81% Of Indians Voted Against Facebook’s Free Basics In This Survey

As much as the forces that catalysed the debate would like us to think otherwise, Net Neutrality is actually a very straightforward demand, with a very clear set of values. Thankfully for us as a society, it would appear we’ve managed to see past the many layers Facebook threw our way (not to mention those disastrous Free Basic advertisements and hoardings) and stood our ground on the issue. After what seems like half a year of fighting for a free and fair internet for everybody in the country, TRAI finally closed its portals yesterday to Indians’ opinions on this issue, and now all we can do is wait to see who’s won. While TRAI themselves are yet to issue a statement about how many emails they received in comparison to Facebook’s ‘Voice your opinion about Free Basics’ option, the results of a recent survey are extremely promising for all those who believe in Net Neutrality, and Saving The Internet.

Organised by a group called LocalCircles, and conducted among 30,000 participants from across the country, the survey’s results showed that 81 percent of the participants voted against Facebook’s Free Basics, or any such program, making it clear that they want an unbiased/neutral internet for themselves and their fellow citizens. It also showed that 78 percent of the participants wanted the government to provide some kind of free conditional internet access which covers essential citizen services, information, news, emergency alerts, and education.

Over the past few months, we have not only explained the net neutrality debate in detail, but also shared some of the most creative explanations of the same that we found online. Then, the topic of net neutrality steered into a different direction—Free Basics, a proposition by Zuckerberg in collaboration with Telecom partner Reliance that claimed to give India’s poor people access to the internet. Facebook, with the help of vague language, misleading phrases and more, have been trying to harness as many supporters as possible and most were worried that this would be a battle that the seemingly low-numbered net neutrality supporters would lose. However, this survey has helped dispel these fears.

While this survey does not have any sort of implication on the final results, it does give us the hope that we will remain a country that will allow all citizens to access the Internet without any barriers on cost or speed of access.

Words: Krupa Joseph  

http://homegrown.co.in/81-of-indians-voted-against-facebooks-free-basics-in-this-survey/