By Allan D’souza (Student of Post-Grad in Journalism, class of 2015-2016)
This week has been crucial for Indian’s 400 million plus internet users. Hovering over all is the controiersy surrounding Free Basics, the Facebook initiative being promoted so enthusiastically by founder Mark Zuckerberg. Today in fact is the start of counter comments from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) which will end on January 14 and will be one more step towards the decision to allow Reliance Communication to launch the service or not. Journalism students of SPICE’s batch of 2015-2016 write about the issue.
By Allan D’souza
The deadline of January 7 by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), for registering comments and opinions by internet users, on whether Facebook’s controversial Free basics service should be introduced in India, is looming over the future of the hundreds of millions of Internet users in the country.
Free Basics is the name given to the app that will be running the websites listed under India.org that promises free internet access via selected telecom networks. The controversy that surrounds the implementation of Free Basics is that its select website list keeps out many other big and small players that are on line. Post January 7, TRAI will analyse the comments and release counter comments from January 8-14. So far Free Basics has been launched in 14 countries via several telecom operators, but none of the countries can be considered as top GDP economies.
Internet activists have accused Free Basics of being a third-world country initiative given the nations that have subscribed to this service. However, Facebook has countered such accusations by stating that their service is sheer altruism and has no nefarious intentions. The list of activists urging against Free Basics include some popular names from different industries such as Nandan Nilekani, former Infosys CEO and chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIADI), Shivam Vij, an independent journalist and Vishal Dadlani, popular Bollywood singer with a Twitter following of more than While many have only voiced their opinion criticizing Free Basics, Nilekani has gone beyond to provide a solution that should make both sides happy.
In Nilekani’s opinion, the government can chalk out a free internet scheme in line with the LPG Direct Cash Transfer, wherein users get stipulated megabytes of free internet use without any restrictions on what to use. According to Nilekani, the data pack can be transferred to all registered SIM numbers directly synced with their UID Aadhar Card to prevent users from acquiring multiple SIMs. Users can show their support to either side by voting through their Facebook account which translates as a message to TRAI as a support vote for Free Basics. Those against Free Basics can log in to www.savetheinternet.in website and send their remarks, opinions and messages to TRAI. Popular Twitter hashtags that are trending in opposition to Free Basics are
#SaveTheInternet and #NetNeutrality
In August 2013, Facebook and its partners; Nokia, Samsung, Qualcomm, Opera and Ericsson launched Internet.org. Internet.org was renamed Free Basics in September 2015. The zero-rating service was due to go live around April-May 2015, but had to be stalled when giant website partners such as Flipkart, Snapdeal, YouTube and many other media websites decided to withdraw their support and participation.
The primary reason behind these withdrawals was the sharp criticism drawn by Internet.org for sabotaging the neutrality of internet in India. Clear Trip in its withdrawal statement on Twitter cited “conflict of interest” as primary reason to pull back. Similarly Times Group cleared the air surrounding its support to Internet.org by declaring its willingness to withdraw, provided competitor news websites like the BBC, India Today and NDTV also withdrew. National security and privacy violations are among the other concerns raised by the opposition as all history and other usage data will pass through Facebook’s servers. Though Facebook has assured it will keep personally identifiable information for a maximum of 90 days, there is no assurance on paper of the same.
Another aspect that concerns internet users is the fact that out of the top 40 Alexa ranked websites accessed by users in India, only two of them have made the cut for Free Basics, out of which one is Facebook itself and the other is Wikipedia. Nor do opponents of Free Basics buy Facebooks’s claim that it is offering the service in a spirit of sheer altruism but have also criticized it for creating the possibility of many internet violations in the future.
For instance, spearheading the protest against Free Basics is angel investor, Mahesh Murthy, who is cautioning internet users on accepting the initiative. In Murthy’s opinion, Free Basics will put a restriction on those websites people can use for free. This will later endanger the future of start ups that will end up suffering huge losses due to unavailability of free traffic on their websites. This is why the huge campaign started by Free Basics, through newspapers and hoardings is meeting with stiff resistance on social media. It is also why people are being urged to join the campaign of protest by sending comments on the issue to TRAI. Today is the last to do this.
