AT THE Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in 2013, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s boss, told the assembled crowd of telecom operators, mobile manufacturers and tech executives that there were still far too many people in the world without access to the internet. Facebook would change that with “internet.org”, a collection of apps and services made for people in poor countries and distributed without charge. This seemed like good news: bringing people online has has been shown to aid development and lift people out of poverty. But the service created a fuss in India. In December, India’s telecoms regulator suspended the service pending the outcome of a public consultation, the first bit of which ends on January 7th. Why don’t Indians want Facebook’s generosity?
