Andreas writes:
"Prominent organisations campaigning for a free and open web very strongly disagree with your view."
I said there are no facts, and you responded by citing opinion pieces. That's cool, but opinions are not themselves facts.
Furthermore, in some circles, I've been considered from time to time to be someone "prominent" whose entire career has been dedicated to a free and open web. If you're suggesting that everyone -- or even everyone "prominent" -- who believes in a free and open web "very strongly" disagrees with me, then you are misinformed. There is an honest difference of opinion about what the developing world needs first. And, in my experience, it is only individuals in developed, industrialized countries with very little direct knowledge about the infrastructural and access challenges in developing countries who imagine that zero-rated services are categorically a threat to "a free and open web."
I've actually written about this issue at length, and will be publishing another article on the issue next week. I'll post the link here when I have it.
Whether the U.S. government's Federal Communications is not itself a "prominent organization" that has committed itself to "a free and open web" is a proposition worth challenging is, of course, up to you. But I hope you don't expect such a challenge to be taken seriously. I know the FCC's new Report and Order on net neutrality is a very long (400-page) document, and there is of course no requirement that you actually have read it (much less some appreciable fraction of the comments that led to it). But I've done so. The FCC expressly refused to adopt the categorical, simplistic, binary approach you have posted here.
My friends and colleagues at EFF, Access Now, and elsewhere -- as well as individual scholars and commentators like Marvin Ammori -- know me, and they know why I differ with them about this stuff. What I have explained to them is that my experiences of working with in-country NGOs in the developing world (who don't, in fact, disagree with me about this) have shaped my opinion. If your own experience in working on access issues in (say) Africa or Southeast Asia is stronger than my own, I'd be more likely to be persuaded by your, uh, "original research" than by your effort to selectively adduce footnotes in support of your assertions. At least that's my inclination after a quarter of a century of working for internet freedom. (I was the first employee at EFF, where I worked for nine years.)
The Access Now editorial, in particular, was drafted by someone who had not been open to discussing why it doesn't make sense to describe Wikipedia Zero as having "forged deals" with telcos. How do I happen to know this? Because, as a result of conversations with Marvin Ammori, I tried reaching out to Access Now. (The author is not among the many Access Now lawyers I know personally.) Those efforts never went anywhere--the writer wasn't interested in discussing it. What you may not know, if you are not based in Washington, DC, policy circles, is that very many (although not all) network-neutrality activists are afraid that if there is *any* exception to a categorical prohibition on zero-rated services, this will somehow undermine network neutrality forever. I do not share their predisposition (or yours) to understand the issue in such simplistic, binary terms.
Please forgive me for not re-reading the Access Now editorial again, even though you quote it so heavily here. I've discussed the editorial face-to-face, however, with my Access Now friends in DC, and again at the Internet Governance Forum in Istanbul last year, and just last week at RightsCon in Manila, where I was a guest speaker and moderator of a panel on internet-rights initiatives in Southeast Asia.
I didn't happen to see you at any of those events, but they were quite busy and crowded, so perhaps I missed you. Perhaps your own labors on behalf of a free and open internet were so demanding that they prevented you from attending. If so, I understand entirely.
I'll be back in Phnom Penh working on the Great Charter for Cambodian Internet Freedom for a couple of weeks in June--if you can find your way there, I'd be happy to introduce you to activists who, like me, believe that Wikipedia Zero is the kind of project that helps citizens more immediately and pervasively than a commitment to charging for mobile internet access by the byte.
Fortunately, my heterodoxy on the issue of net neutrality has not prevented the prominent organizations you mention from continuing to work with me on issues like NSA reform, copyright and patent reform, and updating the U.S. Electronic Communications Privacy Act. That stuff is going to be my major work obligation in April and May. I guess I'm lucky that the prominence of those organizations has not led them to being so casually dismissive of me as you have chosen to be.
Best regards,
--Mike Godwin
On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 8:02 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 12:05 PM, Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com wrote:
It should be noted that the Federal Communications Commission, in its recent Report and Order requiring network neutrality for American telcos and service providers, expressly refused to draw a categorical conclusion whether zero-rated services (including Wikipedia Zero) harmed competition. Instead, the Commission said it would make case-by-case determinations based on the particular services each zero-rated service is providing. If it were shown that Wikipedia Zero is suppressing competition from other encyclopedic knowledge bases or suppressing sharing of knowledge, that would be something for the Commission to consider -- but of course there are no facts that support this argument, at least not yet.
