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Egypt ​has now become​ the second country to shut down Facebook's controversial free internet service after India did the same last week, according to a report from the Associated Press today. The service, called Free Basics, is part of Facebook's Internet.org initiative that aims to bring internet access to developing nations. Because Free Basics provides access to Facebook and a number of non-Facebook websites at no cost, some regulators and internet activists believe it violates the principles of net neutrality by creating a "walled garden" that prioritizes some sites over others.

Facebook's partner in Egypt, telecom carrier Etisalat Egypt, began providing Free Basics service two months ago, and Facebook says more than 3 million people in Egypt have signed up. Of those 3 million, Facebook says 1 million received access to the internet for the very first time. "We're disappointed that Free Basics will no longer be available in Egypt," Facebook said in a statement provided to the Associated Press. The company hopes to "resolve this situation soon." It's unclear if a telecom regulatory agency shut down the service, as was the case in India. Etisalat Egypt could not be reached for comment at this time.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/30/10690714/faceboo-free-basics-internet-service-shut-down-egypt

Mark is an asshat for not allowing the free internet to access the ENTIRE internet. Facebook is a trove for meta data mining so they can turn the world into a pool of predictable and manipulative data.

^ you're right. They were violating net neutrality. Should have provided access to the whole internet. And facebook is great for spy agencies. Especially in countries where they don't have alternatives. But there were other sites available for free like wikipedia and bbc news for example. Don't know if this wasn't more positive than negative in the end. It gave millions more people the possibility to express their views online. Even in that limited way. And where their views could be seen and discussed with all of us. Don't know where this is available. But imagine this access in war torn countries. Like yemen, afghanistan, syria, palestine, etc. Harder to bomb others if 2 minutes later the population of your country is seeing the images of the dismembered bodies of the collateral damage in their facebook news feed.

Egypt smart. Too many security holes in Facebook.

:)

Lol Mark has a made a fool of himself in India. They are now generating memes of him defending Freebasics

Facebook has launched a massive campaign in India to defend Free Basics.
Multiple full page ads in leading newspapers, huge banners, personal phone calls from Mark - they are mounting a no-holds barred war.
It does look like they are fighting a losing battle.

http://s3.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20151231&t=2&i=1106014917&w=&fh=&fw=&ll=644&pl=429&sq=&r=LYNXMPEBBU06Q


http://www.reuters.com/article/india-facebook-idUSKBN0UE0C520151231

If you really want to provide free basics do it.. Give everyone a limit of say 100 Mb per day and retrieve the cost via advertising. Its a win win situation for everyone, thats a fair and good proposal, but we all know thats not zuckerberg wants right?

Nobody is gonna oppose 100mb of unrestricted access. But how will you recover the cost through advertising?
The users may not visit facebook at all.

Maybe they don't need to. Redirect browsers to an ad page every 10 minutes for example. Track user's metadata, pages visited, etc and sell them to other advertisers. And spy agencies. Etc. The usual. Don't know if that can cover the costs for millions of users. But the positive publicity they would get alone may make up for it.