“The debate on net neutrality has been incredible in India” and finding the right balance between provisions on net neutrality and enhancing access to the hitherto Internet-unconnected in India will have a great impact on the rest of the world as well, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and founder of Facebook, told select journalists, at the Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California. Mr. Zuckerberg said his company’s mission was to connect the world.
While there was a perception that his company, due to its success, is “big,” the mentality of his colleagues was that of a small company, constantly seeking to live up to its mission, he said.
After it drew about 1.5 billion people the online social networking service was now seeking to enhance connectivity and reaching out to those not connected.
It is in this regard that Facebook was promoting its internet.org platform, whose access application has been rebranded as “free and basic services,” besides working on other technologies to provide bandwidth access and tuning products for places with lower bandwidth.
India, having the largest number of people not connected to the Internet, had seen a strong debate on net neutrality, and Facebook had learnt from it, modifying its internet.org business model, he and his colleagues said. Other changes included opening up the free basics platform to developers, changing its privacy policy and providing a security methodology.
Asked about other business models (such as Jana), which provided data access within strict definitions of net neutrality, internet.org head Chris Daniels argued that their model of giving access to free and basic services fitted with net neutrality provisions.
Inflammatory content
Asked about his view on kneejerk reactions by government, like the shutting down of the Internet when faced with social media content issues, he said his company was working with law enforcement and investing a lot in regulating inflammatory content on Facebook, but more needed to be done.
