In its aggressive campaign for Free Basics, couched in simplistic developmental language, Facebook underestimated the political sophistication of the Indian public. It must be regretting it now. The social networking service’s reportedly Rs. 100-crore campaign, through double full-page newspaper advertisements, billboards and television, appears simply to have congealed public opinion against Free Basics. Everyone seems…
The National Youth Summit, ‘EVOKE-2016’, commenced at Chandigarh University here today.Speakers at the event included Hamirpur MP and secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India Anurag Thakur, Chandigarh SSP Sukhchain Singh Gill and New York-based fashion designer Sanjana Jon.Talking on the topic, ‘Social Media Dialogue- The Roadmap from Chaos to Consensus’, Thakur…
Persatuan Kesedaran Komuniti Selangor (Empower) has raised concerns over the authorities’ plans to monitor instant messaging app, WhatsApp. In a press statement, its president, Janarthani Arumugam said it was worrying that Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar mentioned WhatsApp as one of the social media platforms to be monitored due to its abuse by some…
The green light on Pushpa Kaushik’s modem hasn’t come on for the past three months. When she first got internet access in her home a year ago, all the people of Lalpur, a small village in Uttar Pradesh, northern India, used to come to her house to use her computer. Some needed to check their…
Taslima Nasreen, a Bangladeshi author who lives in exile in India, today rooted for absolute freedom of speech for writers even if it led to hurting the sentiments of certain people or groups. I think that we should have our freedom of expression even if that might offend some people. If we do not open…
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has tried every trick in the box to bring ‘Free’ Basics to India. Some of our sources had revealed that he had been making personal calls to India to pitch the new initiative. Now, a report by BusinessInsider reveals that Paytm Founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma was among the many founders that Mark…
Judgement day is approaching for the fate of net neutrality in India. As Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) gears up to frame the net neutrality rules, telecom operators have favoured differential pricing for data services. Nearly 80% replies to the regulator’s consultation process follow the Facebook ‘templates’ for its controversy-ridden Free Basics platform. Net…
Internet rights groups have accused Facebook of making “unfounded and divisive attacks” on critics of its program to bring low-end Web service to India’s rural poor. Since Indian regulators in late December requested that Facebook halt Free Basics until it turned over more information about the terms of the program, the social media giant has…
To those who fear that the web is beyond control, there’s a message: there’s more to hope for than to despair of. In their report, One in three: internet governance and children’s rights, three experts in children’s use of technology seek to pinpoint those rights to protection whilst ensuring that the benefits offered by internet…
The final day of submission of comments to the telecom regulator turned out to be quite uneventful compared to the month-long high-decibel social media campaign that ensued to disallow Facebook’s Free Basics entry into India. But the volunteer-led groups said that this was not the end of the road for them or for the larger…