About two-thirds of the world still isn’t connected to the Internet. Various companies like Facebook, Samsung, and Microsoft created a partnership called Internet.org to bring those people affordable Internet. They would also only be doing this through select Internet providers, which in turn gives those providers more dominance in the market. This violates the Net Neutrality Act, which states that service providers must treat all data equally on the Internet.
Seeing a serious issue with that, many Indian partners quit the program and publicly called out Mark Zuckerberg on this. I think that these people deserve Internet more than companies deserve an equal share in this market. It should not matter that a few companies, as opposed to all of them equally, were supplying free Internet to these poor places; what should matter is that they are getting it.
Zuckerberg’s argument makes that point that these people, some in very poor areas, will be receiving free Internet. The opponents’ arguments rely on Internet.org breaking the net neutrality act. This act is in place so that businesses cannot decide which services get faster speeds, such as allowing Facebook to load very quickly and Netflix to have a perpetual buffer. It’s very obvious the power these companies would have. What Internet.org will be doing is using that to flow the data to these poor places for free.
I can see why this would be deemed a negative thing. This would be breaking the Net Neutrality Act by allowing Facebook to control what content these places receive. I believe the fact that they are given the chance to be connected to the world in that way is more important than some companies not getting to advertise to them.
It’s a sad truth that businesses care more about money than they do people. These people could learn so much through the Internet, which everyone takes for granted. People always complain that they have no service, or Instagram isn’t loading fast enough. It’s safe to say that I probably wouldn’t have passed freshman year if it hadn’t been for Sparknotes. Now just imagine what it would be like having none of that. Not being able to know what’s going on anywhere in the world with the click of a button.
Internet.org is trying to do a good thing in a controversial way. By giving free Internet to the rest of the world, it is also controlling what content they get, which in turn, breaks the Net Neutrality Act. If you have to break the law to do a good thing, then I think it’s worth breaking the law.