People across India are crying foul at Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s scheme to bring internet “Free Basics” to the South Asian country, and the multi-billionaire is not happy about it.
In an op-ed published Monday in the Times of India, Zuckerberg lashed out at those raising the alarm over an initiative they say violates the principles of net neutrality and allows the social networking giant to capture India’s internet.
Striking a sanctimonious tone, Zuckerberg compared critics of Free Basics to opponents of “free, basic health care,” libraries, and public education. “The data is clear. Free Basics is a bridge to the full internet and digital equality,” Zuckerberg wrote. “If we accept that everyone deserves access to the internet, then we must surely support free basic internet services.”
“In the ultimate Orwellian doublespeak, ‘free’ for Zuckerberg means ‘privatized,’ a far cry from privacy — a word Zuckerberg does not believe in.”
—Vandana Shiva, philosopher, environmental activist, eco-feminist
“Surprisingly, over the last year there’s been a big debate about this in India,” the Facebook CEO continued. “What reason is there for denying people free access to vital services for communication, education, healthcare, employment, farming and women’s rights?”
But activists, regulators, and ordinary people across India say there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of the program—which partners with mobile service providers to allow access to some websites without payment for data, but only through the Facebook system.
Nikhil Pahwa, an organizer with Save the Internet-India, raised the question earlier this week in the Times of India: “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?”
According to Save the Internet, the program simply allows Facebook to capture India’s market—already Facebook’s second largest in the world. “Facebook doesn’t pay for Free Basics, telecom operators do,” the advocacy group wrote earlier this week. “Where do they make money from? From users who pay.”
But according to Vandana Shiva—a philosopher, environmental activist, and eco-feminist—the reality is even more sinister. Reliance Communications, the Indian company partnering with Facebook on the program, “obtained land for its rural cell phone towers from the government of India and grabbed land from farmers for [special economic zones] through violence and deceit,” Shiva wrote earlier this week. “As a result and at no cost, Reliance has a huge rural, semi-urban and suburban user base — especially farmers.”
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