average Facebook user, but that's just a guess.

------
danielmiessler
Maybe this is just like the debate around driverless cars. "They're not
perfect!", they say. "They're flawed just like anything else.", they say.

Well, they don't have to be perfect; they just have to be better than humans.
And it turns out that's pretty easy.

So maybe rather than beat up on internet.org because it's not free as in
perfection, maybe we should be happy that a billion dollar corporation is
trying to do SOMETHING to help 4 billion people who can't afford the current
option.

It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be better, for those billions of
people with no access to the internet, than having nothing at all. And I think
they are meeting that and far above it.

~~~
amazon_not
The correct solution is to make real, uncensored internet access available and
affordable to the masses, not to provide a better version of the North Korean
intranet for free.

~~~
evincarofautumn
There’s an important difference between “right” and “good”. Providing free
basic internet access is clearly good, and internet.org is doing that. Many
people argue, validly, that the manner in which they’re doing so is not right.

But that’s as if I were to tell you that giving anti-malarial drugs to people
is wrong, because the right thing to do is to eradicate malaria itself. That’s
probably true, but the practical thing to do _right now_ is what’s good, not
necessarily what’s right. And you can work on both fronts at once: they’re
orthogonal.

I don’t pretend to understand the massive logistical challenges involved in
implementing this, and it makes me sigh when others no more knowledgeable than
myself make armchair proclamations about what should or should not be done.

~~~
amazon_not
> Providing free basic internet access is clearly good, and internet.org is
> doing that.

If it were only so. I would have no issue with internet.org if they provided
free basic internet access. They do not, and this is a VERY important
distinction. Internet.org is a gated community with a gatekeeper and no
security. It is like AOL or an intranet. It is by definition limited,
excluding and discriminatory. It is very much not free basic internet.

> But that’s as if I were to tell you that giving anti-malarial drugs to
> people is wrong, because the right thing to do is to eradicate malaria
> itself.

The malaria analogy is a straw man. The resources and effort required to
eradicate malaria are vastly larger than the effort and resources required to
distribute anti-malaria drugs to a group of infected people. If they were the
same it would obviously be both good and right to eradicate malaria. However,
they are not.

The effort and resources to provide a gated internet.org and the effort and
resources to provide an open internet.org are the same. Thus it is both good
and right to provide an open internet.org.

> I don’t pretend to understand the massive logistical challenges involved in
> implementing this, and it makes me sigh when others no more knowledgeable
> than myself make armchair proclamations about what should or should not be
> done.

Unlike you, _I_ do know what I am talking about having made a career in the
telecoms industry.

Feeling good about internet.org is about as smart as feeling good about price
dumping. All short turn gain for long term loss. Or if you feel like a more
concrete example, it's about as smart as pissing in your pants when you are
cold.

------
monochromatic
Anybody else getting a 404?

~~~
barbs
Here's a cached version:

[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/05/internetorg-
not-neutral-not-secure-and-not-internet)

------
chdir
> been pitched as a philanthropic initiative ...

With strings attached. It's like giving someone money & telling "you can only
buy products that I approve of...". _(Missing fine print: we will track you
and trap you into buying these for as long as we can)._

No matter how much they twist the motivations, given their history, I've no
faith in them doing any good, except for their bank accounts. It's one company
that has shown utter disregard for the privacy of their users.

The primary aim of internet.org is to map and build a deep graph of every
living being and bolster Facebook's monopoly. In the short term, some might
applaud the "free" internet carrot but the whole concept is detrimental to
innovation in the long term. Either provide "real" internet without any
strings attached, or else don't be surreptitious about your intentions and
claim to do it for the good of humanity.

Billions of people would be happy accessing the free-but-limited internet and
wouldn't have any privacy concerns. However their privacy isn't the only issue
here. The problem is that these people would be unknowingly contributing to
the success of the walled garden developed by FB & friends. In the future,
companies aligned with them will have access to a trove of data & eyeballs.
Those that aren't aligned or want to compete with them, would be shut out.
This is anti-competitive. One might argue that without internet.org, these
people would not have contributed anyway. However, the premise of "free" will
result in a lot of paying customers to switch. And, many of those who don't
have an internet connection today, might get one in the near future. One
that's low speed and perhaps subsidized by the government. To understand that,
you have to look at the growth rate of mobiles in 3rd world countries. The
bottom of the pyramid does contribute to the success of many tier-3 cellphone
manufacturers. There are people who earn less than a dollar a day but they
stay connected with a mobile phone. With a connection that's not limited by
any corporation.

As the old saying goes, "there's no such thing as free ...". One way or the
other, someone has to pay for the internet. It's not going to come out of the
FB shareholders pockets. The question we need to ask is, who is actually
paying for it and what's the actual cost (not literal cost) to this freebie.

It would be a lot better if the government or a neutral organization like
Mozilla takes up this initiative. I would be happy to contribute to an
initiative that provides free or subsidized internet to the masses. An
internet, where there's no restriction on which site you can visit. An
internet, where nobody will track you or collect your data or re-sell it.

~~~
DanBC
"Here are some charity donated food vouchers. You can only isethem to buy food
from KFC, McDonalds, or IHOP. Of course you can use them to buy any food you
like, but that will cost extra".

