Information Source: Saddahaq
We all know that Facebook is trying very hard to bring its Internet.org to India. It was disallowed in India and to get it passed, it is now being sold as “Free Basics”. Recently, they launched a feature to change your profile picture to one with tricolour hues. This is supposed to be your show of support to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Digital India initiative.
Lakhs of people just loved this cool feature and started changing their profile pics as soon as they saw these giants changing their profile picture. However, please beware, Facebook may consider your changed DP as your support for its “Internet.org” in India.
Remember, it took a number of Internet influencers almost a month to educate people about Net Neutrality and garner about a million and a half signatures against Airtel’s Zero and Facebook’s Internet.org. With a little bit of manipulation, Facebook managed to garner millions of signatures in favour of enabling Internet.org and breaking Internet.org overnight. In a response to DoT, Facebook announced that 17 million people have supported the Internet.org service. The company has published all comments received (dropbox link/via) – which was reportedly collected from its CAN’T-SAY-NO-POLLS as quoted by nextbigwhat
What Happens When You Change Your Profile Pic?
A look at the source code reveals the following. If you clearly observe the highlight in blue above, it says that the name given to the profile picture is InternetorgProfilePicture ie.. the Facebook’s initiative. However this cannot be considered as a proof to show that the changed DP is also being used to show support for internet.org
Digital India is a great initiative that will lead to a lot of opportunities in India. However, we must make sure that we support Digital India and not ‘Facebook’s Digital India’.
Update On 28 September, 11:32 PM
As per sources, Facebook claimed this was all a misunderstanding. “There is absolutely no connection between updating your profile picture for digital India and Internet.org,” a company spokesman said late on Monday night. “An engineer mistakenly used the words ‘Internet.org profile picture’ as a shorthand name he chose for part of the code. But this product in no way connects to or registers support for Internet.org. We are changing the code today to eliminate any confusion.”
Information Source: Saddahaq
