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Comment by nivla | Hacker News Reader

Sad to see a lot of people being cynical about this just because Facebook is taking the lead. Facebook may have personal interest in it but if the global good is greater, we must learn to be appreciative. Most discoveries and inventions, heck even the space race dint start out of the goodness of heart; but aren't we glad they did? I am all up for anything that brings people new source of information. Atleast its better than sitting in a corner and grunting how we don't have Google Fiber or how a 1px scroller disrupts the workflow while failing to realize that 2/3rds of the world has never visited a single webpage in their life.

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Why should we assume that Facebook is trying to be a good steward of the Internet with this project and not simply motivated purely by profits? There are plenty of examples of Google pursuing projects that don't readily contribute to their bottom line, but I'm skeptical that a company led by a man who called his users "dumb fucks" is truly benevolent.

1) These people who will be accessing the internet from these channels are going to bring in ~$0 revenue. You think advertisers are want to target these low-income areas?! This is a specious argument at best -- attempting to create this lame binary "Google = good, Facebook = bad"

2) He said the 'dumb fucks' statement when he was 19 -- I'd hate for shit I said when I was that age to be held against me for the rest of my life =/

3) Given that their mission is "Making the world more open and connected," this project is just in line with that.

FB is a front for the NSA at this point. Not willingly, perhaps, but by-proxy

You might as well say the internet is a front for the NSA

Well, you're correct - however, nobody aggregates the non-US userbase better, more accurately and so cleanly as FB - with 80%++ of their users non-US-based, they are THE goldmine for the NSA.

With the new FB policy office in DC, I am sure they are nice and comfy - as well as with their Security head from NSA-FB-NSA (along with all the other spooks FB has) -- its damn clear what is going on.

"They trust me -- dumb f*s" -- Mark Z. I think that should have been the cue.

As someone else stated: That was said when he was 19 years old

By this logic, you can to toss all of Silicon Valley under the bus -- might as well dump my Hacker News account as well!

Sure, but things like FWD.us being more than a little affirmative* of peoples' doubts and the whole PRISM thing aren't helping them either.

*The political horse-trading supporting fracking, Elon Musk pulling out, etc.

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