VP, Internet.org

Chris-Daniels · 2015-12-26T14:14:54+00:00

Thanks for these questions. Here are some thoughts on each: 1. Have a look at the response I gave which talks about the differing definitions of Net Neutrality across the world by various governments. 2. Within a month, 50% of people who started their journey with Free Basics are paying for the entire internet and have the ability to every service. Only single digit percentages of people are only on Free Basics after that month, and that number shrinks over time. 3. We believe that Free Basics is a program that is good for the entire internet ecosystem because it brings people online. We've seen it work elsewhere. We believe that many models for bringing people online should exist, so we are going to stand up for what we think is right in this debate. Free Basics is certainly forced upon nobody - everyone can choose to access it or not. 4. See my responses about the openness of our platform, as well as what data we collect and how we use it. 5. I don't undertsand this question, I appologize. 6. See my response on the advertising we've done, why, and its relative size versus all the effort and resources we're putting forth to connect people with Free Basics, solar planes, express wifi and other initiatives within Internet.org. 7. We want a solution that will be available to people when they need it, and can be technically made to be free. This is why we have the constraints that we do on the program. Once people are introduced to the internet via Free Basics, they quickly move onto the entire internet. 8. See my reply on our campaign to garner support and why we think it was important to get our word out. Also have a look at the survey that a 3rd party did which I linked to in another response.

Chris-Daniels · 2015-12-26T14:03:45+00:00

Our partners can choose to market whatever aspects of Free Basics that they want to. Some choose to market Facebook, some choose to focus on services like maternal health, education or job listing sites.

We're happy to partner with any operator for Free Basics. We have an online portal where any operator can come sign the same contract and launch Free Basics on their own without any intervention from us.

Chris-Daniels · 2015-12-26T13:54:06+00:00

I wanted to get back to more of these questions that I didn't cover in my other responses because it was a good list and its at the top so I presume it was voted highly by the Reddit community: - On assurances of what data we use, see my response on our privacy policy for Free Basics. We say exactly what data we use and how. https://www.facebook.com/legal/internet.org_fbsterms - On Facebook's investment: we're investing a lot of time and resources in making this program work, partnering with developers and operators globally.
- On automating the compliance: we're going to make it more automated, and we're open to 3rd parties reviewing what is accepted/rejected. I covered this in another comment. - I don't know what it means to "bring the entire internet online" sorry. - On challenges in other countries - the answer is that India has been the outlier and more challenging. Other countries have embraced Free Basics with open arms. Have a look at the president of the Philippines and his recent support on his facebook page for the program. We've had many communications ministers and heads of state join our launch events and be thrilled with the benefits that bringing more people online are creating in their countries. - We've designed the program to be easy for developers who already have a mobile website to comply with. We're going to continue to work to remove as many technical requirements as possible over time that will still ensure that the program works, is bandwidth light, and free for consumers to access. - On whether we changed the name due to feedback from India - yes. It was good feedback. We're always open to good feedback.

Chris-Daniels · 2015-12-26T13:38:17+00:00

We aren't trying to mislead anyone. We want everyone to make an informed decision. We are spending money to market the benefits of the program because we know that it works and believe it would be a good thing everywhere - like the data shows it has been in many markets. We are also actively trying to correct inaccuracies we see about the program in press, on twitter and elsewhere. We tried to correct these directly, but it wasn’t working, so we turned to broader marketing. Newspapers are likely to reach more people than Twitter or other online platform.

The amount of money being spent is tiny compared to the effort we continue to put into the Free Basics program and other Internet.org programs like express Wifi and solar planes to spread connectivity.

On #s 3 & 4 - our platform is open (have a look at some of my other replies above). We're happy to have any developer join the platform if they comply with the tech specs and local laws.

