Facebook blocks Pulitzer-winning reporter over Malta government exposé
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
This is the same company that fought against US legislature (SOPA or whatever it was called) but created its own non-neutral internet.org for the third-world.
The only race that these giant advertising media/companies are in is the race for: total-observation
and unlike the evil government from 1984 , these leech-like data-harvesting entities are celebrated by their peers for re-inventing MySpace and IRC over and over again.
Whether the latter is worse than a gaggle of bloggers trampling all over the plants, I'm not so sure anymore. But either option still seems better than a handful of corporations owning the garden.
They choose to provide some websites for free to the third world while leaving open the option to buy the full web if they choose too. How is that evil?
How is that evil?
An ISP chooses to provide you with FREE access to some websites but if you want to pay more to get the full access you can.
Facebook is doing this for free for the poor and privileged people in the West are complaining because it threatens their ideologues about free internet all the time no matter what.
It threatens its users ability to understand and interact with the rest of the world.
Facebook isn't doing internet.org for "the poor". It's doing it for itself, to get them to click on ads, and model their behavior, in a higher-walled garden than almost any we've ever seen (except maybe the Great Firewall, itself) and which they control.
So, sure. I personally repudiate the notion of "evil" as just so much post-modernist, perspective-based narrative bullshit; I completely agree with you that internet.org isn't that. But it's certainly not a philanthropic venture, by any stretch of the imagination. It serves Facebook's ends first, and its users distantly second.
I highly doubt that there is much marketing dollars to be spent selling to the poorest third of the world population.
The walled garden includes facebook because naturally its founder considers it an essential service. It also provides job search and informational resources. This is not a bad thing and it does not preclude these people paying for full internet if they choose to. But, while they don't have the funds and resources to do that, thank goodness Zuckerberg is making some essential websites available.
Having an entire generation growing up under the brand of a corporation is effectively priceless.
Nothing says that internet service providers have to offers you unrestricted, unlimited and fair access to the internet; if you read carefully not even your contract.
One other interesting factor is a friend commented on the flagged status post with the suicide prevention hotline number. I don't know if that added any weigh to the overall decision making.