On: Opposition to Facebook's new internet.org

[aaroninsf]

Not-really-rhetorical question: how much less contentious would internet.org be, if it were [branded] say... facebook.net?

IMO quite a bit. The substantive criticisms would be unchanged; but two accelerants would be removed from the fire: the insinuation that the service 'is' the internet or some substantive subset of it; and that it is a charitable undertaking first and foremost.

[ceras → aaroninsf]

IIRC the product is not longer called internet.org anyway; it's now called "free basics."

[TazeTSchnitzel → ceras]

It's still a "project of Internet.org", alongside Facebook's Internet-providing drone things.

[fabulist → aaroninsf]

Maybe it would be less contentious, but paying telecom companies to deliver Facebook for free is anticompetative and I'm not a fan of monopolies or monopolizing tactics.

In my mind, this is an even bigger issue than their lack of frankness.

[newsignup → aaroninsf]

Initially, I had seen people opposing on just that fact "they are misleading people by calling it internet.org", most of them.