For the past couple of days, many of you Facebook users across India have received a notification informing that either one or many of your friends have allowed Facebook to send a message to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India asking them to support “Free Basics in India”. What Facebook is trying to do is gather support for its NN-violating Free Basics scheme in India by possibly misleading millions of its users. The statement provided by Facebook is not entirely correct, and there are other ways to achieve digital equality and provide opportunities to Indians.
- There are other successful models (this, this, this) for providing free Internet access to people, without giving a competitive advantage to Facebook. Free Basics is the worst of our options.
- Facebook doesn’t pay for Free Basics, telecom operators do. Where do they make money from? From users who pay. By encouraging people to choose Free Basics, Facebook reduces the propensity to bring down data costs for paid Internet access.
- Free Basics isn’t about bringing people online. It’s about keeping Facebook and its partners free, while everything else remains paid. Users who pay for Internet access can still access Free Basics for free, giving Facebook and its partners an advantage. Free Basics is a violation of Net Neutrality
- Internet access is growing rapidly in India. We’ve added 100 million users in 2015. Almost all the connections added in India the last 1 year are NOT because of Free Basics.
- Free Basics is not an open platform. Facebook defines the technical guidelines for Free Basics, and reserves the right to change them. They reserve the right to reject applicants, who are forced to comply with Facebook’s terms. In contrast they support ‘permission-less innovation’ in the US.
- The only source of info on Facebook’s Free Basics is Facebook, and it misleads people. Facebook was criticised in Brazil for misleading advertising. (source) Their communication in India is misleading. People find the “Free” part of Free Basics advertising from Facebook (or FreeNet free Internet) from Reliance misleading. (source)
- Facebook gets access to all the usage data and usage patterns of all the sites on Free Basics. No website which wants to compete with Facebook will partner with them because it will have to give them user data. Facebook gives data to the NSA (source) and this is a security issue for India.
- Research has shown that people prefer to use the open web for a shorter duration over a limited set of sites for a longer duration. (source)
- Facebook says that Free Basics doesn’t have ads, but does not say that it will never have ads on Free Basics.
- Facebook has shown people as saying that they support Free Basics when they haven’t. They may claim 3.2 million in support, but how many of those mails are legitimate?
How you can help
- Click here to send an email to TRAI in support of Net Neutrality
- Click here to mail your MP to support Net Neutrality.
This blog was the courtesy of SaveTheInternet team.
