Facebook Invests $5.7B in India's Reliance Jio

Facebook has enjoyed unparalleled reach in India for more than a decade. But as China's fast-growing ByteDance emerges as a formidable competitor in what has become the world's second largest internet market, the American social media giant has found the horse it wants to bet on in the new decade. From a report: The world's largest social media company announced today it has invested $5.7 billion for a 9.99% stake in India's Reliance Jio Platforms, a three-and-a-half-year-old subsidiary of the nation's most valued firm, Reliance Industries, and the biggest telecom operator in the country with more than 380 million subscribers. The deal, which valued Jio at a pre-money valuation of $65.95 billion, makes Facebook the largest minority shareholder in the Indian telecom network. The social giant said the investment marks its "commitment to India," where it will focus on collaborating with Jio to create "new ways for people and businesses to operate more effectively in the growing digital economy." This is the largest investment for a minority stake by a technology company anywhere in the world and the largest foreign direct investment in the technology space in India.

lol

[retchdog]

Facebook can barely handle the fraud from SE Asia and they're making another sweeping push for g r o w t h at all costs.

The most naive, wealthy, and docile consumers in the world apparently need to be spied on for their own good, by the platform they claim to hate but continue using near-exclusively and which makes its business by directly connecting these sheep with practically unregulated fly-by-night "businesses" run by very hungry people making under $5/day.

It's just hilarious on so many levels.

Re:

[thegreatbob]

Comedy and tragedy are two sides of the same coin.

they just want the money - fuck people

[AndyKron]

What about the Muslims? What about Kashmir? Facebook doesn't give a fuck.

Infosec trainwreck

[ColoradoAuthor]

Multiple users have been signing up for Jio using one of my email addresses. Giving me full access to reset their passwords, edit their profiles, see their customers (some of them appear to be resellers), and probably to access their digital wallets (I haven't tried that because ethics). Multiple layers of support at Jio say they don't care or can't help. From my corner of the world, this looks to me like an infosec disaster waiting to happen.