Facebook has signed up almost half the countries in Africa – a combined population of 635 million – to its free internet service in a controversial move to corner the market in one of the world’s biggest mobile data growth regions.
Facebook’s co-founder and chairman, Mark Zuckerberg, has made it clear that he wants to connect the whole world to the internet, describing access as a basic human right. His Free Basics initiative, in which mobile users are able to access the site free of data charges, is available in 42 countries, more than half of them in Africa. [...]
It is not the first time Facebook has faced challenges to its initiative. In India, Free Basics was effectively banned after a groundswell of support for net neutrality – a principle affirming that what you look at, who you talk to and what you read is ultimately determined by you, not a business.
It was a blow for Zuckerberg, who was accused of acting like a digital colonialist: shouting about the right to the internet to mask true profit motives. [...]
In a competitive emerging market, giving away data for free may not seem like an obvious business choice, but Facebook has sold it to mobile operators on the basis that customers will eventually buy data.
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