Meta (formerly Facebook) claims it offers an option that enables users to access its social site. The company also claims it provides a few other internet services at no cost. But, users in America and some other countries have been charged millions of dollars collectively for using cellular data owing to app issues that the company is aware of but ignored.
The so-called service is referred to as “Free Basics” (or appears as “Free Mode” in some countries). This is intended to “connect the unconnected.” According to Meta, users can visit sites like Facebook, ESPN, and Wikipedia, as well as other sites, without paying for data. It is part of a project called Internet.org by Facebook.
The fact that Facebook would be the gatekeeper to the internet for hundreds of millions of people, many of whom might be visiting the internet for the first time, didn’t go over well with everyone, as you might expect. In India, the service was shut down because of concerns about net neutrality. By 2018, however, it was available in more than 50 countries, with African countries continuing to be the most popular areas. Some activists and experts still say the service doesn’t follow net neutrality rules and that it’s like digital colonialism. However, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg justified it by saying that some internet is better than none.
As it turns out, the service wasn’t as free as initially imagined. A Wall Street Journal investigation found that the site had software faults that Facebook was aware of but did not correct for months, resulting in users being charged by telecom providers for data consumption.
Instagram’s negative impacts on teens were also known to the firm, but they opted to disregard them. Internal documents show that employees were aware of the problem with Free Basics, and one of them even said that charging users in this way is against the company’s own transparency rules, which they follow. People who watch a lot of videos each month are said to be the biggest contributors to the $7.8 million in data charges each month.
In internal documentation, the software problem is defined as follows: “When users are in Free Mode and feel that the data they are utilizing is being covered by their carrier networks, even though these users are actually paying for the data themselves.” The problem is also referred to as “leaking.”
The free mode is basically a “stripped-down” browsing experience that only lets you see text content and doesn’t let you watch videos. If people try to play the video, they get a message from the service providers about how much data they’ll be charged. It doesn’t always work. Some of the basic flaws have already been fixed, and the rest are being worked on, including the notification alert, Meta acknowledges.
Meta is arguing that the estimated data overcharges (on users) are only about $3 million a month, which is a lot less than the $7 million or more. This isn’t just about a software glitch as one employee of Meta revealed that the problem doesn’t hurt Facebook’s carrier partners and is actually helping them make more money.
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