California – Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) new initiative called 2G Tuesday will now allow Facebook employees to login into the app and switch to a simulated 2G connection for an hour every Tuesday.
Some may think this is senseless, but Facebook engineers have designed the initiative in order to help employees empathize with users who live in emerging markets who only have access to slow Internet connections and to develop improvements on the app that ease the use on slower connections.
Places like India, Thailand, and much of Latin America struggle with slow connections every day. During the 2G Tuesday, profiles, pages, photos, and videos will load slower than the usual 3G and 4G speed most American’s are used to.
Tom Alison, one of Facebook’s engineers said, “For that next hour, their experience on Facebook will be very much like the experience that millions of people around the world have on Facebook on a 2G connection,” as reported by the Business Insider.
Earlier this year the company launched Facebook Lite, which was their first initiative to make its social network easier to handle for slower connections. This new Android version omits heavy data services and offers push notifications and other basic functions.
Developers don’t know the exact amount of help this new test will bring to further developments, but they are confident that new improvements for those with slow connections will be coming their way.
Source: The Verge