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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg held a townhall Q&A session at Delhi IIT, during which he said that that the company totally supports net neutrality but is batting for zero rating plans. The concept behind zero rating is to provide access to users for limited or pre-approved access to few websites and not complete internet. Internet.org, which is now renamed as Free Basics, that belongs to Facebook runs on the same principle.

Answering if Facebook would support net neutrality, Zuckerberg said, "Absolutely. We do a lot to support net neutrality. In terms of regulation, countries are figuring out what rules they want and we are supportive of that."

"What we are really trying to do is to use Free Basics so that any developer who can give low bandwidth services for free can be zero-rated. That has been powerful, and provides a neutral platform without any filters," he added, who said that it is expensive to provide free internet to everyone in the world.

Zuckerberg said, in case a telecom operator pushes users to use its own services and hurts people, then net neutrality is essential.

Also read: Facebook CEO Zuckerberg Holds Q&A Session With IIT-Delhi Students

Facebook CEO said regarding zero rating that, "But to those who advocate against zero-rating: I look at a student who wants free access to the internet for her studies, who gets hurt by that? Around the world, all the regulations are honouring this principle, prioritizing zero-rating is necessary to connect everyone to the internet. Facebook and Internet.org support net neutrality 100%, but we also need to push for access."

-Sumana