[Facebook’s rocky experience
since it brought
Internet.org to India in February shows
that good intentions and technological savvy are not enough to achieve a noble
goal like universal Internet access.]
 |
Last month, Mark Zuckerberg, right,
Facebook's chief, hosted a live-streamed
chat with
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MUMBAI, India — If Mark
Zuckerberg hopes
to deliver on his vision of
bringing the Internet to the four billion people who lack it,
the Facebookchief
will first need to make his plan more appealing to salesmen like Shoaib Khan.
Mr. Khan’s perfume and
cellphone shop in one of this city’s many slums recently displayed a large blue
banner advertising Mr. Zuckerberg’s project, called Internet.org, in the back.
Another sign for the free package of Internet services — offered in India through the cellphone carrier Reliance
Communications — was posted prominently in front.
But when a reporter asked Mr. Khan about his experience with
Internet.org, he had no idea what it was. After the program was explained to
him, he quickly dismissed it.
“The Reliance connection is very patchy,” said Mr. Khan, shaking
his head. “I would really have to sell the customer on it.”
Facebook’s
rocky experience since it brought
Internet.org to India in February shows
that good intentions and technological savvy are not enough to achieve a noble
goal like universal Internet access.
The skepticism of phone
sellers like Mr. Khan and the weaknesses of Facebook’s Indian partner are just
two of the problems that have bedeviled Mr. Zuckerberg’s project so far.
Internet.org’s free services — which include news articles,
health and job information, and a text-only version of Facebook — are
deliberately stripped down to minimize data usage and the cost to the phone
company. Facebook says the primary goal is to show people what the Internet is
all about. But many Indians want more and complain that, contrary to its
altruistic claims, the project is simply a way to get them onto Facebook and
sign up for paid plans from Reliance.
Internet activists have also attacked Facebook for
cherry-picking partners to include in its walled garden rather than simply
offering a small amount of free access to the whole Internet. Their concerns
have struck a chord with the Indian government, which is considering new rules
that would govern such free services.
Mr. Zuckerberg declined several
requests to discuss Internet.org.
But he remains passionate about his crusade. “Internet access needs to be
treated as an important enabler of human rights and human potential,” he told the United Nations last month.
The Internet.org suite, rebranded last month as Free Basics, is
now in 25 countries, from Indonesia Panama
Mr. Zuckerberg is also determined to win over the Indian public.
Last month, he hosted a live-streamed chat with India’s prime minister,
Narendra Modi, from Facebook’s Silicon Valley headquarters. And this week,
Mr. Zuckerberg will be in New Delhi
The magnitude of the task ahead
was apparent during a reporter’s visit in August to Dharavi, home to as many as
a million of Mumbai’s poor.
Several
billboards advertised Freenet, Reliance’s version of Internet.org. But in the
neighborhood’s narrow alleys, where rivulets of raw sewage competed with
sandaled feet, there was little evidence that anyone had taken notice.
A conversation with a dozen
cellphone users at a tea shop uncovered no one who had heard of Freenet or
Internet.org, but plenty of complaints about Reliance’s sluggish data network
and poor customer service compared to the market leaders, Airtel and Vodafone.
At Yahoo Mobilewala, a nearby phone shop named in honor of the
American Internet company, the owner Rizwan Khan, offered service from every
major carrier. But his stack of Reliance chips — each in a blue Freenet
envelope that said “Go free Facebook” — was gathering dust in its display case.
In India SIM card, often loading it with a
dollar’s worth of data or calls at a time. Phone-card vendors are key advisers,
educating people about all their options.
“New customers don’t come looking for Freenet,” Mr. Khan said,
who is no relation to Shoaib Khan. Even if Reliance’s network were good, he
said, the package excludes WhatsApp, a popular messaging app owned by Facebook,
and users must pay to see the photos in their Facebook feeds. “If you have to
pay for data, what’s the point of calling it free?” he said.
Phone-card sellers also tend to push whatever makes them the
most money. Mr. Khan noted that another carrier had recently awarded him his
choice of a Hero motorcycle or 45,000 rupees — nearly $700 — for signing up
1,000 customers. Reliance offered nothing similar.
In more than two dozen interviews in poor neighborhoods of
Mumbai, a reporter found several people who had tried Internet.org but only one
who used it regularly — a 23-year-old man who said he used the free version of
Facebook Messenger on the app to chat with friends when he ran out of money on
his prepaid account.
Chris Daniels, the Facebook
executive who leads Internet.org, said the company is primarily trying to reach
people who are completely new to the Internet.
In an interview last week, Mr.
Daniels said about a million people had been introduced to the Internet in India
“This is a program that is
working to bring people online, and working incredibly well.” Mr. Daniels said.
“Connectivity is something that improves people’s lives. It’s an enabler for
people to be able to help themselves find jobs, help themselves improve their
health situation, improve their education for themselves and their children.”
Gurdeep Singh, the chief executive of Reliance’s consumer
business, defended the quality of his company’s network, but acknowledged that
it needed to do more to raise awareness of Freenet and persuade retailers to
promote it.
“This is a slow process,” he said in an interview at the
company’s sprawling campus in Navi Mumbai, a few miles from Dharavi. “We are
fighting this huge battle against digital illiteracy.”
According to Reliance research, 36 percent of phone-card sellers
don’t have a phone capable of Internet access, which makes them poor
ambassadors for the concept.
But Mr. Singh said Reliance was committed to Freenet, which was
initially limited to seven states, and planned to offer it nationally soon. “India
While that is a goal shared by many, Facebook’s approach has run
into a buzzsaw of criticism from Internet advocates here, who see it as an
attempt by the world’s largest social network to become the gatekeeper to the
Internet for a new generation of users.
“On the open Internet, everyone is equal,” said Nikhil Pahwa,
editor and publisher of MediaNama, an Indian news site, who has vociferously
opposed Internet.org. “On Internet.org, Facebook is the kingmaker.”
Mr. Pahwa helped organize a campaign
called Save the Internet, which rallied a million Indians to press
regulators to stop Internet.org and establish rules protecting net
neutrality. That principle, also a subject of intense debate in the United States and Europe, says that Internet access providers
should give customers equal access to all content.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India is still mulling
potential regulations. In a recent interview, however, the agency’s chairman,
Ram Sewak Sharma, was skeptical of Internet.org. “Maybe they have wonderful
objectives, but the way it is being implemented, that’s not really
appropriate,” he said.
Mr. Daniels said Facebook had
been listening to all the criticism and had made many changes to Internet.org,
including opening it to other companies that wanted to offer free services on
the platform. “We always appreciate feedback, in whatever form it comes,” he
said.
