Fifty years ago, Martin Luther King dreamed of an America that would one day deliver on its promise of equality for all of its citizens, black as well as white. Today, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has a dream, too: he wants to provide Internet access to the world's five billion people who do not now have it. But the world currently faces a growing technological divide, with implications for equality, liberty, and the right to pursue happiness. Around the world, more than two billion people live in the Digital Age. They can access a vast universe of information, communicate at little or no cost with their friends and family, and connect with others with whom they can cooperate in new ways. The other five billion are still stuck in the Paper Age in which my generation grew up. Internet.org, a global partnership launched by Zuckerberg, plans to bring the two-thirds of the world's population without Internet access into the Digital Age. The partnership consists of seven major information-technology companies, as well as non-profit organizations and local communities. A friend working to provide family-planning advice to poor Kenyans recently told me that so many women were coming to the clinic that she could not spend more than five minutes with each. These women have only one source of advice, and one opportunity to get it, but if they had access to the Internet, the information could be there for them whenever they wanted it. Enlarging our vision still more, it is a hope that putting the world's poor online would result in connections between them and more affluent people, leading to more assistance. Research shows that people are more likely to donate to a charity helping the hungry if they are given a photo and told the name and age of a girl like those the charity is aiding. If a mere photo and a few identifying details can do that, what might _ with the person do? Providing universal Internet access can also raise new risks and sensitive ethical issues, the distinctiveness of local cultures may be eroded, which has both a good and a bad side, for such cultures can restrict freedom and deny equality of opportunity. On the whole, though, it is reasonable to expect that giving poor people access to knowledge and the possibility of connecting with people anywhere in the world will be socially transforming in a very positive way. What is Zuckerberg's purpose of providing Internet access to people who do not now have it?
Attracting more users for his social network. Making people without Internet enjoy the benefits of it. Establishing connections will affluent people and organizations. Helping poor people being available to necessary cure.