Facebook ‘Free Basics’ service banned in Egypt

Egypt has made a decision to shut down the controversial free internet service Free Basics of Facebook. “What reason is there for denying individuals free access to crucial services for communication, education, health care, employment, farming, and women’s rights?”

“This is not about Facebook’s commercial interests – there are not even any advertisements in the version of Facebook in Free Basics”, he wrote this week.

“Free Basics is a bridge to the full internet and digital equality”, Zuckerberg wrote in the op-ed.

The Free Basics program, part of Facebook’s challenging yet disputed Internet.org strategy, ostensibly aims to bring internet service to billions of men and women in developing countries.

Sharma said more than three-quarters of these 1.82 million comments will be disregarded as they didn’t follow the proper format.

The official added that when it expired on Wednesday the Facebook Free Basics program was suspended and that the license to offer the service had been granted for two months.

Facebook simply can’t give the Internet away.

Facebook’s aggressive Free Basics effort backfired on Thursday with the telecom regulator TRAI asking respondents to its “Net Neutrality” consultation paper to comment on specific problems rather than following a template supplied by the social networking giant. The move came after an investigation was requested by one regulator into Free Basics and whether it could jeopardize the future of net neutrality in India.

“The objective of offering such schemes is promised to be the desire of numerous service/content/platform providers to enable consumers, especially the poor, to get specific content on the internet free of charge”, the sector regulator said.

Facebook, however, expects to “solve this scenario soon”.

The Trai additionally has extended date for counter remarks to January 14, which was earlier set to close on January 7.