Facebook's Free Internet Not Actually Free For Many Users

screenrant.com:

Facebook offers a program that allows users in developing countries to access the platform and a few other internet services for free, but due to software issues that the company reportedly knew about and sat upon for months, users were collectively charged millions of dollars for using cellular data. The service in question is called Free Basics and aims to “connect the unconnected.” It is a part of a Facebook initiative called Internet.org and includes partnerships with carriers in a number of developing countries to let users visit Facebook, ESPN, and Wikipedia among others, without incurring a data charge.

As to be expected, not everyone was psyched about Facebook acting as a gatekeeper to the internet for hundreds of millions of users, most of whom might be visiting the internet for the first time. The service was banned in India citing net neutrality concerns. By 2018, however, it was available in over 50 countries and remains extremely popular in African countries. Still, activists and experts continue to criticize the service for violating net neutrality principles and have even likened it to digital colonialism. CEO Mark Zuckerberg, on the other hand, defended it by implying some internet is better than no internet.

Related: Facebook Served Violent And Explicit Content To Non-Tech Savvy Users

It appears that the service might not have been as free as first thought. According to an investigation by The Wall Street Journal, the service had software issues that Facebook knew about, but didn’t fix for months, resulting in users getting charged by telecom operators for data usage. The findings are not surprising, though. The company is also said to have been aware of Instagram’s adverse ill-effects on teens and chose