It is somewhat similar because the long-term effects were malicious&#x2F;not known in the short term. But its not exactly the same because anyone can switch internet carriers at any time (nobody gets medically tied to Free Basics).<p>&#x27;Facebook addiction&#x27; isn&#x27;t as objectively proven as the side effects mentioned in the article. &#x27;Tracking usage data and privacy snooping&#x27; isn&#x27;t as harmful as the side effects mentioned, because poor people probably value their &#x27;usage data&#x27; less and access to basic resources like Wikipedia&#x2F;job posting sites&#x2F;health and weather reports more. (and its just fear and speculation that facebook will maliciously track all data passing through its servers, but we are treating it like inevitable fact)