It seems Free Basics' problems are nowhere close to ending. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, at his townhall address at the IIT Delhi campus yesterday, staunchly defended his project yet again, saying the company's effort to bring free internet to those without connectivity is not against the concept of net neutrality. But not everyone agrees.
It seems Free Basics' problems are nowhere close to ending. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, at his townhall address at the IIT Delhi campus yesterday, staunchly defended his project yet again, saying the company's effort to bring free internet to those without connectivity is not against the concept of net neutrality. But not everyone agrees.
The team over at SaveTheInternet have penned an open letter to Zuckerberg, in an attempt to point out what they see as a flaw in his arguments. But let's backtrack a little first. At the townhall meet, Zuckerberg said, "People who are pushing with petitions for net neutrality already have access to the internet. And people who don't have internet can't sign an online petition asking for access." That, of course, didn't go down well with his detractors, who feel that Facebook should not be the metaphorical gatekeeper for the interweb.
As it stands right now, Free Basics has tied up with only a handful of websites, which will be offering free access over data to those who take up a connection plan with a partnered telecom operator which, in India, is Reliance Communications. Net Neutrality activists aren't happy about that, and they certainly weren't pleased to hear Zuckerberg defending the program, so they promptly responded:
"Yesterday, in your townhall address at IIT Delhi, you mentioned that “Those who don’t have access to the Internet cannot sign online petitions,” trying to make a case that those who oppose of your Net Neutrality violating Internet.org/Free Basics service are campaigning against those who do not have Internet access. Nothing could be further from the truth. Many of us have benefited from the Internet because of the openness, plurality and diversity it has to offer. We want more people to get access to the internet—the entire internet—and not primarily the filter for the web that you have set up with Internet.org/Free Basics. We’d like to remind you that Tim Berners-Lee, one of the founding fathers of the Internet who strives for expanding its use by the entire web recently called Zero Rating “Economic Discrimination”, saying that “Economic discrimination is just as harmful as technical discrimination, so ISPs will still be able to pick winners and losers online.”
Even today, Internet.org has restrictions that those services which compete with telecom operator services will not be allowed on it. WhatsApp would have never emerged on this platform. You also reserve the right to reject services from Internet.org. We fail to understand why, if it is an open platform, someone even needs to apply, and conform to your pre-defined technical limitations, and has to go through unspecified checks determined by your organization."
You can read the full text of the open letter here.
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 "dnaTechLaunch, Free Basics, Internet.org, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, net neutrality, Reliance Communications")
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