Service is facing criticism in the midst of net neutrality debate.
By Sreekanth A Nair
Facebook has started an aggressive campaign to protect it’s Free Basics service in India against the backdrop of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s decision to put the service on hold.
TRAI has asked Reliance Communications (RCom), which offers Free Basics to its customers, to stop the service until the authority takes a decision on differential pricing of data by operators.
The public can also submit their opinion with TRAI till December 30.
“As directed by TRAI, the commercial launch of Free Basics has been kept in abeyance, till they consider all details and convey a specific approval,” a Reliance Communications spokesperson said to NDTV.
Meanwhile, Facebook started a campaign through which users can send an e-mail to TRAI showing their support to Free Basics from their Facebook accounts with just a few clicks.
Users are also receiving notification regarding this.
Free Basics offers access to basic websites in categories like education, news, health, travel, job etc. But critics say that the service is against net neutrality, which means offering access to all websites without any preference.
“Free Basics is a first step to connecting one billion Indians to the opportunities online – and achieving digital equality in India. But without support it could be banned in a matter of weeks,” the campaign said.
A Facebook spokesperson said to the Press Trust of India, “This campaign gives people the opportunity to support digital equality in India. It lets people speak in support of the one billion people in India who remain unconnected, and lets them participate in the public debate that is being held by the TRAI on differential pricing for data services. And it gives them the opportunity to support Free Basics.”
Apart from the campaign to send e-mail, Facebook has also given advertisements in some leading newspapers and put billboards in public places.
However, the campaign seems to have created a positive momentum towards Facebook. Out of the 5.7 lakh comments received by TRAI, 5.5 lakh are through the campaign.
“I think it’s important for our country to notice what platform as powerful as Facebook can do to influence policy making in India to serve their own purpose. According to me, the campaign is disingenuous and misleading,” Savetheinternet.in volunteer Nikhil Pahwa was quoted as saying by PTI.