Om Namo Venkatesaya

Why Is Zuckerberg Interested In India?


"Why are you showing so much interest in India? Answer honestly," was the first question that was shot at Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of world's most popular social networking platform, Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg is on his Delhi visit and interacted in a town hall in IIT Delhi this afternoon.

"World can't be connected without connecting India," prompt came the reply from the Facebook co-founder. "Connecting people in India to the world is one of the most important things we can do for the world," added Zuckerberg. India currently has more than 130 million Facebook users, second highest in the world next only to America.

However, there has been criticism that Mark Zuckerberg is here only to promote Facebook's Internet.org, which was seen as a threat to net neutrality. The richest young billionaire in the world also said that Facebook supports net neutrality and that it is an important principle and Facebook is doing a lot to push it.

Mark Zuckerberg also added that with Free Basics Facebook is letting developers offer zero-rated services and that it is not being a filter of any content going through that. On the contrary, Facebook on its Internet.org participation guidelines page mentioned, "Submission does not guarantee that your site(s) will be made available through the Free Basics Platform."