Monday, December 28, 2015

What's Behind That Smile ???

Amid fierce opposition in one of its most important markets, Facebook has launched an aggressive campaign in India for an app that gives users access to a small number of Internet services for free, arguing it could help lift millions out of poverty.

The Menlo Park, Calif.,-based social media giant has blanketed Indian cities with billboards and taken out two-page newspaper advertisements to tout Free Basics, which Indian regulators suspended last week after opponents claimed it violated Internet neutrality, the principle that Internet providers allow equal access to all online content.

In an op-ed piece published Monday in the Times of India, the country’s largest English-language newspaper, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg wrote that critics have mischaracterized Free Basics, which he said serves as a bridge to the Internet for millions who had never been online before.

You can read the rest @
http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-facebook-marketing-india-20151228-story.html

I have always been suspicious of that constant, leering smile of his:


Could it perhaps be hiding malign intent? Have his critics indeed mischaracterized Free Basics, or have they perhaps accurately described it?

I seem to remember that John D. Rockefeller used to do something similar to this - he often gave away cheap (or free) gasoline to destroy his competitors, leaving him with a monopoly situation.

You wouldn't do anything like that, would you Mark?

No comments:

Post a Comment