Paper short abstract:

Free Basics, a Facebook initiative to bring people online in the Global South was recently banned in India. The paper examines implications of corporate-led infrastructure projects like Loon and Free Basics in determining future global digital subjectivities because of their role in shaping Internet access.

Paper long abstract:

Given their fast saturating user bases among those who are already online, technology giants such as Google, Facebook and Tesla are now focusing on the "last mile" problem of bring more people online in countries with low Internet adoption mostly in the Global South through projects like Loon, drones, low-orbiting satellites and customized online services, compelling them to participate in conversations on information infrastructure (cables, handsets, bandwidth, software support, pricing, privacy and policy), previously understood to be the responsibility of the State.

Drawing on literature on the "promise of infrastructure" (Gupta, Bowker, Star, Larkin), this paper will discuss in detail, the unravelling of 'Free Basics', a Facebook initiative to provide free but limited Internet access operational in more than thirty countries in the Global South but recently banned in India. In examining how different stakeholders (Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, Net Neutrality activists, citizen activists, startup founders in India and government officials) argued for and against 'Free Basics', pitched both as a commercial and developmental tech policy/product, the paper will unpack the imagined user/citizen that is currently being furthered in all projects that aim at capturing the yet-to-be connected billion. Especially in the case of India, the larger question of who should be in charge of developing infrastructure also harks back to the debates around deregulation and liberalization of technological enterprise - a historical thread that the paper will situate the Free Basics episode in.