Yahoo Finance Facebook Director In India Colonialism Row
A Facebook (NasdaqGS: FB - news) director became embroiled in a Twitter (Swiss: TWTR.SW - news) row after saying that anti-colonialism has been "economically catastrophic" for the Indian people.
Marc Andreessen's comments came after India's telecoms authority banned Facebook's 'Free Basics' service - a free, partial internet service featuring services chosen by Facebook - in the country.
He wrote on Twitter that the decision was "ideological", saying: "Denying world's poorest free partial internet connectivity when today they have none, for ideological reasons, strikes me as morally wrong."
When someone said that the Free Basics service sounded like "internet colonialism", Mr Andreessen responded: "Anti-colonialism has been economically catastrophic for the Indian people for decades. Why stop now?"
But his comments caused anger, with one person replying: "Don't p*** off a billion people."
Another said: "Yup, Marc Andreessen and Facebook clearly see themselves as the new East India Company colonial saviours to poor brown India."
Mr Andreessen quickly deleted the tweet, then wrote: "I hereby withdraw from all future discussions of Indian economics or politics. Carry on.
"And for the record, I am opposed to colonialism, in any country. Off to bed. Good night, India!"
It was particularly awkward timing by Mr Andreessen - just a day after official figures showed that India outpaced China's 2015 economic growth.
India's economy grew at an average rate of 7.5% in 2015, compared to China's 6.9% growth.
Mr Andreessen has been a member of Facebook's board since 2008, and is co-founder of the Andreessen Horowitz venture capital firm.
The Free Basics scheme would have offered free access to a limited number of websites in India.
But supporters of net neutrality opposed it, saying data providers should not favour some online services over others.
The free content included selected local news and weather forecasts, Wikipedia and some health sites.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said he was disappointed by India's decision, saying: "Connecting India is an important goal we won't give up on, because more than a billion people in India don't have access to the internet.
"We know that connecting them can help lift people out of poverty, create millions of jobs and spread education opportunities (Other OTC: UBGXF - news) ."
