Facebook launches '2G Tuesdays' so employees can empathize with people who have slow internet
It's safe to assume that the internet connection in Silicon Valley is probably pretty fast, but that's not the reality for most of the world. In order to help its employees understand what bad internet feels like, Facebook has decided to slow things down — way down — for "2G Tuesdays," Business Insider reports.
"I felt like, 'Whoa!'" engineering director Tom Alison said of his first time opening Facebook with the 2G connection. "It definitely tested my patience — it felt like parts of the product were just broken."
While most users in the United States have 3G or 4G connections, for millions of users in emerging markets like India and Kenya, which use 2G, it can take over two minutes to load a webpage such as this one.
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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.