Facebook announced this past week that it is partnering with other telecommunications firms to connect every person in the world to the Internet. The project is called Internet.org.
According to the project’s promotional video, "Today, the Internet isn’t accessible for two thirds of the world. Imagine a world where it connects us all."
Google already is engaged with its own ubiquitous connection system, Project Loon.
This sounds wonderful. As Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg puts it, the wealthy happen to be those who are connected to the Internet. The poor, conversely, are not. Connecting the poor will ostensibly give them a chance to join the ranks of the wealthy. They could participate in e-commerce, banking and, of course, Facebooking, thus raising their standard of living (as we in America might define it).
But we shouldn’t be too quick to applaud these projects. The idea that connectivity equals development is simplistic and flawed and has been for generations.
In addition, Facebook and Google themselves are quite good at monitoring and shaping users’ online lives. They are not altruistic providers of access. Rather, they desire every bit of communication to flow through their centralized servers; they want to know everyone’s hopes, lusts and fears. They sell these emotions to marketers who insert themselves into our online lives and direct our attention towards getting more gadgets, diet pills and lines of credit.
Yes, Facebook and Google want everyone in the world to be connected — but not to each other. Rather, they want us connected to them. They are not imagining an Internet — a collection of connected networks (an inter-network). They’re imagining a mono-net, where everything we do goes through a few powerful global companies and their government patrons.
If the unconnected join the global network, it should be on their terms, not Facebook’s or Google’s. Networks can be decentralized, built locally, with far more democratic control than by the dictates of the global and powerful.
Perhaps we might even consider the radical idea that some people in the world don’t want to be connected to the Internet at all (an idea that isn’t entertained by the likes of Zuckerberg).
Website: sltrib
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