Here’s How Facebook is Supporting ‘Digital India’
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the Silicon Valley has already created quite a buzz on social media platforms. While the likes of Sundar Pichai and Tim Cook have expressed their support for Digital India on Twitter, Mark Zuckerberg wanted to express his support by displaying it to the world on his home turf, and by that we mean Facebook. On Sunday, Zuckerberg changed his profile picture ahead of his Townhall interaction with the PM. The new profile picture has his own display picture with the Indian tricolour overlaying it.
I changed my profile picture to support Digital India, the Indian government’s effort to connect rural communities to…
Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Sunday, September 27, 2015
Clearly, Zuckerberg’s “effort to connect rural communities” integrates Digital India with his own Internet.org initiative (now changed to Free Basics by Facebook). Following Zuckerberg, Modi changed his profile picture as well, and expressed his thanks for Zuckerberg’s support.
Thanks Mark Zuckerberg for the support. I changed my DP in support of the efforts towards a Digital India. You too can change your DP at fb.com/supportdigitalindia
Posted by Narendra Modi on Sunday, September 27, 2015
Pretty soon the rest of Facebook caught on as well with thousands of users changing their profile pictures in support of Digital India. Users can visit fb.com/supportdigitalindia to have their own version of the profile picture.
It seems likely that Facebook is attempting to merge Internet.org with Digital India since the former has received strong criticism in India. In the last few months, we have been seeing advertisements by Facebook claiming how rural India will benefit from free internet.
Post your comments below if you think Digital India should merge with Internet.org or not.
