User:Vipul/Internet.org

Internet.org is a partnership between social networking service company Facebook and six mobile phone companies (Samsung, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, and Qualcomm) that aims to bring affordable Internet access to everybody by increasing affordability, increasing efficiency, and facilitating the development of new business models around the provision of Internet access.

Launch
Internet.org was launched on August 20, 2013. At the time of launch, Facebook's principal founder and current CEO Mark Zuckerberg released a ten-page whitepaper he had written himself elaborating on the vision. In the paper, he wrote that Internet.org was a further step in the direction of Facebook's past initiatives, such as Facebook Zero, to improve Internet access for people around the world. He also said that "connectivity is a human right." A TechCrunch article about the launch compared Internet.org with Google's Project Loon.

Further progress
Zuckerberg elaborated on his vision further in a video for TechCrunch Disrupt on September 11, 2013.

On September 16, 2013, Facebook and Internet.org detailed some "1000X" futuristic technologies to move in the direction of their goal of universal affordable Internet access.

On September 30, 2013, Zuckerberg released a video explaining Internet.org's goal of making the Internet 100X more affordable.

Reception
In December 2013, David Talbot wrote a lengthy article for Technology Review titled Facebook's Two Faces: Facebook and Google Aim to Fix Global Connectivity, but for Whom? about Internet.org and other Internet accessibility initiatives.

Writing for the US Finance Post, Asif Imtiaz said that there was "nothing altruistic" about Facebook's initiative to spread the Internet.