Cheering For Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook

MANILA: I'm more than interested in Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, trying to connect the world to itself. He calls it the Internet.org. Connecting people, which used to be Nokia's slogan, is Zuckerberg's dream now, connecting all people via the Internet. (The image is from here: fakenation.info.)

Minimum Connection: Mobile.
Optimum Location: Anywhere.
Minimum Fee: Free.

Mark Zuckerberg is crazy, and I love him because. I'm a blogger and a mentor to creative writers (and would-be), those who can connect, for free – if you just read me in this blog, you will pick up much on creative thinking. I'm an Internet denizen; surfing is a delightful and rewarding habit and I never visit any porn place or play games online (or offline). If more people can connect more easily, and more cheaply, more people can find me and see what I have to offer, thinking for themselves. In my extensive library of a blog, A Magazine Called Love (blogspot.com), any surfer can read any number of the 2255 essays I have so far published there, since 2005, on subjects ranging from access to climate change to drought to forestry to holism to intuition to knowledge banks to language to management to partnerships to thinking to villages to watersheds to zero tillage. Celebrate when access is free. It will set your mind free; you will learn to be more creative.

So why are governments not interested in providing Internet connectivity to people; why does it take a private group like Facebook not only to think about it but to do something positive about it? Because governments don't like connectivity – it removes the bureaucracy and the systemic corruption that comes with it.

What exactly is Zuckerberg thinking? Jessi Hempel says (19 January 2016, "Inside Facebook's Ambitious Plan To Connect The Whole World," WIRED, wired.com):

For Zuckerberg, Internet.org is more than just a business initiative or a philanthropic endeavor: He considers connecting people to be his life's work, the legacy for which he hopes to one day be remembered.

Already thinking of legacy, and he is only 31 years. I have been thinking of legacy myself lately, but I'm more than twice older. What I myself see is that Mark Zuckerberg is trying to use the Internet not simply to connect people but to be able to use the Internet in many a creative purpose, to enrich their lives as much as they can. There is the promise of the Internet to empower anyone who connects – not to mention to help people to empower themselves.

How? Jessi says:

To reach everyone, Internet.org takes a multipronged approach. Facebook has hammered out business deals with phone carriers in various countries to make more than 300 stripped-down web services (including Facebook) available for free. Meanwhile, through a Google X-like R&D group called the Connectivity Lab, Facebook is developing new methods to deliver the Net, including lasers, drones, and new artificial intelligence-enhanced software. Once the tech is built, a lot of it will be open-sourced so that others can commercialize it.

Internet for everyone. Stage 1 is free. Facebook has connected with phone carriers in various countries to make 300 plus web services available at no charge. Meanwhile, Facebook's Connectivity Lab is developing new methods to deliver the Net.

Then "it will be open-sourced so that others can commercialize it." With access to the Internet anywhere and any time, anyone can try and commercialize the Internet anywhere. Through the Net, there will be small to big business opportunities.

I'm not after commercializing the Internet myself; I'm after multiplying myself; I'm after showing people anywhere in the world that they can be creative at age 26, 36, 46, 56, 66, 76 – even at age 06 or 16. In the meantime, I hope to live to 126.

Is Facebook's ambitious plan really to connect the whole world? That's the geographical side of it. I can see now that if you spread access to the Internet, you will be spreading access to

Love, not simply hate.
Wisdom, not simply prejudice.
Communicating, not simply listening.
Learning, not simply attending classes.
Thinking, not simply listening to others.
Writing, not simply reading the thoughts of others.

Mark tells Jessi:

There's no way we can draw a plan about why we're going to invest billions of dollars in getting mostly poor people online. But at some level, we believe this is what we're here to do, and we think it's going to be good, and if we do it, some of that value will come back to us.

"Us" means Mark Zuckerberg, his family, Facebook, and the rest of us.

"Access to the Internet is a fundamental challenge of our time." That's talking about the world. Access to the Internet is a fundamental challenge of our government, where the average Internet speed is a shame, as the Philippines is at the bottom of the list of Asian countries connected to the Web.

Yet, there are problems about the Net. Some people can't afford to pay if they want beyond the free. And some people don't know why they should connect to the Web. Zuckerberg estimates that 2 out of 3 people in the world are not connected to the Net. He sees it like this, according to Jessi:

The Internet won't expand on its own, he says; in fact, the rate of growth is slowing. Most companies prioritize connecting the people who have a shot at joining the emerging middle class or who at least have the cash to foot a tiny data plan. Those businesses can't afford to take a flier on the hardest people to reach – the very poor – in the hope that decades into the future they will transform into a viable market. Zuckerberg can.

That's why I can't wait to vote for Mar Roxas as the new President of my country, because he understands the need for the Internet – and, most of all, for a superfast Internet. After all, he is the Father of the Call Center of the Philippines, an industry where if you're not up to speed, you're down. I want speed, and I want it now!