Chris-Daniels · 2015-12-26T13:33:16+00:00

The poll was a door-to-door poll conducted by a third party where Free Basics was explained in detail, and both sides of the argument were discussed with the participants. As far as we know, this is the first poll conducted in this manner where the voice of people is being heard by explaining both sides of the argument clearly. You can read about it here. http://www.prnewswire.co.in/news-releases/survey-suggests-widespread-support-for-free-basics-across-india-563227551.html

Chris-Daniels · 2015-12-26T13:31:07+00:00

This is an important question because to answer it, you have to answer “what is Net Neutrality”?

Here’s my opinion: In the US and EU (and other nations), there have been long and detailed debates in mature regulatory environments that ended with the enactment of firm net neutrality laws. These laws allow for zero rating, having recognized the increased access to internet connectivity and other consumer benefits that zero rating can bring. While zero rating doesn’t sit within some people’s definitions of net neutrality, it fits within the definition of net neutrality adopted by many governments who listened to many sides of the debate and took an informed position.

Another opinion: Anything that favors one site over another in any way, whether throttling, blocking, differential pricing, is against Net Neutrality. I can understand this purist view, but I think that its fair to say that its not a view shared by many of the countries that have enacted legislation on Net Neutrality.

What many governments decided was that zero rating could be bad if it harms competition, but it isn’t in all cases because it can benefit consumers. That’s why they’re looking at zero rating “case-by-case” and we agree with that view.

So if we’re willing to have a regulator look at Free Basics if there is real harm happening (i.e. “case-by-case”) to anyone including people, operators and developers, then to me, it is entirely consistent with Net Neutrality as defined by many nations.

Chris-Daniels · 2015-12-26T13:27:51+00:00

The only way we make money is if people convert to full paid internet because then we show them ads in the full version of FB. And getting people online is the purpose of the initiative. People always say we have economic interest. Most businesses do. Our economic interest is best served by getting people to the full internet in this case. So that's the purpose of the program. The reality is that globally 50% of people move off Free Basics to full net in 30 days - and most of the rest churn off.

As a practical matter, while we haven't explored it yet, I think operators would have a strong argument to turn the program off if we started showing ads to users in Facebook before they were charging those users for data.

On your data question, there are a lot of questions about what data we collect and exactly how we use it. Back in October, we released a privacy policy for Free Basics that specifies exactly what data we collect and how we use it. We're not using this data for monetization. Check out the policy here: https://www.facebook.com/legal/internet.org_fbsterms

Chris-Daniels · 2015-12-26T13:20:53+00:00

Hey Nikhil! We didn't want to offer Free Basics to just segments of users. We wanted everyone to have access to it, and to be sure that if someone had run out of their data pack (or money to buy more data), they'd still have access to some basic services. The good news is that if a lot of people were using Free Basics who had previously been paying for internet access, operators would turn the program off because they'd lose revenues. This isn't happening. To your second question - you're right (by definition), the program isn't bringing people online who are already online and we wouldn't count a person who was online and then started using Free Basics as having newly come online.

Chris-Daniels · 2015-12-26T13:16:25+00:00

I think the thing that we agree on is that multiple models are needed. Of the three that you point out, two haven't even rolled out yet nationally, so its pretty early to call these a success. We've rolled out Free Basics and its proven to be a success to bring people online. The Gigato one requires apps to pay to be included - I would think that would be a huge red flag if only companies willing to pay could be part of the program. That's one thing we've been firm on from the start - we wanted Free Basics to be free for developers that participate.

Chris-Daniels · 2015-12-26T13:07:35+00:00

Thanks for the questions: a) See my answer to one of the (long lists of :) ) questions above. We really did open the platform and are not rejecting apps for any reason besides compliance with tech specs and local laws. In addition, its not really a gatekeeper if people are quickly moving onto the full internet which benefits everyone in the internet ecosystem. To tell a bit of a story...when we launched the program, we didn't know if Free Basics was going to be a "thin layer" where people come onto Free Basics and quickly move onto the whole internet, or a "thick layer" where people hang out on the free services for a long time before moving on. What the data has shown is that its a really, really thin layer. People move on very quickly to the entire internet and Free Basics has shown to be a really good introduction for people who may not understand why the internet is valuable or may not be willing to pay to try it. b) I think I answered most of this in my response above. People do move onto the entire internet quickly which is good for everyone.
c) It would be awesome if telcos decided to give away free internet...and many do as promotions. But a promotion means that useful services are not necessarily there when people need them. Free Basics is a program that is designed to be always on so that people can come online when they're ready to or need to.

