India, Egypt say no thanks to free Internet from Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg launched his sweeping Internet.org initiative in 2013 as a way to provide 4 billion people in the developing world with Web access, which he says he sees as a basic human right. But the initiative has hit a major snag in India, where in recent months Free Basics has been embroiled in controversy — with critics saying that the app, which provides limited access to the Web, does a disservice to the poor and violates the principles of “net neutrality,” which holds that equal access to the Internet should be unfettered to all.

Activist groups such as Save the Internet, professors from leading universities and tech titans such as Nandan Nilekani, the co-founder of Infosys, have spoken out against it. Another well-known Indian entrepreneur dubbed it “poor Internet for poor people.” India’s debate could affect the way other countries address the question of whether it is fair for Internet service providers to price websites differently. The US Federal Communications Commission’s rules on network neutrality went into effect only in June. Officials at Facebook launched an advertising blitz to counteract the negative publicity.