'Free Basics' Will Take Away More Than Our Right to the Internet | By Vandana Shiva As the TRAI decides the fate of Free Basics, Mark Zuckerberg is in India with ₹100 crore, in pocket change, for advertising. Facebook’s Free Basics is a repackaged internet.org, or in other words, a system where Facebook decides what parts of the internet are important to users. Reliance, Facebook’s Indian partner in the Free Basics venture, is an Indian mega-corporation with interests in telecom, energy, food, retail, infrastructure and, of course, land. Reliance obtained land for its rural cell phone towers from the government of India and grabbed land from farmers for SEZ’s through violence and deceit. As a result and at no cost, Reliance has a huge rural, semi-urban and suburban user base — especially farmers. A collective corporate assault is underway globally. What could Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg have to gain from dictating terms to governments during the climate summit? 95% of the cotton in India is Monsanto’s proprietary Bt Cotton. Talk about choice.
India puts brakes on Facebook's Free Basics scheme Image copyright Getty Images Facebook's effort to provide Indians with free access to a limited number of internet services has run into trouble. India's telecoms regulator has asked the mobile network that partnered with the US firm to put their Free Basics offer on hold. Data fees are relatively expensive in India, and the initiative aims to prevent this being a deterrent. But critics of the Free Basics service say it runs contrary to net neutrality principles. They suggest data providers should not favour some online services over others by offering cheaper or faster access. A spokesman for Reliance Communications - the mobile network that had supported the scheme - confirmed it would comply with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's demand. "As directed by TRAI, the commercial launch of Free Basics has been kept in abeyance, until they consider all details and convey a specific approval," a spokesman told the BBC. Image copyright Facebook
Why defeat in India leaves an uncertain path for Facebook's 'Free Basics' Weeks after chiding Facebook for lobbying its users to support the controversial "Free Basics" service through a “crudely majoritarian and orchestrated opinion poll,” India’s telecommunications regulator has banned the service. Free Basics, which the social media giant launched in 2013 as Internet.org, is intended to provide stripped down Internet capabilities for free to people in rural and poor communities around the world. While Facebook has pointed to the service’s humanitarian potential, critics have long argued that Free Basics’ offer of only a small number of websites, and its partnerships with a small number of mobile carriers — in India, only a single carrier offered the service — violates net neutrality (the idea that users shouldn’t be directed to particular sites or blocked from accessing others). In its decision, released on Monday, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India agreed, saying that it would act to prohibit “discriminatory tariffs” paid by users to go online.
Five times Internet activism made a difference - Black Lives Matter The rapidly-growing grassroots movement calling for a wider consciousness about anti-black racism and police violence had its roots in an impassioned Facebook message posted by Alicia Garza, an activist from Oakland, Calif., in July 2013. After watching a Florida jury decline to convict George Zimmerman for the death of unarmed teen Trayvon Martin in part because of the state’s controversial “Stand Your Ground" law, Ms. Garza took to the social media site to post her thoughts on the impact of the verdict, ending her message with "Black people. I love you. I love us. Garza’s friend Patrisse Cullors, a community organizer who works on prison reform issues, read the post that night and began sharing it, along with the hashtag #blacklivesmatter, with the two contacting Opal Tometi, an immigrant rights activist, to set up Twitter and Tumblr pages using the slogan. One example is the hashtag #iftheygunnedmedown, first created in 2014 by C.J.
'Evito as redes sociais pela mesma razão que evito as drogas', diz o criador da realidade virtual - BBC Brasil Direito de imagem Getty Images Jaron Lanier é uma das vozes mais respeitadas do mundo tecnológico. Um visionário, ele ajudou a criar nosso futuro digital e cunhou o termo realidade virtual, nos idos dos anos 1980. A despeito do visual alternativo - com longos dreads nos cabelos que lembram o estilo rastafari - e de se comportar como um hippie, Lanier nunca usou drogas. Lanier é autor de vários livros sobre o impacto da tecnologia nos indivíduos e no comportamento coletivo. O título se refere ao momento em que o autor colocou, pela primeira vez, um desses capacetes que nos levam ao mundo da realidade virtual - momento que descreve como "transformador" e como a "abertura de um novo plano de experiência". Ele foi um dos primeiros a desenvolver produtos voltados à realidade virtual, no final dos anos 1980 e início dos anos 1990. "Evito as redes pela mesma razão que evito as drogas - sinto que podem me fazer mal," diz. Busca por um mundo alternativo? Direito de imagem Science Photo Library
Não podemos ficar parados vendo o Facebook destruir a internet : brasil 'Our minds can be hijacked': the tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia Justin Rosenstein had tweaked his laptop’s operating system to block Reddit, banned himself from Snapchat, which he compares to heroin, and imposed limits on his use of Facebook. But even that wasn’t enough. In August, the 34-year-old tech executive took a more radical step to restrict his use of social media and other addictive technologies. Rosenstein purchased a new iPhone and instructed his assistant to set up a parental-control feature to prevent him from downloading any apps. He was particularly aware of the allure of Facebook “likes”, which he describes as “bright dings of pseudo-pleasure” that can be as hollow as they are seductive. A decade after he stayed up all night coding a prototype of what was then called an “awesome” button, Rosenstein belongs to a small but growing band of Silicon Valley heretics who complain about the rise of the so-called “attention economy”: an internet shaped around the demands of an advertising economy. But are we? That red icon is now everywhere.
A Grande Armadilha das Redes Sociais As redes sociais adicionaram uma nova dimensão às nossas vidas. Alguns as amam a ponto de serem a primeira coisa do dia a merecer sua atenção tão logo se percebam acordadas. Outros se apressam em taxá-las como uma completa perda de tempo. À medida em que a adesão às redes sociais se massificou na última década e passaram a literalmente fazer parte da nossa rotina diária, as fronteiras entre o que acontece na vida off-line e nas redes sociais perderam a nitidez. No topo da lista das experiências que nos fazem mal, vividas em redes sociais, encontramos o hábito de nos comparar com outras pessoas. Mas por que isso é tão cruel? Porque nós nos conhecemos muito melhor do que conhecemos as pessoas com as quais nos comparamos. Conhecemos muitos dos nossos defeitos, lembramos quantas vezes falhamos e o quanto de esforço precisamos empregar para alcançar algo. Na verdade, o que todos fazem, inclusive nós, é tentar mostrar o que têm de melhor – ou seja, mostrar o seu palco. Depende.