Free Basics by Facebook provides people with access to useful services on their mobile phones in markets where internet access may be less affordable. The websites are available for free without data charges, and include content on things like news, employment, health, education and local information.But, many IIT, IISc professors are arguing that Free Basics is "misleading and flawed". They are saying that, “Allowing a private entity to define for Indian Internet users what is ‘basic’, to control what content costs how much, and to have access to the personal content created and used by millions of Indians, is a lethal combination which will lead to total lack of freedom on how Indians can use their own public utility, the Internet.
Free Basics contradicts the basic principle of net neutrality by giving free access only to fixed number of sites. Net neutrality means that people have access to any site in the internet and no restrictions can be placed on which sites they can visit and which sites they can't.
IIT, IISc professors are critical of 'Free Basics' and have said that the word "free" has been used as a marketing tactic .We all know that when we buy a hair oil bottle and we get a comb free, the price of a comb is added somewhere else. In the same way internet service providers will charge the non-free sites more, otherwise every site would have been free.
To conclude they are saying that allowing a private,multi-national entity such as facebook to decide what is 'basic' is a lethal combination and will spell the end of digital freedom in India.
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