Tricolour Display Picture

As I logged in on my facebook yesterday my timeline was filled with people adding the tricolor filter to their display picture. More I saw it, more annoyed I got. So you support Digital India? Nice, good. We all should support it but understand what can be the repercussions! Take note that I am using the word ‘can’ in my previous sentence. There is a high possibility that this changing of display picture can be used as a support toward Internet.org. Doesn’t it seem very fishy? Facebook launched Internet.org, they received some slack. A few months later our PM visits facebook and talk about digital India. My question is, why do we need facebook to come and provide internet to the rural India? Why can’t our government provide the rural areas with internet which is not going to try and limit their access?

On one hand we are talking about Make in India and the rise of entrepreneurs in India and on the other hand we are trying to curb their reach online by bringing in projects like Internet.org

Facebook is good, we should make efforts to make it available to everyone possible. But that can be easily done by providing them with internet access where they can access any site that they want and not just be limited to websites that are approved by facebook. Internet.org changed its name to ‘Free Basics’. I can think of a lot of ‘Free Basics’ that India needs right now other than Internet. Education, better sanitary facilities to name a few. Misleading name again!

Changing the display picture just to show that you care or to look cool is honestly not cool. At least try to understand what they can mean. There are articles already saying that this changing of display pictures can be counted as support, I don’t know how true that is. Maybe they won’t count it as an official vote but they can show that these many people reacted positively towards the cause by changing their pictures.