Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg published an opinion piece in one of India’s biggest newspapers on Monday in defense of the social network’s attempt at bringing free but limited Internet to the country’s roughly 1 billion residents.
Comparing Internet access to public libraries and hospitals, Mr. Zuckerberg’s op-ed in Monday’s edition of the Times of India is his latest and possibly last attempt at having the nation embrace the “Free Basics” program that has already provided elemental Internet services to roughly 15 million people in more than 30 countries.
“In every society, there are certain basic services that are so important for people’s well being that we expect everyone to be able to access them freely,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote. “We have collections of free basic books. They’re called libraries. They don’t contain every book, but they still provide a world of good; We have free basic healthcare. Public hospitals don’t offer every treatment, but they still save lives; We have free basic education. Every child deserves to go to school; And in the 21st century, everyone also deserves access to the tools and information that can help them to achieve all those other public services, and all their fundamental social and economic rights.
“We know that when people have access to the Internet they also get access to jobs, education, health care, communication. We know that for every 10 people connected to the Internet, roughly one is lifted out of poverty. We know that for India to make progress, more than 1 billion people need to be connected to the Internet,” he wrote.
Mr. Zuckerberg claimed the Free Basics program could empower upwards of a billion residents of India by providing access to rudimentary web services — Facebook and the social network’s proprietary messaging app are both free to use through the program, as is Wikipedia, certain educational resources, select health and news portals and jobs sites.
Critics have raised concerns about the service’s features ending just about there: net neutrality advocates have condemned the program for picking and choosing what types of content is made available to its users, and India’s telecommunication regulator asked one of the country’s biggest telecoms to suspend its affiliation with Free Basics this month while it weighs the program’s legality.
“Instead of wanting to give people free access to basic Internet services, critics of the program continue to spread false claims — even if that means leaving behind a billion people,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote in the op-ed. “Instead of recognizing the fact that Free Basics is opening up the whole Internet, they continue to claim — falsely — that this will make the Internet more like a walled garden.
“Who could possibly be against this?” Mr. Zuckerberg asked.
Among those who have spoken up against Free Basics is Nikhil Pahwa, an entrepreneur and journalist who condemned the program in an op-ed of his own published in Monday’s paper.
“Facebook is being disingenuous — as disingenuous as the company’s promotional programs for Free Basics to its Indian users — when it says that Free Basics is in conformity with net neutrality,” he wrote, adding that Free Basics is “rejecting the option of giving the poor free access to the open, plural and diverse web.”
“Why has Facebook chosen the current model for Free Basics, which gives users a selection of around a hundred sites (including a personal blog and a real estate company homepage), while rejecting the option of giving the poor free access to the open, plural and diverse web?” he asked.
In a 10-point fact sheet published Monday by India’s Save the Internet group, activists claimed the program “isn’t about bringing people online” but rather “keeping Facebook and its partners free, while everything else remains paid” —a flagrant violation of net neutrality’s fundamental concept.
Another critic, prominent Indian venture capitalist Mahesh Murthy, has gone as far as to condemn the program as “imperialism and the East India Company all over again” carried out under the guise of “digital equality.”
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India is slated to decide early next month whether Free Basics and similar services are legal, The Wall Street Journal reported.
With 130 million users, India is currently Facebook’s second-largest market after the United States.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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