“There are huge barriers in developing countries to connecting and joining the knowledge economy,” said Mark Zuckerberg. “Internet.org brings together a global partnership that will work to overcome these challenges, including making Internet access available to those who cannot currently afford it.” “The idea, he said, is to develop a group of basic Internet services that would be free of charge to use --- a 911 for the Internet” (Lunden). So far Internet.org has connected 9 million people (Internet.org Myths and Facts). “I 'm focused on this because I believe it is one of the greatest challenges of our generation,” said Zuckerberg (Rusli). Despite good intentions, Internet.org has been criticized for violating net neutrality and favoring Facebook 's services over its rivals (Sharma). …show more content…
Indian activists have stated the app of “being just a Facebook proxy targeting India 's poor.” This is because the free app service provides only restricted Internet access to subscribers in India (Murthy).
What is net neutrality? It is the principle that Internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications whatever the source, without favoring or blocking particular products or websites (Snyder).
Recently Indian publishers decided to remove their services from the Internet.org. app claiming it violates the fundamental concepts of net neutrality. The app offers users in emerging countries entrance to a select group of services such as Facebook, news sites, and health information, all without paying any data charges. Protesters complain that giving away some services and not the entire internet is not fair to services that aren 't available on the app.
Mark Zuckerberg defends the project countering: “Arguments about net neutrality shouldn 't be used to prevent the most disadvantaged people in society from gaining access or to deprive people of opportunity,” (Lapowski). I agree with Zuckerberg’s position that "the positives of giving people even limited free access to the Internet outweigh the concern about playing favorites when the alternative is no access at all, (Lapowski)." For users, it involves having access to only a fragment of what is supposed to be the World Wide Web. This produces “an Internet for poor