Prominent organisations campaigning for a free and open web very strongly disagree with your view.
The anti-competitive nature of zero-rated services is the exact point Thomas Lohninger makes in the presentation I linked to earlier.[1] (Comments on Wikipedia Zero specifically start at time code 40.45.)
---o0o---
Imagine if Encyclopaedia Britannica had a service like this 10 years ago. Something like Wikipedia never could have come into existence, because there would already be one incumbent player that's hugely dominant, that has free access to all the customer base. And it doesn't matter if it's the best service ... but it's free. And so people will use that. And Wikipedia as a community project never would have taken off and come to the point where they are right now.
---o0o---
Would you really argue with that?
Facebook Zero and Wikipedia Zero are transparently about getting to market early, ahead of other corporate players, and establishing dominant positions before others – including non-Western, home-grown solutions – can get a foot in the door.
AccessNow[2] takes the same view:
---o0o---
Wikimedia is not alone in forging “zero-rating” deals with telcos. Facebook has also struck deals to offer low-data versions of its services in both developed and developing countries. But Wikimedia argues that unlike Facebook Zero, its service is non-commercial, and therefore deserves a special Wikipedia carve-out because no money is changing hands in exchange for prioritization over other services. No money, no net neutrality violation.
This reasoning fails to pass the smell test. The company’s own recently updated terms of service recognize that payment and benefit need not be monetary. In fact, Wikimedia is using its well-known trademarks as currency in deals with telecom partners as it seeks to acquire more users via Wikipedia Zero.
Current users understand that the revolutionary nature of the internet rests in its breadth and diversity. The internet is more than Wikipedia, Facebook, or Google. But for many, zero-rated programs would limit online access to the “walled gardens” offered by the Web heavyweights. For millions of users, Facebook and Wikipedia would be synonymous with “internet.” In the end, Wikipedia Zero would not lead to more users of the actual internet, but Wikipedia may see a nice pickup in traffic.
As the Wikimedia Foundation claims to know, the diversity and plurality of knowledge the internet can deliver is, in essence, what makes net neutrality so important; equal treatment of data results in equal access to all. It’s hard to see how zero-rated services can comport with this principle.
In addition, suggesting that free access to Wikipedia or Facebook is the solution to limited internet access in the developing world is like putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. It leaves the underlying, complex causes of the digital divide untreated. Moreover, offering services that don't count against data caps, in developed and less-developed countries alike, tips the balance in favour of zero-rated services, effectively salting the earth of low-cost net neutral alternatives in the future. The long-term effect of these services will be a decline in innovation and competition online — with a particular bias against homegrown services in favor of companies based thousands of miles away in Silicon Valley — and, ironically, a reduction in access to information and knowledge.
---o0o---
"Fails to pass the smell test."
"Salting the earth."
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which you used to work for before you took your job at Wikimedia, makes the same point about the anti-competitive nature of zero-rated services, specifically with reference to Wikipedia Zero:[3]
---o0o---
It goes without saying that users will be much more inclined to access a zero rated service than one for which they need to pay, and that this tilts the playing field in favor of the zero rated content owner. On its face, this isn't neutral at all. Yet some have argued that it is worth allowing poor consumers to access at least part of the Internet, even if they are shut out from accessing the rest of it because they can't afford to do so.
However, we worry about the downside risks of the zero rated services. Although it may seem like a humane strategy to offer users from developing countries crumbs from the Internet's table in the form of free access to walled-garden services, such service may thrive at the cost of stifling the development of low-cost, neutral Internet access in those countries for decades to come.
---o0o---
These organisations have excellent credentials, and they all argue that developing countries are taken advantage of, in line with a centuries-old tradition. It's internet colonialism.
Wikimedia is behaving like an exploitative corporate player here, striking deals with other first-world corporate players interested solely in their bottom line. Since the beginning of the year, at least three Facebook Zero/Wikipedia Zero bundles have appeared on Facebook's Internet.org website.
Plus ça change ...
[1] http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2014/31c3_-_6170_-_en_-_saal_g_-_2014122... [2] https://www.accessnow.org/blog/2014/08/08/wikipedia-zero-and-net-neutrality-... [3] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/net-neutrality-and-global-digital-divi...
