It’s not often that an Indian gets to ask questions to Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg with an off chance of a reply as well. And when our PM offered to ask those questions for us, then the crowd really went gung-ho. When two social media personalities, Narendra Modi and Mark Zuckerberg met in California for a Townhall question and answer session, the Indian junta had much to ask of the two giants. And Modi complied with a special app for asking questions, many of which had nothing to do with Zuckerberg’s game plan of ‘discussing how communities can work together to address social and economic challenges’. Here are some of these questions, some serious, some plain weird.
Net neutrality: We spend so much time online each day that net neutrality is our paramount concern. Our junta worries that Modi’s visit will give a further boost to Mark Zuckerberg’s pet project Internet.org, which has come under huge opposition in India because of the belief that it will violate net neutrality. It therefore came as no surprise when the Indian public bombarded Zuckerberg with questions of what he intends to do with net neutrality.
Will Zuckerberg push for anti net neutrality @internet_org https://t.co/jeV2wrMHOd
— Gautam Ghosh (@GautamGhosh) September 13, 2015
Facebook jobs: Having a job at Facebook would be so cool that Indians have actually asked for it. There were numerous appeals to Modi to ask Zuckerberg to bring Facebook jobs to India. ‘Bring in jobs and internships in Facebook India! We have the best computer engineers in the world!’said one user. Another Indian user suggested a money-saving proposition – ‘Instead of hiring one Indian for a salary of Rs 2 crore a year, why can’t Facebook hire 20 Indians for a salary of Rs 2 lakh a year?’ Value for money. Truly!
Farmer suicides: What is the connection between social media and farmer suicides? Apparently a lot, judging by the number of people who asked Zuckerberg this question. We now look to social media and social media barons for our solutions, it seems.
‘Facebook should initiate a program for poor Indian farmers to educate on seasonal cultivation. Almost every farmer is illiterate in India. They don’t know how climate will change and what to cultivate according to weather changes.’
Image Courtesy: BCCL
If you stopped and listened carefully, you can hear a hundred thousand activists and bureaucrats gasping in collective indignation at the implication, on their efforts to educate farmers.
And there were the weird ones.
Candy crush: It was possibly started by a mock tale from a media house, but the maximum number of appeals to Narendra Modi were to stop Candy Crush requests. There is no escaping this popular game and everybody’s timeline is bombarded daily with Candy Crush invitation to play, add-ons and extra lives. By the time it reaches the extent of requests to ‘help unlock the next episode’, everybody goes ‘aaarggh!’ That’s why it comes as no surprise that Candy Crush figured topmost on everybody’s mind. It might even be the poll plank on which Modi might win his next election. ‘I got Candy Crush banned…so vote for me.’
Apart from anything else, Modi must discuss the nuisance of Candy Crush Requests with Mark Zuckerberg and how to stop it.
— Keh Ke Peheno (@coolfunnytshirt) September 13, 2015
Onions: There is an onion-price crisis in the country today and we Indians have no problem in asking anybody for some charity only because they can afford it. As the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg is obviously filthy rich, he can afford to give away a few tonnes or shiploads of onions for our Indian use, seems to be the general trend of thought. Our gravy boats of butter chicken are getting bland without it, anyways. What say, Zuckerberg bhai?
Image Courtesy: BCCL
Caste-based reservation: Indians only have two favourite past-times, Candy Crush and caste obsession. How Mark Zuckerberg can help with our caste-based reservation issues is anybody’s guess. But that has not deterred us from making passionate pleas to Zuckerberg to abolish caste-based reservation. Unless we read it all wrong! Perhaps they WANT caste-based reservation when Facebook imports jobs to India.
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