Facebook is being ignorant to the sentiments of the Indian populace.
Facebook Inc. is now being associated to the evil East India Company, where the director of the company, Mr. Marc Andreessen is now being alleged of being a rapist, anti-Indian and some other brutal titles. It will not be astonishing to see any Indian activist coming up with a “Quit India campaign” to eliminate the service from the region in line with the efforts by Mahatma Gandhi to combat Britain back in 1942. Ironically, the reason behind this misery is that the company failed to offer Internet access to the underprivileged.
The intentions of the social media giant were pure but the issue faced was that Mark Zuckerberg and Andreessen were not able to comprehend to the values and culture of the masses they wishes to cater to. India has been suffering for almost two centuries while they were under the colonial rule. And during this time, they had a bounty of treasures, a staggering economy, and were suppressed culturally. So the masses became deprived of their basic rights in their own country. This resulted in a lot of social trauma, sacrifice and humiliation for the nation which is not that easy to recover from.
Andreessen recently tweeted which stated, "Anti-colonialism has been economically catastrophic for the Indian people for decades. Why stop now?" resulted in a massive uproar. The damage felt by the masses was actually massive which eventually resulted in Mr. Zuckerberg to disregard the comments of the company’s own board member via a public statement.
All those who know Andreessen know for a fact that the intention was not to condone colonialism. He was actually being joyful, indifferent, and critical about the Indian government who has made a decision to put an end to the Free Basics Program in India.
The company might have a pure intention to educate the masses, however they fail to understand that the illiteracy rate in India is quite high and one wrong move can actually cause them harm in the long run. India and Facebook has been in the limelight since a fairly long span of time which has resulted in negative publicity for the company. The social media behemoth not only had to deal with criticism in India but was under scrutiny all over the globe which isn’t actually any good news.
The company now needs to understand the root cause of the conflict which is causing distress for all. The more Facebook is sensitive to the sentiments of the Indians; they are high chances that their products penetrate amongst the audiences more. Moreover, Mr. Andreessen needs to keep hold of his sentiments considering the vulnerability of the situation. Indian is an emerging economy and all big tech based companies understand the potential of this market. It is high time that the company makes its ties better with the local government and masses since a great chunk of their revenue stream flows from this market only. It is a matter of sanity now for Mr. Zuckerberg.
No comments:
Post a Comment