January 02, 2020
You can bill me on how much I am using
As Facebook goes out all guns blazing to push for Free Basics, we get experts to
decode the real agenda Facebook went aggressive with its Free Basics campaign
with full page newspaper ads and incessant notifications As Facebook goes out
all guns blazing to push for Free Basics, we get experts to decode the real
agendaThe ongoing campaign on Facebook to get their users to pledge support for
Free Basics seems to have met with mixed reactions. Even as a good number of
Facebook users (3.2 million and counting) continue to unsuspectingly send their
message to TRAI supporting Free Basics, a parallel campaign is urging people to
stop and think.
AIB has released a series of videos explaining why one should
protest against Free Basics and recently, Vishal Dadlani too expressed a similar
take on his Facebook page. The Advertising Standards Council of India has
received several complaints against Facebook’s print and outdoor ads for its
Free Basics initiative. But even as both sides of the debates keep making
themselves more vocal, confusion reigns supreme in the minds of users. We get
experts to decode the exact definitions of these oft used terms like Free
Basics, Net Neutrality, Internet.org and reveal their real agendas.
What is Free
Basics Free basics is a tool that is designed to generate a lot of revenue for
Facebook. If the government allows Free Basics, Facebook will pay some extra
money to the service providers and pool in their services in a way that in turn
will generate money for both Facebook and the corresponding service providers.
They are basically doing it to tap the Indian user base and the massive amount
of revenue that it’ll generate. Even if the government allows this, there are a
lot of issues and technicalities that’ll come up in due course and hamper the
domestic revenue channels in India.— Sunny Vaghela, Tech Expert.What is
Internet.org Most people are failing to understand the difference between Free
Basics and Net Neutrality. Internet is for the masses.
Especially in a country
like India, people need the Internet primarily for education. When Facebook had
launched Internet.org, it sounded good, but there were many hidden agendas. It
was supposed to get as many people online. However, it turned China instant water heating faucet
Manufacturers out to be not as they had projected. Internet.org was bringing
people only to Facebook. Since the name was a misnomer — .org is usually used
for not-for-profit organisations — they renamed it and have now introduced Free
Basics. Internet is Internet — there shouldn’t any such thing as basic or
premium. — Faisal Farooqui, CEO, Mouthshut.com.How is Free Basics opposed to Net
Neutrality Net Neutrality is the principle of allowing you to access any content
on the Internet, while Free Basics is limiting that accessibility. With Free
Basics, one will get free access to Facebook, if you are a Reliance customer as
Reliance is FB’s telecom partner in India.
But the point is, the Internet should
be open to everyone, there’s no question of choosing and picking — that’s net
neutrality. Something similar had happened to the cable TV industry. Earlier,
all channels were free, so one could access them all. But then with the advent
of set-top boxes, one had to buy separate packs — a sports pack, entertainment
pack, and so on. This whole idea is to make a few companies richer and the
consumers end up paying a lot of money. — Faisal Farooqui, CEO,
Mouthshut.com.Mark Zuckerberg, Founder & Chairman, Facebook, on Free
Basics:Instead of welcoming Free Basics as an open platform that will partner
with any telco, and allows any developer to offer services to people for free,
they claim – falsely – that this will give people less choice. Instead of
recognising that Free Basics fully respects net neutrality, they claim – falsely
– the exact opposite.
This isn’t about Facebook’s commercial interests — there
aren’t even any ads in the version of Facebook in Free Basics. If people lose
access to free basic services, they will simply lose access to the opportunities
offered by the Internet today.... Choose facts over false claims. Everyone
deserves access to the Internet. Free basic Internet services can help achieve
this. Free Basics should stay to help achieve digital equality for India.—
Excerpt taken from an op-ed piece he wrote Why no to Free Basics If they really
care about the divide between the rich and the poor, then they should subsidise
the entire bandwith, like provide 100mb of Internet for everybody. And they can
afford it.
You can bill me on how much I am using, but not based on what I’m
surfing. If that happens, then all the operators will come up with their
customised plan, and it will be a mess. For example, you will get 100 MB of free
Internet, but you will be allowed to access only social networking sites. The
moment you go to any other site, say a newspaper or an e-commerce site, you will
be charged. — Faisal FarooquiFacebook is simply trying too hard. Free Basics is
not Net Neutral and if they (FB) really want to do something for the poor and
rural India then there are better ways to do so by not violating the neutrality
of the Net.
They are simply trying to equate digital equality to net neutrality,
which in turn is confusing everyone. What they are offering with Free Basics is
just a tiny bit of the Internet. The good thing is people are ready for a
conversation. Debates are happening and people are inquisitive, they are keen to
know. I think instead of investing over 20 billion rupees in advertising,
Facebook could have come up with something else, they are simply trying to tap
on the tonnes of user data. TRAI will hopefully take cognisance of the fact and
take corrective measures.
Rohan Joshi, AIBWhat action has been taken so far We
don’t get into the specifics of the complaints or how many we received, but we
have received complaints about the print advertisements and decided to take the
matter to the advertisers, Facebook in this case, and are expecting their reply
early next week.Shweta Purandhare, secretary general, Advertising Standards
Council of India.
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