The quest for 100 countries is now one closer to completion, as the Internet.org application will launch in Panama “in the coming weeks.”
Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the impending launch at Summit of the Americas in Panama, where he met with that country’s president, Juan Carlos Varela.
Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post Thursday:
I’m in Panama at the Summit of the Americas, meeting with presidents of countries across the region for Internet.org.
Here’s a photo from my meeting with President Juan Carlos Varela of Panama, where we announced that we’re bringing Internet.org to Panama in the coming weeks.
Soon everyone in Panama will have free Internet access to services for health, jobs, education and communication on the Digicel network.
I’m looking forward to my other meetings here for Internet.org. We’re getting closer and closer to connecting the whole world.
Readers: Which country do you think is up next? See internet.org by Facebook
wonder if this will extend to the communities all across Panama that currently have no internet. Would be great if his program helps extend internet coverage to the rural areas and schools that currently have no internet access. Like Llano Grande just 30 min drive from Santiago. There the kids get and education that does not include anything available on the internet, and of course there are only low paying jobs in the area since no business can offer good jobs in and area without internet.
Poor internet for poor people: why Facebook’s Internet.org amounts to economic racism
http://scroll.in/article/721541/Poor-internet-for-poor-people:-why-Facebook%E2%80%99s-Internet.org-amounts-to-economic-racism
Quote: “Here is how the scheme works. Facebook approaches a telco – in India’s case, Reliance – and offers to pay them the bandwidth costs of serving Facebook site and a small group of other sites.
So when the poor, who in theory cannot afford a net connection come to the Facebook Zero service confusingly called Internet.org, they are made to believe they are on the internet while in reality they are only on Facebook and a few hand-picked sites.
And the sites too are picked in secret under some unknown process. For instance, Facebook chose to offer the distant-second search engine Bing instead of industry-leading Google. Why? Is it rivalry with Google? Or because of Microsoft’s stake in Facebook? And then Facebook’s Zero product features a tiny job site like Babajob instead of the industry-leading Naukri. Why? So that the poor have fewer job options? No one knows. Facebook does not feature YouTube – the largest video site in the world and an immense education resource – but allows its own videos in full. It does not really look like charity any more, does it? ……..It all seems to amount to economic racism – exploiting the poor in under-developed parts of the world to become your customers under the guise of some apparent charitable purpose. While offering them a shoddy, stunted version of the real thing. …….Internet Dot Org neither offers the internet to its users – nor is a dot org, denoting a charitable organisation. It just seems to be a cloaked proxy for the Facebook Economically Disadvantaged User Acquisition Department.”