[ad_1]
But in 2016 the program (now renamed Free Basics), Banned by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of Indiaclaimed that it violated net neutrality. Despite this setback, it continued to spread with less fanfare, to other countries in the developing world. on Facebook in 2018 said Internet.org has brought 100 million people online. In 2019 FreeBasics was available in 65 countries, about 30 in Africa. Last year, the company began rolling out Facebook Discover, which allows internet users to access low-bandwidth traffic. everything websites (not just Facebook properties), even if they run out of data.
Versions of these programs are also available in Afghanistan, where many new internet users have synced Facebook, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp with the entire internet. Even among those with wider access to the full web, Facebook’s product line still played a vital role. WhatsApp calls, for example, have already replaced more expensive and less secure phone calls. Many small businesses rely on Facebook’s tools to sell and advertise their products.
All this means that even temporary cuts have had a devastating effect, especially for activist and advocacy organizations and people like Bezhan.
“There’s a lot of underground planning and support going on on social media,” Bezhan says, and much of it is done via Facebook, WhatsApp, and the Messenger app. The outage said, “It interrupted efforts to provide information to Afghans, planned strategies for our next steps for evacuations, [and] We bring together those in need.”
It was past midnight for Bezhan when Facebook started to come back to life, but even then, some of its functions were not yet available, including search and notifications. He had yet to hear if he could add another name for a possible eviction.
But he was also concerned about what his Afghan friends were feeling and thinking, who had suddenly lost their main contact with the outside world. In the weeks since Kabul fell, there were rumors that the Taliban had cut off access to the internet. “I bet they’re spreading rumors and making up stories about how the new government is blocking the media,” he says.
They would not be alone. In response to similar concerns, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Communications of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, took it to twitter to break the record: “Internet connection not disconnected,” he wrote at 4:05 pm ET. “A global power outage that has paralyzed WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram. Other apps like Twitter are working normally. The same goes for the rest of the network.”
[ad_2]
Source link