Like every year, Facebook is using MWC Barcelona to focus on its infrastructure projects. While you may mostly think of Facebook as a social network, the company started launching infrastructure projects for connecting bringing more people online (and onto its network) many years ago. These projects include things like the (now-cancelled) solar-powered Aquila drone and […]
View More Facebook expands its internet infrastructure projectsCategory: Internet.org
Facebook is reportedly testing solar-powered internet drones again — this time with Airbus
Facebook last year grounded its ambitious plan to develop a solar-powered drone to beam internet across the world, but the company isn’t done with the concept, it seems. The social media giant is working with aeronautics giant Airbus to test drones in Australia, according to a new report from Germany’s NetzPolitik. Using a request under […]
View More Facebook is reportedly testing solar-powered internet drones again — this time with AirbusInternet.org project helps restore millions of broken Wikipedia links
The web, it turns out, is a fragile place. Companies, governments, educational institutions, individuals and organizations put up and take down sites all the time. The problem is that the web has become a system of record, and when links don’t work because pages no longer exist, the record is incomplete. With the help of […]
View More Internet.org project helps restore millions of broken Wikipedia linksFacebook is hiring a director of human rights policy to work on “conflict prevention” and “peace-building”
Facebook is advertising for a human rights policy director to join its business, located either at its Menlo Park HQ or in Washington DC — with “conflict prevention” and “peace-building” among the listed responsibilities. In the job ad, Facebook writes that as the reach and impact of its various products continues to grow “so does […]
View More Facebook is hiring a director of human rights policy to work on “conflict prevention” and “peace-building”Pew: Social media still growing in emerging markets but stalled elsewhere
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s (so far) five-year project to expand access to the Internet in emerging markets makes plenty of business sense when you look at the latest report by the Pew Research Center — which shows social media use has plateaued across developed markets but continues to rise in the developing world. In 2015-16, roughly four-in-ten adults […]
View More Pew: Social media still growing in emerging markets but stalled elsewhereFacebook’s Free Basics program ended quietly in Myanmar last year
As recently as last week, Facebook was touting the growth of its Internet.org app Free Basics, but the program isn’t working out everywhere. As the Outline originally reported and TechCrunch confirmed, the Free Basics program has ended in Myanmar, perhaps Facebook’s most controversial non-Western market at the moment. Its mission statement pledging to “bring more people […]
View More Facebook’s Free Basics program ended quietly in Myanmar last yearFacebook’s Internet.org has connected almost 100M to the “Internet”
Facebook is getting the developing world online, even as the developed world criticizes its privacy practices. Mark Zuckerberg said today on Facebook’s Q1 2018 earnings call that “our Internet.org efforts have helped almost 100 million peopel get access to the internet who may not have had it otherwise”. That’s up from 40 million in November 2016. […]
View More Facebook’s Internet.org has connected almost 100M to the “Internet”Facebook launches Express Wi-Fi app for its local-operated hotspots
Facebook wants you to pay for internet. This week TechCrunch was tipped off that Facebook had quietly launched an Express Wi-Fi Android app in the Google Play store that lets users buy data packs and find nearby hotspots as part of Facebook’s distributed Wi-Fi network. The company’s Express Wi-Fi program is live in five developing countries, […]
View More Facebook launches Express Wi-Fi app for its local-operated hotspots