Getty Images / Justin Sullivan Why Egypt And India Are Banning Facebook’s Free

The country is home to Facebook’s second largest market outside the US Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has directed FB local partner Reliance Communication to halt the service pending further review.

Facebook and other social media sites are extremely popular in Egypt, and were used to organize protests during the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

“Now the problem for this is that we had asked for response to the specific question of differential pricing… instead we have got responses supporting Free Basics”. Indicating that the whole consultation process could have been hijacked, he said, “It is like we have asked Question X and they have given answer to the Question Y”.

Till Thursday morning, the regulator had received 18.27 lakh comments on the consultation paper, with over 14 lakh being template comments in support of Free Basics, either through mobile or emails. However, Net neutrality activists say such a move will violate the core principle that everyone should have unrestricted access to the Internet and it should not be regulated by a company.

Facebook also said that it will try to resolve the situation in Egypt to bring back the Free Basics program; and added: “We are committed to Free Basics, and we’re going to keep working to serve our community to provide access to connectivity and valuable services”.

Since most of the responses did not answer the questions posed by Trai, they are of no use to the regulator.

“We have extended it to January 7 mainly due to request from telecom industry bodies”, Trai Chairman RS Sharma said.

The Internet.org project, which Facebook launched in India in association with Reliance Communications, was recently renamed as Free Basics and offers free access to a set of websites and services with the objective of introducing Internet.

However, the plan had a number of critics, including a group of leading Indian academics who highlighted a number of flaws that they say will curb internet freedom in the nation, putting it at odds with net neutrality.

Any decision on differential pricing and zero rating made after the expiry of the deadline for submitting comments would impact Free Basics as well.