Are We Ready to Enter the Digital Parade?

Remember when people on Facebook turned their profile pictures into rainbow coloured ones in support of the LGBT movement? Over the last few days, Facebook has been seeing something similar. Profile pictures are turning tri-colour – and this is supposed to be in support of the Digital India campaign.

But, unlike the rainbow-coloured pictures, the tri-colour profile pictures garnered a mixed bag of opinions.

Amongst those who are avid supporters of the campaign, some of the common responses that come across are — 'this the nation coming together for digitisation,'; 'it is a welcome effort for the neglected issues of the country,' and 'even if Facebook is doing it for making money in larger interest, what's wrong with that?'.

Now, with reference to Facebook, the changing of profile pictures on the face of it, are in support of the Digital India campaign, but it actually is in support of its new initiative called internet.org. Under the initiative, Facebook plans to provide free internet services to the developing countries. Philanthropic as it may sound, the initiative has been criticised by people on the grounds that the initiative is a violation of net neutrality.

Pranesh Prakash, policy director, Centre for Internet and Society says, "What matters is how people interpret it, very much like what Roland Barthes, the French philosopher quotes."

"The meaning of a person changing profile picture into a tri-colour picture does not lie in the intention¹ of person who has conceptualised the act, or Facebook or even the Government of India," he explains, adding that Digital India is a large, multi-purpose project which has a number of compositions, some of which are good and some of which need improvements.

However, Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Centre for Internet and Society, points out that Facebook is "monopolising the market, and is harming the competition and innovation in India."

And this came to the forefront when Facebook defended itself on September 29, saying that the change in the profile picture had nothing to do with internet.org's publicity plans in the country. This statement came only after numerous questions were raised on its intention to raise funds for this online initiative while masking the Digital India campaign.

"Ever since the debate on net neutrality began, Facebook has been trying to confuse people, and Digital India seems to be the latest chapter. It has spun it in a way that it seems the government is supporting internet.org. I think Facebook will try to support Digital India as a vote against net neutrality," says Abraham.

"On technical grounds, it gives access to only 26 websites which is like preventing free internet access to people. For security concerns, they haven't enabled the Standard Security Technology and above all, the over-the-top services are being privileged against their own competitions in the market," he adds.

The debate has also raised questions about the Digital India campaign and the promises it holds in digitising rural India. "Everything is suddenly going against the campaign, but it's surprising that nobody is questioning the government's intention, and is instead blaming Mark Zuckerberg, for filling his own pocket. The campaign is focusing to digitise rural India, which I think is vague, given that those areas lack some basic necessities like electricity."

Echoing similar sentiments is Zain Anwar, 23, who says that his parents' village, Asiwan in Uttar Pradesh, which still suffers from hours of power shortage.

"We live in a nation where a vast majority of our population is still deprived of basic electricity. The money that is supposed to come as an investment for Digital India campaign will definitely provide more opportunities to businessmen and conglomerates."

Also, the idea of supporting the campaign by changing profile pictures has not gone down well with many. As 23-year-old Bhandari says, "It is sad that people still believe that changing their profile picture would contribute to digital India."

"This campaign is another smart attempt to influence people who go by the number of likes and are a part of the dumb parade who regularly change their profile pictures and build Facebook's new database for its own personal venture. I think this one of the classic cases of two big fish meeting and the smaller ones following them."