~~~
9872
Thanks! I haven't had anything to eat for days, this is a real help!

~~~
juliangregorian
Please feel free to be so flippant several years from now when you are obese,
undernourished, and diabetic; as well as being financially dependent on food
assistance.

------
microcolonel
I think maybe the main issue with this rhetoric is the assumption that it's
any of our business what facebook does with mobile characters in somebody
else's country.

This is probably none of your business.

That being said, it would be nice to engineer a way to meet the bandwidth and
content requirements without losing cryptographic integrity, but that's of
secondary importance to getting another billion people reading Wikipedia.

------
jqm
I would feel better about this initiative if it were being carried out by a
neutral party (a charitable organization for instance) rather than Facebook.
As it is I don't think it's a good idea. It has the potential to undermine the
real internet by trapping people in "good enough" service and the motives are
highly suspect. I'm hopeful governments will tend to agree.

~~~
9872
It's providing them a free service that is by your own words, "good enough"
when they currently have nothing, and you are calling that a bad thing? Come
on.

~~~
amazon_not
"Good enough" is not really good enough and even if it were good enough for
now, it will most definitely not be good enough in the future.

If "good enough" displaces or prevents real and open internet access from
becoming a reality for all users then it is a very bad thing.

~~~
9872
>Why yes, the perfect IS the enemy of the good.

~~~
amazon_not
What point are you trying to make? For clarity, I haven't said anything about
perfect. That being said "good enough" and good are two very different things,
especially with internet.org defined as "good enough". Let's have internet.org
offer a non-walled, non-discriminatory service and I'll be happy enough to
call it good, even if it is far from perfect.

------
socalnate1
Isn't this just what AOL was in the US in the 1990's? When the "open" internet
got better than the walled garden AOL provided, people switched. But AOL was a
critical step in getting the masses onto the internet in the first place.

------
tux
We need a system where everything is cached what is posted on HN. Here is one
more cached version; [https://archive.is/SmC8U](https://archive.is/SmC8U)

------
placebo
Not to oversimplify this (things are not black and white etc. etc.), but it
seems like the world is in a constant struggle between cynicism, greed,
egotism and hypocrisy on one hand vs. idealism, generosity, selflessness and
integrity on the other. In many cases, the former wins. Internet.org is just
another one of these cases. Hopefully, there will be enough initiatives
without a hidden agenda to balance it out.

------
pweissbrod
At least when netzero did this 15 years back they werent trying to pose
themselves as a philanthropy...

------
mkagenius
Poor people need internet and they don't care if someone spies them when they
are browsing wikipedia.

People making these arguments have never been to 3rd world countries, I
assume.

Privacy comes at the top of Maslow's pyramid, we are talking about basic needs
here.

~~~
nitrogen
_Privacy comes at the top of Maslow 's pyramid, we are talking about basic
needs here._

This has nothing to do with basic needs of the recipients and everything to do
with cementing Facebook's stranglehold on social networking in the developing
world. There's no "next step" from here that would make Internet.org a
reasonable path on a community's technological development -- this is a dead
end.

~~~
mkagenius
The government is not doing anything to further the internet reach - facebook
is doing it, who cares if there is a vested interest as long as the benefit is
much more.

When you buy medicine it makes the pharmaceutical companies cement their
stranglehold in medicine world.

~~~
amazon_not
Facebook is not doing anything to further the internet reach. All they are
doing is furthering the reach of their walled garden. There is little to no
longterm benefit from this.

~~~
LLWM
You consider wikipedia part of facebook's walled garden? Or you just don't see
any benefit to providing poor people around the world with access to it?

~~~
amazon_not
It's their wall and their garden. If Facebook says Wikipedia can be included
in their walled garden then obviously it is part of their walled garden.

Beside the above obvious point, the real point is not whether there is a
benefit to providing access to Wikipedia with strings attached. The real point
is this: are we giving up more than we are getting if we consent to Facebook
zero rating some content and putting up walls to deny access to everything
else?

My personal option is that the bargain is very bad for all parties involved.

------
mmrasheed
free internet.org access is not so free after all. It's philanthropy outside,
but scam inside. Let me put in to context. Most of the people in developing
countries use android based smartphones. And users can't control the
application connections in android phones due to its creepy structure- any app
can run anytime in the background. On the other hand, mobile operators mention
that any traffic other than internet.org supported sites will be charged at
usual price. So, when users enable their data connection in mobile devices to
use internet.org free service, a bunch of apps connect to other servers to
update, and/or sync. So, users end up paying for data anyway.

If Facebook wants to do real philanthropy, they should do it right. Develop
and distribute an android app that will disable internet communication for all
the apps (user controlled) and will only connect to the free services.

------
timwaagh
electronic frontier foundation is non democratic, not inclusive and not the
internet.

------
dansoto
...and not found :/

------
vans
WOW Huge bullshit on this website (internet.org). The story with Neesha tells
us that her father "knows impressive tricks. But let's get Neesha online and
see some real magic" OMG, of course, you need internet to live. Of course real
life is not as magical as fake facebook friends. Of course, Neesha's father
tricks are not as magic as internet... How condescending colonialist shit is
this web site ?!

~~~
DanBC
For a better example of how Internet connectivity can help people in
developing nations see these Internet huts used by refugees.

[http://www.trust.org/slideshow/?id=356b4ab3-7e12-440f-9781-b...](http://www.trust.org/slideshow/?id=356b4ab3-7e12-440f-9781-b40d97df7b89)

> > Abdul Salam, a 47-year-old Rohingya, asks a friend in Malaysia for advice
> [...]. His friend Muhammad Rafiq, a Rohingya in Thae Chaung village, has a
> son held by traffickers, and they are raising the money to pay the ransom.
> Abdul Salam's question is: How can he be sure the trafficker, once paid,
> will let the boy go?

