The Right to Internet Access: How Meta is Using a Human Rights narrative to Spread its Interests in the Global South
By Mia Lanca
Date: 18th October 2023
Facebook Africa Logo. Courtesy of Textnext.ng (2023)
In the last 30 years, the internet has started to increasingly penetrate every aspect of human existence. With work, communication, education and healthcare moving to the digital sphere, the digital divide – inequality in access to the internet – has grown larger and more relevant. While the digital divide within the general population is present even in the most internet-dependent countries of the West, the digital divide between countries is becoming a point of interest on the international level. In 2016, UN’s Human Rights Council adopted a resolution stating that while access to the internet itself is not a human right, it does play an important role in fulfilling multiple already codified ones (mainly the right to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association and education).
Outside international institutions, the discussion of the “right to internet access” has taken a life of its own. While civil society groups and political scientists have been discussing issues of online inequality, Mark Zuckerberg has decided to deal with the issue directly. Not only has he gone before the UN General Assembly to argue in favor of codifying the right to internet access (arguing that it is the most reliable way to lift people out of poverty) but he has also started a number of projects aimed at reducing the digital divide globally.
This article aims to take a critical look at Zuckerberg’s efforts – examining its methods, motives and political implications in order to contextualize Meta’s practices in the Global South.
Mark Zuckerberg discussing Facebook policies. Courtesy of Brian Solis (2008).
META’S VERSION OF INTERNET FOR ALL
Zuckerberg’s original project that focused on providing everyone with internet access was established under the name internet.org. Using the .org domain, reserved for non-profits, was an intentional choice to separate this allegedly altruistic initiative from his otherwise profitable business. His original plan was divided into two parts. The first being to provide internet to those who are unable to access it due to data prices by launching Free Basics – a service which would allow people in the Global South to access the internet completely free of charge. The second being to invest in developing and building the necessary infrastructure to help the people unable to access the internet all.
Free Basics was launched in 2015. However, the service was very different from the one advertised in inspirational promo-videos (which showed Zuckerberg personally going to “undeveloped” countries and presenting children with laptops). Meta partnered with telecom providers in various countries in Africa, South and South-East Asia, and South America to launch an app through which a number of websites could be accessed. The websites available were limited. They had to be vetted by Meta (and were usually close cooperators and partners of the company) and were mostly US-based. The only social media available was Facebook. The alleged “free access to the internet” turned out to be a very limited access to the internet Meta was ready to allow.
The program faced significant pushback, mainly from the civil society and digital experts who argued that Meta is in no position to cherry pick what constitutes the internet for millions of people. An example of this can be witnessed in India, where Free Basics was ultimately banned on the grounds of infringing on the principle of net-neutrality (in essence, prioritizing certain types of internet traffic over all others). Once the debate over net neutrality settled, the issue of Free Basics was largely forgotten.
However, the program remains active in more than 60 countries.
Faced with the reality that his alleged altruistic efforts would not always be received with open arms, Zuckerberg changed his approach. The speeches and promotional content stopped. Information about Free Basics was scrubbed from Meta’s pages. The only remaining issue was the civil society actors in countries directly concerned. To counter this, Meta onboarded 100 social organizations to the Free Basics platform – many of them being local and digitally oriented. Consequently, primary actors who would have opposed Free Basics were now a part of it. Meta was also financing trips to conferences and other educational activities for some civil society members. On top of that, due to the political climate (especially in many African countries), these groups had more burning issues on their agenda and so Free Basics was left largely unscrutinized.
With time, the focus has shifted from Free Basics to Discover – an app with the same purpose but a different method (which would ideally replace Free Basics). Discover provides a daily limit of data that the user is free to use however they want. Except the fact that media formats like photos and videos are blocked, certain websites are unusable and all websites need to tailor themselves to fit Discover’s data usage criteria. This in turn also creates a very skewed perception of the internet, albeit in a different way than Free Basics did.
SO, WHAT’S IN IT FOR META?
Still of someone using Facebook in front of the logo. Courtesy of Reuters (2014).
Considering the complexity of these projects, the significant backlash, and the effort needed to keep the civil society at bay, it begs the question How is any of this worth it?
With new forms of social media, Meta has had issues with its aging userbase for a while. In order for it to make money, the number of active users has to be increasing. Facebook in particular has lost popularity with the younger generations in Western countries (and this phenomena is becoming even more daunting for the company as TikTok takes over most of the screen time of younger social media users).
On the other hand, Africa in particular (and the Global South more generally) saw a boom in new mobile users. In Africa, the number of mobile internet subscribers tripled from 2010 to 2015. The market was huge, and more importantly – untapped. One of the reasons why is that, because of the poor infrastructure, the price of the internet connection was an obstacle to wider internet use.
Zuckerberg managed to get over this obstacle by proposing a “gateway drug commercial model” to teleoperators in the Global South. The idea was that getting people online for free will lead to greater data consumption down the line, as people get more accustomed to using the internet daily. In the long term, the teleoperators would get more customers and Meta would get a sea of new users (and their data) which see Facebook as unanimous to the internet.
So, while there is a possibility that Zuckerberg’s operation in the Global South can be partially attributed to his genuine wish to see everyone have easier access to online information, it certainly was not a money-losing operation as he often liked to frame it.
MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGS?
Mark Zuckerberg speaking to investors in Silicon Valley. Courtesy of Trent Nelson (2020).
When a company that has been known to operate under a “move fast and break things” motto gets to control a substantial portion of available information in entire regions of the world, things are bound to go wrong.
Allowing Meta to advertise its services as “free internet” – with the implication that it is primarily concerned with providing access to information – creates a false illusion of objectivity. The information provided by Free Basics and its successors is limited – due to both Meta’s decision of which websites to host and by the fact that certain integral parts of content (such as pictures or videos) are absent. Those limitations are bound to result in misinformation and disinformation bubbles which can either create or worsen political issues in those regions. The 2017 Rohingya genocide in Myanmar can be partially attributed to Facebook’s algorithms which likely contributed to a storm of hatred by promoting inflammatory material against Rohingya. The inflammatory content was getting boosted due to the community’s engagement. Some of the hate speech was framed as objective information and almost none of the content got removed or flagged in time due to the lack of content moderators who understood the language of the local population. This was not an isolated case, with similar situations having been noted in Sri Lanka as well.
The lack of responsibility is even more concerning when one looks at infrastructure projects on the way. While prioritizing the development and the infrastructure of regions that have been historically disadvantaged, putting large parts of a grid in the hands of a single corporation gives the corporation power on a state-level without any of the checks and balances the state would be subjected to. This has been shown recently with the involvement of Starlink in the development of the War in Ukraine and could become a more prominent issue in the future if such projects prove successful.
Even in the case of the independence from the state seeming like a positive side to the project – a way to avoid government repression in authoritarian regimes – centralized projects like Meta’s initiatives could become susceptible to control and interference (and have been previously shut down – namely in Egypt).
CONCLUSION
While bridging the digital divide is a goal worth working towards, leaving it in the hands of multinational corporations and their CEOs is neither safe nor reliable. Meta has ruthlessly pursued its own interests (the need for more active users and more data) in the countries of the Global South, oftentimes irresponsibly and without any regard for the political implications of its involvement. The lack of accountability and the clear financial bottom line show that privatizing infrastructure and internet services ultimately comes at an expense of the local populations – no matter how hard Zuckerberg (and all other billionaire philanthropists) want to mask the fact with talk of human rights and equality.
The Facebook-TikTok Rivalry. Courtesy of Reuters (2020)
Copyright © 2023 Sparklight Media