Facebook held its first-ever Townhall in India on Wednesday, 28 October. Many of us hoped to gain clarity on subjects like Free Basics, net neutrality, and other issues that the social networking giant has come under fire for in the country.
The Townhall was envisaged by Facebook to be able to get face-to-face with its users across the globe. This way, Mark and Co can work on improving Facebook based on suggestions straight from the people. So, did Zuckerberg’s first Townhall session in India live up to expectations?
Facebook and Its Challenges in India
The social networking platform has over 130 million users from India according to Mark Zuckerberg. But, that’s not all, there is a huge section of the population yet to be introduced to the Internet in the country. In many ways, Zuckerberg is banking on Internet.org to do most of the talking but before that, we need to ensure that the infrastructure is in place to deliver positive results.
Internet.org is Good for the World
Facebook expertly conducts these Townhall Q&As to keep itself away from controversy. The questions entertained are aimed at portraying a positive image of the brand, especially on issues like net neutrality. With any discussion about Facebook, it’s hard to keep Internet.org out of the conversation and Mark made strong and encouraging remarks about the project.
The first thing I say is that we can look at the efforts we have had with Internet.org. It is live in 24 countries in the world and growing. There are 15 million people in the world who have access to Internet because of efforts of Internet.org. I have seen some cynical reporting saying it isn’t working as good. But if that isn’t good I’d like to know what you think is. So this is a program that is working around the world.
Mark Zuckerberg
Video Is the Present but VR Will Form the ‘Golden’ Future
It’s fair to say that video as a medium has surpassed the power possessed by images and photos. In the future, Zuckerberg foresees that virtual reality (VR) will take over from videos to become the most powerful tool to engage with. This is where folks like Oculus will enable Facebook to move beyond the current standards.
Earlier it was text. Today it is photos and videos. Tomorrow it’ll be more richer video. But I don’t think video is the end of the line. Video is still small screen, still 2D. That’s what virtual reality and augmented reality can do.
There are developer kits available for Oculus. In terms of how it fits into our overall vision. We see our mediums on the Internet getting richer and richer.
Mark Zuckerberg
Watch: Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook Townhall Q&A at IIT Delhi
Zuckerberg’s Stand on Net Neutrality
We’ve been working with authorities on regulation. This debate is there because countries are right now figuring out what net neutrality needs to be. Internet is expensive for carriers. What we are trying to do is offer low-bandwidth services.
Mark Zuckerberg
“It’ll be a neutral platform and we won’t be a filter. What the regulation is trying to prohibit is carriers charging more for certain services. That is bad. Some proponents of net neutrality say there should be no free access,” he added.
Mark hopes that net neutrality sets the precedent with regulations that can only be achieved with a structured framework in place across the globe.
Save Us the Candy Crush Misery
Raise your hands if the sight of a Candy Crush request notification gets your temper rising. Much to everyone’s surprise, the issue of Candy Crush requests was thrown at Mark and his response was endearing to say the least.
This is why such townhalls are so useful. This was the top voted questions on our thread. I told my developers that can we have a solution to this problem by the time I do my Q/A. So we are doing it now.
Mark Zuckerberg
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