Internet for Everyone? Nothing Like It, What Zuckerberg Wants Is Facebook for Everyone

The social network announced its project Internet.org as a way of giving free access to the poorest parts of the world’s population. It would be beautiful if this were the truth. What the company does is provide an edited version of the virtual world.

The Internet already seems intrinsic to civilization, but that is not the case. Even after the Web’s world boom, two-thirds of the world’s population does not have access to it. Opening the doors of the online world to these people would bring undeniable benefits. For example, according to a study by the World Bank, the Internet has a positive effect on education, entrepreneurship and in fomenting a democratic atmosphere. An increase of 10 percent in the number of people connected to the Internet propels a growth of 1.3 percent in the gross domestic product of a country. For this reason, there was great excitement with the announcement that Facebook would be launching a commitment to convince businesses and governments to spread the Internet to every corner of the world. “There are huge barriers in developing countries to connecting and joining the knowledge economy. Internet.org brings together a global partnership that will work to overcome these challenges, including making internet access available to those who cannot currently afford it,” stated Mark Zuckerberg, creator and CEO of Facebook, in announcing the Internet.org project on Aug. 21, 2013. The aim to spread the Internet to all corners of the earth, such as the slums of India and favelas of Brazil, seemed to be full of good and upright intentions, and was sold as such. The problem is that the initiative showed itself to be an overall game of marketing and business — nothing to do with democratizing access — when it started to be implemented.

The Internet that Facebook brings to the poor is not the one we know: open, free of moorings, where one can navigate with an app or to a site of one’s choice, whether it be Zuckerberg’s social network or one of a competitor. The giant of Silicon Valley hid the fact that the free Internet he started to install would provide access only to the programs and pages of Facebook and selected partners, one example being Wikipedia. To access the rest of the online world (i.e., all that is digitized on the Web) a person must pay. In other words, what was sold as philanthropy was a just a crooked business scheme.

The project is already in six countries and has reached 800 million people. The fiercest criticism of the plan started in February of this year when Internet.org was launched in India, where a group of businesses led by Facebook hoped to reach 1 billion people. There was a strong popular reaction to the project when it was discovered that the poor benefiting from this initiative would just have access to an Internet edited by the Zuckerburg team. As summarized by The Times Group of India, one of the biggest media conglomerates on the planet, in an official communique against Internet.org, “We support net neutrality because it creates a level playing field and equality for companies large or small.”

“What they want and what we have are two forms of Internet in Brazil and in the world, one completely open for those who can pay, and a partial one, which corrodes basic rights, for the poor,”* stressed Josh Levy on the site of Veja. Levy is an American campaign strategist and director of Access Now, who defends the rights of users of digital services. “The worst thing is to see a government, such as Brazil, entering into this. Closing agreements, prioritizing the services of a business that furnishes unequal access to the Internet is discriminatory, and says that some citizens don’t have the right to see one or another piece of information,”* he added. A Brazilian association of consumer rights, Proteste, delivered a letter to President Dilma, signed by 33 entities of that sector, stressing that Internet.org is also illegal because it damages the principle of neutrality defended in the Marco Civil of Brazil.** Proteste wrote, “Facebook is in fact limiting access to too many existing services on the web. In the long term, it would generate a concentration of services on the infrastructure, of access to the Internet and contents, restricting people’s liberty of choice.”

This is an affront to one of the most basic principles of the digital world, that of being a democratic atmosphere, where people can choose what they want to see, tell or divulge.

Hélio Moraes, an associate at the digital law firm Pinhão and Koiffman stated, “This will be like taking the Marco Civil and throwing it out. Facebook has strictly commercial interests, whereas the government has the duty to defend what is good for the population. Accepting Internet.org as a social project for the nation would be to permit that the virtual experience of certain citizens is tied only to a social network.”*

Internet.org is also seen with skepticism in Silicon Valley. There is strong criticism from employees of Google, Twitter, Apple, and even from some (speaking anonymously) of Facebook.

This is not the first time that the attitudes of Zuckerberg have no resemblance to the good-guy image he has fought for in the past. In 2012, a long-time employee of the company, Katherine Losse, who reported directly to Zuckerberg between 2005 and 2010, published a book in which she paints her old boss as sexist, impolite and arrogant. Losse revealed that he had another experimental plan called “Dark Profile,” in which every person on the Internet would have a secret profile on Facebook, where their data would be collected. The project never saw the light of day because the company’s lawyers would have said the obvious to the CEO. Such an initiative was illegal and destructive to the company.

Facing a flurry of criticisms, last week, Zuckerberg gave a mea culpa on a public post on his social network. “I support net neutrality because, at its core, it’s about preventing discrimination. Net neutrality means we can use the services we want, and innovators can build the services we need.”

In conjunction with his lovely words, he announced he would open Internet.org to all developers of apps and sites that run on the free Web. Once again, however, this is not so. To enter, it is necessary to be previously approved by Facebook. In other words, it continues to be an edited Internet. Internet.org has nothing to do with the Internet.

*Editor’s note: Accurately translated, these quotes could not be verified.

**Translator’s note: I believe he means entities belonging to the campaign to pass the Marco Civil law in Brazil. The Marco Civil is a law that was written in Brazil regarding its citizens’ digital rights. There are still parts of the legislation yet to be passed hence the “campaign.” For more information see: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/02/marco-civil-devil-detail