During a conversation about the TRAI rejecting Free Basics, venture capitalist and member of Facebook's board of directors Marc Andreessen tweeted that anti-colonialism had been "catastrophic" for India.
Andreessen deleted the tweet soon after, saying it was being misconstrued, but a lot of people were still angry about it.
Looks like @pmarca has deleted his ‘anti-colonialism has been economically catastrophic for India’ tweet. Hope he is regretting. Apologies?
marc andreessen has a point, we should try this idea of letting white people run all our things. wonder why we've never tried it before.
yup @pmarca and @facebook clearly see themselves as the new East India Co colonial saviours to poor brown India https://t.co/DG29aAyn2r
Wow: @pmarca's really lost perspective. He seeks to take on those calling Free Basics "colonialism", but overreacts. https://t.co/qbmYgGhxHQ
So @pmarca deletes his tweet suggesting that being colonized was good for India, and our anti-colonial, anti-Facebook move was bad. Sigh.
@pmarca But u wouldnt have dared to tweet, "anti-slavery" or "pro-civil rights" has been disastrous for blacks, would u?
@pmarca @lemonandice @BenedictEvans i had to step away from my desk after reading this. Wow.
Even Reddit users weren't on board with Andreessen's comments.
Andreessen later withdrew from the discussion and clarified that he was opposed to colonialism.
And for the record, I am opposed to colonialism, in any country. https://t.co/3ommgZssMm
Bye, Marc.
I hereby withdraw from all future discussions of Indian economics or politics. 😀 Carry on...
(Andreessen is the cofounder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which invested $50 million in BuzzFeed in 2014.)
UPDATE: Andreessen tweeted an apology for his tweet.
The tweet read, "I apologize for any offense caused by my earlier tweet about Indian history and politics. I admire India and the Indian people enormously. 😀"