Facebook’s ‘2G Tuesdays’ to slow down Internet speed for employees

The ‘2G Tuesday’ initiative is elective and employees can skip it if they want

Mumbai

: Facebook will offer 2G connection for its employees on every Tuesday for an hour to make them familiar with what its like to use the app in emerging countries that have sluggish Internet connectivity.

While users in the US and other developed economies are privileged with lightning fast 4G connections, there are millions of other users from various budding countries who are hampered by slow Internet connections.

In a move to solve this problem, the social networking giant has launched the ‘2G Tuesday’ initiative to make its employees familiar with the sluggish connectivity rate and Internet speed in countries like India and Africa, which will help them further optimise their app for 2G connections.

The ‘2G Tuesday’ initiative, however, is optional and employees will be asked on every Tuesday morning if they want to take part in the program. Once they agree, they will have to access the Facebook app and messenger using a 2G connection.

-"For that next hour, their experience on Facebook will be very much like the experience that millions of people around the world have on Facebook on a 2G connection,-" Facebook engineering director Tom Alison told Business Insider. -"They're going to see the places that we need to improve our product, but they're also going to see the places where we have made a lot of progress.-"

According to reports and recent developments, emerging economies are becoming an increasingly important area of operation for Facebook and optimising the app for 2G will surely boost the number of users in these countries.