With Free Basics, Facebook is trying to win new users in some of the most underdeveloped nations on the planet. But because of the way the program is being implemented, it suddenly seems to be in jeopardy of losing the world.
Facebook has stumbled into something of an international mudfight over "Free Basics." Free Basics is part of a Facebook-sponsored program that gives people in the developing world free access to cellular data for certain online services — including Facebook and WhatsApp. It's a big part of the company's plan to bring the next billion people online — and to turn them all into Facebook users. But it was temporarily banned in India and shut down in Egypt, spurring the company's CEO Mark Zuckerberg to pen an op-ed asking, "Who could possibly be against this?"
It's a good question! There are few words people like hearing more than "free," and Internet access is a fundamentally useful thing. So it might be hard, at first, to understand why so many people are up in arms about Free Basics. And yet, they clearly are.
Free Basics has been temporarily banned in India while the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) sifts through public comments and explores whether the program violates the principles of net neutrality. The opportunity to comment ends on Jan. 7, and TRAI is expected to rule on the issue by the end of the month.
Free Basics has also been taken offline in Egypt, where Facebook claims over a million people had been using it to get online; the reasons why that happened are still unclear.
Meanwhile, people all over the world — but especially in India — are up in arms about it. Here's the gist of the controversy.
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