What exactly is 'Free Basics'?

Before I go on describing what is Free Basics and digital equality, let me put down some actual basic explanation about the topic so widely discussed about by everybody.

Tell me, what is your daily basic food requirement?

Rice, dal and vegetables maybe. Or, for some it might be chapatti too. Correct?

Similarly, what are the basic clothes to be worn during winters?

Dark woolen clothes or similar material clothes to keep you warm, right?

Now, imagine a foreign company coming to our country and assuring us of providing free, basic food or clothes but on the condition that they would decide the requirements. So, now we are to be provided with one-rupee toffees as basic food and simple-light cotton half-sleeved shirts as basic clothes during winter, and obviously it is highly publicized that they are providing it for free.

Isn’t the whole scenario insane? Isn’t the entire act a big business scheme to publicize the good-but-useless-deed by the company? What is the use of the said free items if they are completely useless for us?

This is exactly the scene of the so-called ‘Free Basics’ by facebook, which is hovering all over newspapers, street-hoardings and even our facebook notifications, reminding us about the support by our friends. But are we missing the actual picture? Are we being misled by the social networking giant?

The Free Basics is nothing, but the alternate name given to the internet.org platform launched by facebook last year, which came under a lot of criticism. There is nothing as digital equality about it. It openly violates net neutrality. Now, you may ask how?

Let me clear the confusion. Facebook says that Free Basics will connect the billions of Indians and in turn, help them acquire jobs and eradicate their problems. Suppose a video educating a farmer about increasing his yield using modern farming methods is available, say in youtube. So, according to Free Basics he should be able to view it and learn such new techniques that would help his income. But Free Basics don’t support videos. Way to go! So, Free Basics must at least allow you to view every available site and app for free, right? No, it does not. Bingo!

In fact, Free Basics would only allow you to view some selected sites or apps, chosen by them and not the whole internet. Forget youtube, there’s not even Google in Free Basics. You do not even own the freedom to view the net. So, basically Free Basics would control your choice of viewing the internet. In fact, its very format neglects equality in internet. This would create a rather unhealthy competition amongst all websites. Free Basics is actually a trap to bring in more people to use those selected free content on the web and pave the way for more users for the paid sites in the future. So, why this illusionary publicity stunt by Facebook? Is Zukerberg really trying hard to be a hero in front of the Indians? Well, for starters, he is not really one.

The actual support should be directed towards Net Neutrality. Send an email to TRAI instead, supporting Net Neutrality. The deadline for the same is 7^th January. Do it, otherwise highly demanding sites such as Facebook, Flipkart and Amazon amongst others would no longer remain free sites. These would turn to paid sites instead. So, visit savetheinternet.in and send a mail to TRAI. Quick! It’s now or never!