How the Facebook-Reliance combine and the farm laws pave the way for digital colonisation – By Daniel Block

…. In recent years, protests in America against Facebook… have become commonplace…. the immediate cause of their anger was that Facebook had suspended pages protesting the farm laws enacted in India, earlier in the year…. many protestors smell a deeper connection between the social-media giant and India’s new laws. 

In April 2020, Facebook purchased a 10-percent stake in Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio…. In addition to dominating telecom, Reliance is the largest player in petrochemicals and in retail. When its latest acquisition is complete, the company will control 40 percent—a large plurality—of India’s organised groceries sector. That could make it the biggest buyer of farmers’ products and, therefore, the biggest beneficiary of the right to negotiate directly.

Farm-law opponents quickly wised up to this possibility. In India, protestors began burning Jio SIM cards to express their anger. In America, they directed their ire at Reliance’s social-media investor. In interviews with reporters, several demonstrators in California and Vancouver speculated that Facebook took down the protest pages as a favour to Ambani. At the Vancouver protest, one person held up a sign that declared: “Modi + Zuckerberg = Ambani’s puppets.” Facebook, one of the world’s most powerful companies, is no one’s puppet. But through its partnership with Reliance, the social-media giant could substantially gain from the agricultural laws….

https://caravanmagazine.in/business/facebook-reliance-farm-laws-banking-retail-dominance