SAY NO TO FREE BASICS

SAY NO TO FREE BASICS

Digital Equality can be implemented better without Facebook***India’s poor deserves something better than Facebook and their advertisements.*Let’s start the conversation from the Facebook’s side of story. For the past one week Facebook is running “Free Basics” campaign that easily makes people fall for it by the kind of ads and twisted words.

Here is the excerpt that is being shared for supporting Free Basics.

“To the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, I support digital equality for India. Free Basics provides free access to essential Internet services, such as communication, education, healthcare, employment, farming information and more. It helps those who can’t afford to pay for data, or who need a little help with getting started online. And it’s open to all people, developers and mobile networks. With 1 billion Indian people not yet connected, shutting down Free Basics would hurt our country’s most vulnerable people. I support Free Basics and digital equality for India. Thank you.”

And some more words from Mark Zuckerberg on Times Of India.

In every society, there are certain basic services that are so important for people’s wellbeing that we expect everyone to be able to access them freely. 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. That’s why everyone also deserves access to free basic internet services.

What is wrong in the statements above?**

They want to help the poor and rural part of India. That is really a good initiative. When they can provide, free books, free healthcare, free education why can’t they provide the same Internet access of what I am able to access in Bangalore. And on the other side, what do they provide additionally?. Whatever they claim to provide to the rural part of India, is available for free already. And do you think Indian Government can’t provide those?

If Facebook thinks that they are doing it for a noble cause, why can’t they provide Free Wi-Fi/Internet to all the rural area like what Google is going to do with major Railway Stations in India. Did anyone question Google for their initiative? No. Because it is DIGITALLY EQUAL to everyone.

Why Facebook can’t do the same initiative? They won’t. The motive behind their Free Basics advertisements, campaigns and spending crores of money, is to get the money back in multiples in future. Mark said, they are not going to add advertisements. But that is NOT true. But here is the snippet from their executive.

Chris Daniels of Facebook explicitly says they reserve the right to have ads on Facebook Free Basics in the future: https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/3ya52q/vp_internetorg/

To be frank, Facebook is just a social media company who makes money through advertisements. They need to do something to keep it going and to keep their share market price up always. Having an evil platform like this, will kill the future of our kids and coming generations. Set of companies and people will decide, what Indians should know and they control what you should see. Our brothers/sisters/kids don’t need to access Facebook to learn anything.

Facebook is already eating whole India’s productivity. In this year 2015 alone, India has added 100 million new users to Internet most of them from tier-3 towns and rural areas. They are all already having an opinion that “Facebook” is Internet. That is really bad for a country that needs to be on a growing path. What Indian poor people needs to access, should be decided by Indian Government not a money making social media company.

FACEBOOK IS BANNED IN CHINA.

So, they have nothing to do with China. Their next major target is obviously India where they can exploit users easily with their evil plans. It is really bad to see how a company from outside India comes and dictates that they know what India and their people deserves. Internet.org campaign from last year suddenly turned to “Free Basics” this year from Facebook. Free basics is not the whole Internet. It is a set of websites from which they can decide how to make money out of it from the first time Internet users. It doesn’t mean anything to “Digital Equality”.

**First time internet user from a rural part of India should be able to access what I access in Bangalore through Internet. That is what “Digital Equality” or “Net Neutrality”.

To the fellow digital Indians**

**“Digital India is not about adding colors to your facebook profile photo”All Indians support causes initiated by western countries without even knowing what it is like they fell victims of supporting Facebook’s free basics supporting scam. Digital India is bringing all the indian initiatives digitally and every citizen in the country should be given equal rights to access everything. Whatever you access in Delhi/Mumbai/Chennai/bangalore should be accessed by our brothers and sisters in rural India. There should not be any partiality. The Internet shouldn’t be controlled by one company or one network provider who decides what Indians should access. If there is a company/body behind proving digital access and equal rights, that should be Indian Government and not others.

What facebook won’t tell you**

They are in a pressure to increase their userbase and also to increase their advertisement revenue against Google. **If they control “free basics” then, all Indian first time Internet users will become products/slaves for their walled Internet access. **And their knowledge about Internet will stay around Facebook and their Advertisement business. The users will end up in wasting time on Facebook app or playing temple run/candy crush and watching their advertisements. Indians have better things to do than that.

What Government should do

India is one of the world’s major economy and the world’s largest democracy. It shouldn’t become a digital colony for an advertisement company from outside India.

**What facebook is trying to overpower is OUR SPECTRUM and it belongs to INDIANS ALONE. We have the rights to say how it should be used.Indians can manage it better than Facebook. And we know what Indian users should be given access to. Digital India should encourage user to access knowledgable content rather than wasting time on social networks. Government should instruct how telecom operators should operate their spectrum and give equal access to every Indians.

Let’s not combine a business motive and a genuine cause together.** Whoever is against “Free Basics” is not against Facebook and its business anyway. They are ready to welcome if it is an open Internet and digitally equal to every citizen.** I am also ready to support if they can provide open and free Internet to everyone.**

To sum up everything,

SAY NO TO FREE BASICS.

References:

Net neutrality***Net neutrality (also network neutrality, Internet neutrality, or net equality) is the principle that Internet service…*en.wikipedia.orgHow Net Neutrality Works - The Nib*****A chart-like chart*thenib.comFacebook is misleading Indians with its full-page ads about Free Basics.** *Today it has ads around India saying ” What net neutrality activists won’t tell you”. I’m a net neutrality activist and…*www.linkedin.com