Just a few days after the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India or the TRAI upheld net neutrality by banning all differential pricing based on content on the internet, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist has stirred a hornet’s nest with his tweets.
Marc AndreessenSource: Twitter
Marc Andreessen said India’s decision to ban platforms like Net Neutrality is as economically catastrophic as our anti-colonialism has been. He later deleted this tweet but not before offending the Twitterverse and fueling a storm.
After having called the TRAI decision “another in a long line of economically suicidal decisions made by the Indian government against its own citizens,” he also tweeted that “Denying the world’s poorest free partial Internet connectivity when today they have non for ideological reasons, strikes me as morally wrong.”
Source: TwitterSource: Twitter
In response here are some tweets that took umbrage to his offensive statements:
@Gayatri_J: yup @pmarca and @facebook clearly see themselves as the new East India Co colonial saviours to poor brown India
@caillemillner: If ANYONE in Silicon Valley cares about @pmarca come and get your boy bc he’s abt to yell “We gave those ungrateful natives the railroads!”
@maheshmurthy: Now @facebook Board Director @pmarca suggests being colonized was good for India & we should’ve let Fb do so:)
@asanjum: @BenedictEvans @aghoshal @pmarca @lemonandice Subtext: Colonialism would any day be better economically. Natives should learn to take help.
Marc finally tweeted that “I I hereby withdraw from all future discussions of Indian economics or politics. Carry on…” and added “And for the record, I am opposed to colonialism, in any country.”
