Topic
40 items.
5 Apr 2025
Blog post
The Cost of Free Basics in India: Does Facebook's 'walled garden' reduce or reinforce digital inequalities?In this essay—written in April 2016 soon after India's Telecom Regulatory Authority (TRAI) upheld net neutrality and effectively banned Free Basics in India— the author uses development theories to study the Free Basics programme. The …
7 Feb 2022
Blog post
Submission to the Facebook Oversight Board: Policy on Cross-checksThe Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) submitted public comments to the Facebook Oversight Board on a policy consultation.
18 Jan 2021
Blog post
PDP Bill is coming: WhatsApp Privacy Policy analysisWhatsApp started off the new year with changes to its privacy policy that has several implications for data protection and the digital governance ecosystem at large. This post is the first in a series by CIS unpacking the various …
31 Dec 2020
Blog post
The Competition Law Case Against Whatsapp’s 2021 Privacy Policy AlterationHaving examined the privacy implications of Whatsapp's changes to its privacy policy in 2021, this issue brief is the second output in our series examining the effects of those changes. This brief examines the changes in the context of data …
31 May 2018
News
Election Experiment Proves Facebook Just Doesn't Care About Fake News In IndiaMuch-hyped fact-checking initiative identified only 30 bits of fake news in month-long Karnataka campaign. Yup — 30!
17 Apr 2018
News
Is This The Beginning Of The End For Facebook?After two days of congressional hearings that collectively lasted over ten hours, there are many questions about Facebook, its policies and its future that experts are debating.
10 Apr 2018
Blog post
Government gives free publicity worth 40k to Twitter and FacebookWe conducted a 2 week survey of newspapers for links between government advertisement to social media giants. As citizens, we should be worried about the close nexus between the Indian government and digital behemoths such as Facebook, …
8 Apr 2018
Blog post
Digital Native: Delete Facebook?You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
7 Apr 2018
News
It Took Just 355 Indians to Mine the Data of 5.6 Lakh Facebook Users. Here's HowData privacy in India is still a nascent subject. Experts say cheap data has led to unprecedented Facebook penetration. Often, it is seen that those who open an account are not aware of the privacy concerns.
7 Apr 2018
News
After data leak row, Facebook imposes restrictions on user data accessMEIT issues notice to Facebook even as experts debate absolute impact on the second largest developer community.
28 Mar 2018
Blog post
Cambridge Analytica scandal: How India can save democracy from FacebookHegemonic incumbents like Google and Facebook need to be tackled with regulation; govt should use procurement power to fund open source alternatives.
15 Dec 2016
Blog post
ISIS and Recruitment using Social Media – Roundtable ReportThe Centre for Internet and Society in collaboration with the Takshashila Institution held a roundtable discussion on “ISIS and Recruitment using Social Media” on 1 September 2016 from 5.00 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. at TERI in Bengaluru.
31 Aug 2016
Blog post
We Truly are the Product being SoldWhatsApp has announced it will begin sharing user data such as names, phone numbers, and other analytics with its parent company, Facebook, and with the Facebook family of companies. This change to its terms of service was effected in order …
28 Jul 2016
News
Facebook is censoring some posts on Indian KashmirFilm makers, activists and journalists accused Facebook of blocking their accounts this week after they posted messages and images related to the violence in the trouble-torn province of Kashmir. In recent weeks, the India administered, …
13 Jul 2016
News
Tamil Nadu likely to hold Facebook accountable for suicide caseThe recent suicide of a 21-year-old woman from Salem district in Tamil Nadu over her morphed pictures being uploaded on Facebook could turn into a flash-point between the state police and the world's most-popular social networking site.
7 Jul 2016
News
FB & Google have already monopolised Indian cyberspaceIn an interview with Catch, Sunil Abraham, executive director of Center for Internet & Society, puts the recent US-India cyber relationship framework into perspective. Abraham also talks about how Indian surveillance policies are outdated …
8 May 2016
Blog post
Facebook: A Platform with Little Less Sharing of Personal InformationAs Facebook becomes less personal, what happens to digital friendship?
15 Feb 2016
News
Zuckerberg's Plan Spurned as India Backs Full Net NeutralityFacebook Inc.’s plans for expansion in India have suffered a major setback.
14 Feb 2016
Blog post
There is No Such Thing as Free BasicsIndia would not see the rain of Free Basics advertisements on billboards with images of farmers and common people explaining how much they could benefit from this Firefox project. Because the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has …
14 Feb 2016
News
Linking Facebook use to free top-up dataJust before the Trai notification, the Ambani brothers signed a spectrum sharing pact and they have been sharing optic fibre since 2013.
11 Feb 2016
News
India Sets Strict New Net Neutrality RulesIn India, advocates of net neutrality have welcomed new rules by the telecom regulator that have blocked efforts by Facebook to offer free but limited access to the web in the country’s fast growing Internet market.
10 Feb 2016
News
India bans Facebook’s ‘free’ Internet for the poorIndia’s telecom regulator said Monday that service providers cannot charge discriminatory prices for Internet services, a blow to Facebook’s global effort to provide low-cost Internet to developing countries.
3 Feb 2016
News
India, Egypt say no thanks to free Internet from FacebookALWAR, India — Connecting people to the Internet is not easy in this impoverished farming district of wheat and millet fields, where working camels can be glimpsed along roads that curve through the low-slung Aravalli Hills.
30 Jan 2016
News
Facebook is no charity, and the ‘free’ in Free Basics comes at a priceWho could possibly be against free internet access? This is the question that Mark Zuckerberg asks in a piece for the Times of India in which he claims Facebook’s Free Basics service “protects net neutrality”.
25 Dec 2015
Blog post
Facebook Shares 10 Key Facts about Free Basics. Here's What's Wrong with All 10 of Them.Shweta Sengar of Catch News spoke to Sunil Abraham about the recent advertisement by Facebook titled "What Net Neutrality Activists won't Tell You or, the Top 10 Facts about Free Basics". Sunil argued against the validity of all the 'top 10 …
18 Oct 2015
News
How To Win Friends, FB StyleTrue to form—and Facebook—there was a warm, friendly and familial feel to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s townhall meeting at Melon, California, with Mark Zuckerberg on September 27. Modi got emotional (yet again) while talking about his …
18 Oct 2015
News
Digital India: Did Modi get it wrong in Silicon Valley?A bear hug, a photo filter and a new debate on net neutrality - Ayeshea Perera examines the domestic fallout of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Facebook townhall in US.
29 Sep 2015
News
What Bengaluru Thinks of the Big Tech Announcements in Silicon ValleyThere is a split verdict on the big tech announcements made out of California during the Prime Minister's visit, in the desi version of Silicon Valley - Bengaluru.
26 Sep 2015
News
Ahead of hosting Modi, Facebook rebrands internet.org as Free BasicsHinting at what could be vital points of discussion when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on Sunday, the social media giant has rebranded its internet access enabling platform Internet.org as Free Basics.
4 Jul 2014
Blog post
Facebook and its Aversion to Anonymous and Pseudonymous SpeechJessamine Mathew explores Facebook's "real name" policy and its implications for the right to free speech.