Mark Zuckerberg says investor's comments about Facebook 'colonialism' in India are 'upsetting'
Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday publicly addressed comments from Facebook board member Marc Andreessen over the company's efforts to bring expand its Internet.org efforts in India.
The Facebook CEO distanced himself and the company from Andreessen's comments, which included sympathetic references to colonialism -- a highly fraught subject in India due to the history of British rule and the country's subsequent struggle for independence led by Mohandas K. Gandhi.
The comments, made by Andreessen on his Twitter feed, created a firestorm of criticism. Andreessen has since apologized.
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"I want to respond to Marc Andreessen's comments about India yesterday. I found the comments deeply upsetting, and they do not represent the way Facebook or I think at all," Zuckerberg wrote in a post to his Facebook page. You can see the full comments below.
Andreessen is among the most powerful venture capitalists in the U.S. and has been on the board of Facebook since 2008.
Facebook's "Free Basics" program was recently banned in India, after activists claimed the effort would give the company an unfair advantage in its emerging digital market. The program let users access Facebook on one of the country's mobile network providers without counting against data limits.
Andreessen had claimed that banning Free Basics was "morally wrong" and that the rejection of colonialism had been "economically catastrophic for Indian people for decades."
Topics Facebook
Jason Abbruzzese is a Business Reporter at Mashable. He covers the media and telecom industries with a particular focus on how the Internet is changing these markets and impacting consumers. Prior to working at Mashable, Jason served as Markets Reporter and Web Producer at the Financial Times. Jason holds a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University and an M.A. in International Affairs from Australian National University.
