As per a report published in The Economic Times, 24 lakh responses have been received by TRAI from the social media giant Facebook and other independent mails but the regulators have not got the answers to the questions that they have actually asked.
The responses that have come in support of Free Basics counts to nearly 18 lakh while almost 5 lakh have raised their voice in support of Net Neutrality platforms such as savetheinternet.in and independent emails.
Net Neutrality activists have been fighting a furious battle against the Free Basics service of Facebook and the social media firm has also left no stone unturned in garnering public support by giving full page advertisements in leading dailies and using all the available marketing options.
Earlier Free Basics was known as Internet.org and since its inception in India in May, it has been on receiving end for pushing the users in a “walled garden“ as it will have a single service provider and some chosen partners only.
Facebook may have got more responses because as a person logs into his Facebook account, pop-up comes and asks for supporting Free Basics, which many Indians would have done as it has the word “Free” associated with it and it’s quite easy too; on the other hand, to support Net Neutrality, a user needs to go to a website and then submit the response, this is not so easy for Indians.
Once TRAI will put the submissions online, then we will come to know where this fight is heading further.
