The fight between Free Services and Net Neutrality is gaining momentum and Facebook is not only limited to its aggressive marketing and promotion strategy. In fact, the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, is calling entrepreneurs of India and talking to them personally in an attempt to make them think again about their opposition to Free Basics.
One of those Indian entrepreneurs whom Mark has called is Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma who is very active and famous for his stand against Free Basics and many times, he has used social media to express his viewpoint.
Oh my fellow Indians, either choose this & do a jihaad for independent Internet later or pick #NetNeutrality today. https://t.co/ng4nTo8lxZ
— Vijay Shekhar Sharma (@vijayshekhar) December 22, 2015
Vijay told The Economic Times why he is so against this Free Basics service, “This will split the internet and block access, which basically violates the principle of net neutrality.”
After he got a call from Mark, he decided to share some part of it with Business Insider. “He (Zuckerberg) was trying to tell me that I should talk less about this thing. I said that what you do not know is that these telecom operators want to block everybody who is making them loose their business. They have their own messenger apps, music streaming apps which are paid for services. They want to do these businesses.”
And when he was asked what Mark said in reply, “He said that he understands what I was saying. Then asked me if I can just route it towards the telcos and support the telecom operators.”
When he was asked about any chance of a meeting between these two entrepreneurs, he stated that nothing of this sort has been talked about and his views about Free Basics are very clear when he says that he doesn’t think that, “any rational, logical government will allow it. Internet should be neutral. Every other view is a hogwash.”
I wish we all talked to TRAI about not letting Telco's split Internet instead focusing elsewhere.Equal Internet & neutral Internet for India
— Vijay Shekhar Sharma (@vijayshekhar) December 30, 2015
