Free Basics

Internet.org is a partnership between social networking services company Facebook and six companies (Samsung, Ericsson, MediaTek, Opera Software, Nokia and Qualcomm) that plans to bring affordable access to selected Internet services to less developed countries by increasing efficiency, and facilitating the development of new business models around the provision of Internet access. The app delivering these services was renamed Free Basics in September 2015. As of November 2016 40 million people are using internet.org.

It has been criticized for violating net neutrality, and by handpicking internet services that are included, for discriminating against companies not in the list, including Facebook's rivals. In February 2016, regulators banned the Free Basics service in India based on "Prohibition of Discriminatory Tariffs for Data Services Regulations". The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) accused Facebook of failing to pass on the four questions in the regulator's consultation paper and also blocking access to TRAI's designated email for feedback on Free Basics. On February 11, 2016 Facebook withdrew the Free Basics platform from India.

Internet.org was launched on August 20, 2013. At the time of launch, Facebook's founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg released a ten-page whitepaper he had written elaborating on the vision that asserts that connectivity is a "human right". In the paper, he wrote that Internet.org was a further step in the direction of Facebook's past initiatives, such as Facebook Zero, to improve Internet access for people around the world.

During TechCrunch Disrupt on September 11, 2013 Zuckerberg elaborated further on his vision.TechCrunch blog compared Internet.org with Google's Project Loon. Zuckerberg also released a video on September 30, 2013 explaining Internet.org's goal of making the Internet 100 times more affordable.

...
Wikipedia