Facebook’s Gateway Drug
Consider the role of “identity services,” the mesh of publicly issued identifications that has traditionally meant things like driver’s licenses and Social Security numbers, but has come to include things like Facebook accounts. In a short essay outlining the vision behind Internet.org, Mr. Zuckerberg says one of its goals is to offer credit and identity infrastructure “that is still nascent in many developing countries.” Such services might be of some help in developing countries. But is Facebook the best entity to provide them?