Mark Zuckerberg Hurriedly Distances Himself from FB Investor’s ‘Anti-Colonialism’ Remark

Colonialism is a touchy subject in India. For a very long time, there has been debate in the country around the source of their economic growth or lack thereof. So, when Facebook investor Marc Andreessen tweeted last night that “anti-colonialism has been catastrophic” for the country, you can imagine the backlash that he faced.

You see, Facebook launched something called Free Basics, which is a program that is meant to provide free, albeit limited, Internet access to people in countries where it is not readily available to them. This Monday, India banned the program, claiming that it violated net neutrality. Andreessen wasn’t thrilled about the ban and pulled a Kanye West, airing it out on Twitter. (Net neutrality seems to inspire gaffe after gaffe, no?)

The argument used by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India in banning the program makes sense, too. By giving Indian people access to certain apps of the company’s choosing, Facebook was essentially shaping the Internet access and use of millions of people, which is everything the company and its commitment to providing connectivity to people around the globe are supposedly not about. Mark Zuckerberg wrote an op-ed in The Times of India, insisting that Free Basics actually protects net neutrality. Obviously, this situation was a tangled web long before Andreessen barreled through it with the subtlety of a pig at a primary.

It started innocuously enough:

Denying world’s poorest free partial Internet connectivity when today they have none, for ideological reasons, strikes me as morally wrong.

— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) February 10, 2016

When someone replied and told him it sounded like he was justifying “Internet colonialism,” he responded with the offending tweet, which has since been deleted.

This is where Zuckerberg jumped in. The Facebook founder posted the following message today on the website he created:

“But to shape the future, we need to understand the past,” is pretty profound, but I guess that’s what Facebook statuses are for. Hopefully, all of this is resolved soon so that the good people of India can have uninhibited access to their friends’ and family members’ profound statuses, too.

Based on the latest tweets coming from Andreessen’s account, a resolution may be on the horizon because it looks like Zuckerberg’s post got to him:

1/Last night on Twitter, I made an ill-informed and ill-advised comment about Indian politics and economics.

— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) February 10, 2016

2/To be clear, I am 100% opposed to colonialism, and 100% in favor of independence and freedom, in any country, including India.

— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) February 10, 2016

3/I am a huge admirer of the nation of India and the Indian people, who have been nothing but kind and generous to me for many years.

— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) February 10, 2016

4/I apologize for any offense my comment caused, and withdraw it in full and without reservation.

— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) February 10, 2016

5/I will leave all future commentary on all of these topics to people with more knowledge and experience than me.

— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) February 10, 2016

[image via screengrab]

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This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.