AOW #3 Responding to - "The More We Connect, the Better It Gets — for Facebook" By Ellery Roberts Biddle

AOW #3 Responding to - "The More We Connect, the Better It Gets — for Facebook" By  Ellery Roberts Biddle

This Week's Focus: 

Rhetorical Precis

Article Category: Technology

Link to Article: The More We Connect, the Better It Gets — for Facebook (September 26, 2017)

New York Times OP-ED Contributor, Ellery Roberts Biddle, in her article entitled "The More We Connect, the Better It Gets- for Facebook" (September 26, 2017) argues that Facebook app 'Free Basics' is not a an outlet that introduces the internet to people in the developing world, but rather it uses it's restricted amount of websites that they themselves input to keep people with limited knowledge of today's technologies hooked on what little they offer without letting an individual choose their preferred websites. She supports her claim by stating that "there is no hard evidence that Free Basics is connecting people who would otherwise be cut off from the internet." She later goes on to imply that since Facebook picks the content, the profit from the user's data, which people tend to call "poor internet for poor people".

She backs this up by stating that a study by the Alliance for Affordable Internet showed that most customers already acquired internet before using Free Basics. This heavily implies that most people use the app to get extra free time on Facebook without wasting much data. This makes it easy for smartphone users to spend an "unlimited time in the company’s closed, for-profit environment." Finally, another reason that this app isn't basic affordable internet material, is that most rural areas cannot access the app due to disconnection and the more poor individuals would not even have the money to purchase a smartphone in the first place.

Which brings me to the author's purpose in writing this article, which is to inform limited users of technology about the scam that is Facebook's Free Basics and how it could waste their time with just downloading the app. She establishes this by creating a persuasive yet logical tone by stating the consequences of others who are not skilled in technology as the ones who are considering to input this app. She does this in order to turn her audience in her favor against purchasing Free Basics, the most ripped off app Facebook most likely has.