After Harsh Criticism, Facebook Quietly Pulls Services From Developing Countries

A sizeable portion of the nearly 100 million users who have come online through Internet.org live in Myanmar, where Facebook partnered with local telecommunication company Myanma Posts and Telecommunications for the program in mid-2016. Facebook went on to serve as an accelerant to violence and ethnic cleansing-related hate speech. Cost-free access to Facebook’s services has seen Facebook’s own user base in the country skyrocket from two million in 2014 to 30 million in 2017. By August, Facebook's Free Basics program, which is part of the Internet.org initiative, abruptly ended in the nation, users say; using Facebook was no longer free of cost on a data plan. “It all just stopped working one day,” May, a Yangon-based college professor told The Outline. Facebook’s free internet service, she said, was immensely popular in her city.

The most concerning issue with Internet.org has been its unpreparedness to serve and protect the people it is helping come online for the first time. Nikhil Pahwa, a New Delhi-based activist who revolted against the Free Basics program in India, says part of the problem with Internet.org is that it is increasingly becoming a substitute for internet for people in countries such as Myanmar. “Effectively, Facebook’s Free Basics is shaping the internet experience of users — i.e., the services they can access, the services they cannot access,” Pahwa said, adding that this creates a filter bubble for users that influences their worldview. “You can see problems crop up in nations where Free Basics is operational and Facebook is dominant.”