Through its Free Basics program, Facebook offered free, limited Internet access to poor people in India – a nation which is rapidly developing. Incredibly, India turned them down.
Here in the United States, bureaucrats and courts are considering policies that could shape – or re-shape – what our cherished Internet looks like over the coming years and decades. Jerri Ann Henry from Protect Internet Freedom joined the Crummy Little Podcast to talk about what Indian regulators and giant corporations jockeying for position could mean for the Internet’s future.
Listen/download it here or subscribe on iTunes.
Extras:
- Jerri Ann has a few of great written pieces about the situation in India. Get started here and here.
- And read up on the people who told India’s poor that Facebook’s “Free Basics” was worse than no Internet acess at all at www.NoInternetForPoorPeople.com. (Spoiler alert: none of them come from areas where Internet access is a problem.)
- You can follow (and, if you’re feeling saucy, even join) the efforts to keep the Internet free and open at www.ProtectInternetFreedom.com.
- Follow Protect Internet Freedom on Twitter and Facebook. Jerri Ann is definitely worth following on Twitter, too.