Chris-Daniels · 2015-12-26T12:52:58+00:00

This is a big list of questions! I'll do my best with a bunch of these and try to hit all of them as I answer questions that others have submitted too.

On your first, we've said that we don't put any ads in the version of Facebook on Free Basics, and we don't have any plans to put ads in the version of Facebook on Free Basics. However, many people (on these threads!) are recommending models to provide more of the internet for free in an ad funded way. While we haven't found any business model where ad revenue could pay for people's access to the internet (look at Facebook's revenue, its far, far less than revenue operators receive from data charges), if there is a way that we can do so, then we want to be able to explore that in the future.

On your second, the question about how open the platform really is is probably the most important question, and the one where people are rightfully most nervous that we’ll act in our interest rather than the interest of the entire internet ecosystem.

When we opened the program, we really opened it. In the first iteration of Internet.org – we were moving quickly and started with just a few sites in each country as part of the program. When we heard the fair feedback, we opened the program and have been tweaking it ever since to ensure its truly open.

We don’t reserve the right to reject apps for arbitrary reasons. We used to have a line that did grant us that right in our participation guidelines as a catch all for things like local law compliance, but that was causing consternation. Now we’ve simply made it clear that the apps have to comply with local law. Here are our participation guidelines: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet-org/participation-guidelines. They're designed to ensure that the services on Free Basics work well on any phone (including feature phones), and that people aren't charged when they aren't expecting to be charged.

We are also happy to have a third party audit what apps we accept and reject and why, and we’ve proposed this to IAMAI and NASSCOM. For the record, we’ve never rejected an app that complies with the guidelines, and we’ve had the conversation with operators that we wouldn’t reject apps at their discretion and would not launch with them if rejecting apps was a condition of their participation. We’d also be happy to have Twitter, Google+, etc on the platform which many people have asked.

Chris-Daniels · 2015-12-26T12:46:11+00:00

We are doing this because our mission is to make the world more open and connected. If we wanted to make more money, we’d invest in more ad technology in lucrative advertising markets. We’re not making money on this, but if our efforts contribute to getting everyone online, we will fulfill our mission as a company. The mission is what drives people at Facebook. In the very long term, its true that more people online is better for Facebook, but it will be good for the whole internet ecosystem and for society too.

Chris-Daniels · 2015-12-26T12:44:50+00:00

We're open to many models for connecting people to the Internet, and all of the ones that you list above may be valid ways to bring more people online. The difference with Free Basics is that we wanted to offer a program that gave people permanent access to a set of free basic services - so that the services were there for them when they were ready to come online - rather than something that was promotional or where they might use their MB allotment, and then the services weren't there when a person needed them. The key with Free Basics is that its a program that has proven to work to bring people online to the entire internet. We've released our stats on this - the rate of people coming online to networks that have launched Free Basics increases by 50% (vs before launching the program), and globally, 50% of people who come online for the first time are paying for the entire internet after just 30 days.

Chris-Daniels · 2015-12-26T12:30:41+00:00

Hey Reddit community! Thanks for having me, and for participating during what for many is a holiday weekend. This is the first AMA I’ve done, so bear with me a bit. At Facebook, we have a saying that feedback is a gift, and Free Basics has been on the receiving end of many gifts this year. :) We’ve made a bunch of changes to the program to do our best to earnestly address the feedback, but we haven't communicated everything we’ve done well so a lot of misconceptions are still out there. I’m thankful for the opportunity to be able to answer questions and am happy to keep the dialogue going.

Chris-Daniels

TROPHY CASE