Facebook Wi-Fi is finally available in India with the launch of the company’s new paid internet service.
Express Wi-Fi allows India’s mobile phone owners in underserved locations to purchase data from local internet service providers in order to access the internet. A pilot version of the program, in partnership with a state-owned telecoms provider, is currently live at 125 rural Wi-Fi hot spots in the country, reports the BBC.
“Express Wi-Fi empowers local entrepreneurs to help provide quality internet access to their neighbors and make a steady income,” writes Facebook on its Internet.org website. “Working with local internet service providers or mobile operators, they’re able to use software provided by Facebook to connect their communities.”
With over 142 million Facebook users, India is Facebook’s second-largest market (with the U.S. in first place). A majority of that figure (133 million) access Facebook via mobile, making India a natural starting point for Facebook’s global internet-serving ambitions. There’s just one major problem: The country is skeptical of the social network’s advances, in particular its free internet program.
Free Basics by Facebook, which offers free mobile internet access to selected websites, suffered a huge setback in January when it was banned by India’s telecom regulator. The governing body cited net neutrality principles as a decisive factor in its ruling.
“While we’re disappointed with [the] decision, I want to personally communicate that we are committed to keep working to break down barriers to connectivity in India,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at the time. “We will keep working until everyone has access to the Internet.”
Express Wi-Fi skirts the entire net neutrality debate by charging for unrestricted web access. Consequently, Facebook’s long-term goal of providing internet access to developing nations in a bid to broaden its user base will now likely continue unabated.
Discord is trying to push more visibility on the internet for some of its biggest communities, and there's a good chance your messages could end up in a Google Search. The platform is preparing to make conversations from certain public servers searchable on the web, so there's a privacy setting you might want to check before the rollout begins.
According to Discord's official announcement, the changes will roll out in two stages. Starting November 16, qualifying servers will have public web pages featuring automated summaries of conversations. By mid-December, individual messages from eligible public channels could also appear word-for-word in Google and other search engines.
You just opened X and started typing your thoughts. Imagine the jump scare when a hand suddenly pops up on your screen, pointing at the promote button. It doesn’t say a word and simply points. For a growing number of X users, this isn’t a made-up scenario but something they have been seeing since yesterday, and very few of them are amused.
Most of us have learned to tune out the usual in-app upsells, whether it’s a glowing upgrade banner or a pop-up about a premium plan. A floating hand hovering over your draft is much harder to ignore, and that’s probably the whole point.
Scroll through any app for five minutes, and you’ll find someone maxxing something. Their skin, their sleep, their protein intake, even their Friday night on the couch. That little suffix has been everywhere this year, and now it has a trophy to show for it. In a recent announcement, Dictionary.com named maxxing its 2026 Word of the Year.
What are people actually doing when they’re maxxing?