Many people use the terms Internet and the Web synonymously, even though they are different, albeit related. A similar, but more worrying confusion is that Internet users could end up believing that the Internet and social media services, such as Facebook, are the same. This is one of the arguments that Net neutrality advocates are using against Facebook's Internet.org initiative.
Such fears are not unfounded. Studies have found that Facebook = Internet for millions of users. That a closed, proprietary network is thought to be synonymous with the open Internet is worrying at many levels.
Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, where Net neutrality is still a hot topic of debate, goes to Facebook (accused of violating Net neutrality) and appears to confuse the Internet for social media. This confusion becomes a little worrying.
"You were one of the early adopters of the Internet and social media and Facebook. Did you, at the point, think that social media and the Internet would become an important tool for governing and citizen engagement and policy?," asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the Facebook Townhall Q&A at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park.
Note that Zuckerberg is careful to include both social media (with emphasis on Facebook) and the Internet in his question. Modi's response, however, doesn't make any mention of the Internet.
"When I took to social media, even I actually didn't know that I would become the chief minister and at some point become the Prime Minister," Modi said. It is noteworthy that Modi became the chief minister of Gujarat in 2001 and the time he was referring to in his answer to Zuckerberg's question would have been much before it.
Social media, as we recognise it now, was only a fraction of the entire Internet experience back then and also the term itself was not in popular usage. This means that the Prime Minister actually meant Internet (or maybe the Web) but said social media.
Modi is seen as a tech-savvy politician and when he could easily confuse Internet for social media, first time Internet users would be far more gullible.
In his answer, Modi begins describing his early interactions on the Internet (while calling it social media) and how it helped him learn and know more. However, he soon moves on to what is clearly social media terrain.
While this could also be seen as a slip of the tongue. Or was it a Freudian slip?
This seemingly inconsequential incident of confusing Internet and social media by the Prime Minister of India, can emerge to a different proportion when seen in context of Net neutrality, the allegations against Facebook and that the statement was made right inside the Facebook campus.
The Prime Minister's pet project of Digital India, that was the theme of his visit to the Silicon Valley, has much more to do with the Internet than with social media.
Mark Zuckerberg, on his part insists, that Facebook believes in neutrality "very strongly".
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