[kictanet] Introducing Facebook Africa Public Policy Team to KICTANet

Mon Jan 11 18:11:04 EAT 2016

Hello, All!!!

I’m back from annual leave, which I spent running after (and barely keeping up with) the three active, insatiably curious and insanely opinionated small people that my husband I made.  I’m happy to be back at work to have easier conversations. ;-)

So-I think that reasonable people can absolutely differ on how they feel about Facebook’s campaign to get Indian users to engage in the policy conversation about Free Basics and zero rating. From Facebook’s perspective, it was an attempt to engage the very people who would be most affected in the debate, and to get them to participate. Again, I certainly think that people can disagree on whether/how people should have been directly engaged.

BUT. Facebook did NOT orchestrate a distributed denial of service attack against TRAI, and insinuating that this is the case, per the original article posted here means the writer doesn’t have an understanding of what DDOS attacks actually are. For info, please see here-http://www.digitalattackmap.com/understanding-ddos/  or here- https://www.stateoftheinternet.com/faq-what-is-ddos-denial-of-service-attacks-definition.html.

DDOS attacks are technical attacks that overwhelm a target by building networks of infected computers, known as ‘botnets’ and then spreading malicious software through emails, websites and social media. Once  infected, these machines can be controlled remotely, without their owners' knowledge, and used like an army to launch an attack against any target. Some botnets are millions of machines strong. Botnets  generate huge floods of traffic, by sending more connection requests than a server can handle, or having computers send the victim huge amounts of random data to use up the target’s bandwidth.

That is not, at all, what happened in India, and the fact that citizens sent both pro and con messages to policy makers seems, to me, to be exactly what we want citizens to do-engage with policy makers. In my view, even if they sent messages to TRAI saying no to Free Basics, that’s a win, because it’s citizens engaging in policy issues, and making their views known. Using the Interwebs and social media. ;-)

So, again-fine to disagree with FB asking citizens to engage, but completely factually incorrect to say that TRAI was DDOSed. Words mean things, and that’s not what DDOS means.

Happy new year, all-we really look forward to engaging with and learning more from this community in 2016!!

Best, Ebele
[Description: Description: Description: cid:image001.png at 01C8F888.8FCCE630]

Ebele Okobi | Head of Public Policy, Africa
m. +44 (0) 771 156 1315
2 Stephen St | London | W1T 1AN
ebeleokobi at fb.com

From: kictanet <kictanet-bounces+ebeleokobi=fb.com at lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:kictanet-bounces+ebeleokobi=fb.com at lists.kictanet.or.ke>> on behalf of Ali Hussein via kictanet <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>>
Reply-To: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>>
Date: Sunday, January 10, 2016 at 12:25 PM
To: Ebele Okobi <ebeleokobi at fb.com<mailto:ebeleokobi at fb.com>>
Cc: Ali Hussein <ali at hussein.me.ke<mailto:ali at hussein.me.ke>>
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Introducing Facebook Africa Public Policy Team to KICTANet

Even more important are the serious allegations of how Facebook is influencing public participation. One of these being a deliberate DDOS attack on the regulators website.

Ali Hussein
Principal
Hussein & Associates
+254 0713 601113 / 0770906375

Twitter: @AliHKassim

Skype: abu-jomo

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Sent from my iPad

On 10 Jan 2016, at 2:08 PM, Mwendwa Kivuva via kictanet <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>> wrote:

In December the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India suspended Free Basics in India pending the results of its public consultation.

Will free basics be allowed in India? We will know the verdict at the end of the month.

http://www.economist.com/news/business-and-finance/21685292-critics-argue-mark-zuckerbergs-generosity-cover-landgrab-facebooks-free-internet?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/facebooksfreeinternetprogrammehitsaroadblockinindia<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.economist.com_news_business-2Dand-2Dfinance_21685292-2Dcritics-2Dargue-2Dmark-2Dzuckerbergs-2Dgenerosity-2Dcover-2Dlandgrab-2Dfacebooks-2Dfree-2Dinternet-3Ffsrc-3Dscn_tw_te_bl_ed_facebooksfreeinternetprogrammehitsaroadblockinindia&d=CwMFaQ&c=5VD0RTtNlTh3ycd41b3MUw&r=ArvepG4_wcNu_X9xi3nb_Xa9WsGLVfmK6mwPdVONOTE&m=X5jGnb8ciKQV_7MhlV7WiX9LVsPm_uvdbcY38tRwRds&s=7lHadaJGLaQl7-IHj5OUtsBYRnbcqKR8K2b_ulYXQm4&e=>

On Dec 4, 2015 6:20 PM, "Mwendwa Kivuva" <Kivuva at transworldafrica.com<mailto:Kivuva at transworldafrica.com>> wrote:

On Dec 4, 2015 3:25 PM, "waudo siganga via kictanet" <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>> wrote:
>
> This looks useful. Kivuva/Hussein please comment. Looks like schools can be able to access useful content without what the Bamba people call "kunyanyaswa na kukatwakatwa kila mwezi"

Dr. Waudo, I'm between travels and responding is a little bit difficult, but I will at the next opportune time. I only want to appreciate the great work FB team in Africa has done, especially with community outreach and communication like this.  It is very commendable.

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