Net neutrality, Facebook, and India’s battle to #SaveTheInternet

Abstract

In August 2013, Facebook, in a partnership with a few other companies, launched Internet.org—a new service that aimed to bring low cost and subsidized access to a few selected Internet services to developing countries in Asia and Africa. Ever since its announcement, and subsequent roll-out in India in 2015, activists around the world, and particularly in India, have decried the service on grounds of it violating net neutrality. This article traces the manner in which this contentious issue has unfolded in India, primarily in the Indian social media in 2015, leading up to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India banning the service and upholding net neutrality in February 2016.