[Resubmitted with some HTML stuff removed, I hope.]
Andreas writes:
"Prominent organisations campaigning for a free and open web very strongly disagree with your view."
I said there are no facts, and you responded by citing opinion pieces. That's cool, but opinions are not themselves facts.
Furthermore, in some circles, I've been considered from time to time to be someone "prominent" whose entire career has been dedicated to a free and open web. If you're suggesting that everyone -- or even everyone "prominent" -- who believes in a free and open web "very strongly" disagrees with me, then you are misinformed. There is an honest difference of opinion about what the developing world needs first. And, in my experience, it is only individuals in developed, industrialized countries with very little direct knowledge about the infrastructural and access challenges in developing countries who imagine that zero-rated services are categorically a threat to "a free and open web."
I've actually written about this issue at length, and will be publishing another article on the issue next week. I'll post the link here when I have it.
Whether the U.S. government's Federal Communications is not itself a "prominent organization" that has committed itself to "a free and open web" is a proposition worth challenging is, of course, up to you. But I hope you don't expect such a challenge to be taken seriously. I know the FCC's new Report and Order on net neutrality is a very long (400-page) document, and there is of course no requirement that you actually have read it (much less some appreciable fraction of the comments that led to it). But I've done so. The FCC expressly refused to adopt the categorical, simplistic, binary approach you have posted here.
My friends and colleagues at EFF, Access Now, and elsewhere -- as well as individual scholars and commentators like Marvin Ammori -- know me, and they know why I differ with them about this stuff. What I have explained to them is that my experiences of working with in-country NGOs in the developing world (who don't, in fact, disagree with me about this) have shaped my opinion. If your own experience in working on access issues in (say) Africa or Southeast Asia is stronger than my own, I'd be more likely to be persuaded by your, uh, "original research" than by your effort to selectively adduce footnotes in support of your assertions. At least that's my inclination after a quarter of a century of working for internet freedom. (I was the first employee at EFF, where I worked for nine years.)
The Access Now editorial, in particular, was drafted by someone who had not been open to discussing why it doesn't make sense to describe Wikipedia Zero as having "forged deals" with telcos. How do I happen to know this? Because, as a result of conversations with Marvin Ammori, I tried reaching out to Access Now. (The author is not among the many Access Now lawyers I know personally.) Those efforts never went anywhere--the writer wasn't interested in discussing it. What you may not know, if you are not based in Washington, DC, policy circles, is that very many (although not all) network-neutrality activists are afraid that if there is *any* exception to a categorical prohibition on zero-rated services, this will somehow undermine network neutrality forever. I do not share their predisposition (or yours) to understand the issue in such simplistic, binary terms.
Please forgive me for not re-reading the Access Now editorial again, even though you quote it so heavily here. I've discussed the editorial face-to-face, however, with my Access Now friends in DC, and again at the Internet Governance Forum in Istanbul last year, and just last week at RightsCon in Manila, where I was a guest speaker and moderator of a panel on internet-rights initiatives in Southeast Asia.
I didn't happen to see you at any of those events, but they were quite busy and crowded, so perhaps I missed you. Perhaps your own labors on behalf of a free and open internet were so demanding that they prevented you from attending. If so, I understand entirely.
I'll be back in Phnom Penh working on the Great Charter for Cambodian Internet Freedom for a couple of weeks in June--if you can find your way there, I'd be happy to introduce you to activists who, like me, believe that Wikipedia Zero is the kind of project that helps citizens more immediately and pervasively than a commitment to charging for mobile internet access by the byte.
Fortunately, my heterodoxy on the issue of net neutrality has not prevented the prominent organizations you mention from continuing to work with me on issues like NSA reform, copyright and patent reform, and updating the U.S. Electronic Communications Privacy Act. That stuff is going to be my major work obligation in April and May. I guess I'm lucky that the prominence of those organizations has not led them to being so casually dismissive of me as you have chosen to be.
Best regards,
--Mike Godwin Staff Counsel, Electronic Frontier Foundation, 1990-1999 General Counsel, Wikimedia Foundation, 2007-2010 Director and General Counsel, The R Street Institute, 2015-present
Mike,
With all due respect to your longstanding work on internet issues, you said there were no facts to support an argument that zero-rating one product, when all others are subject to a consumer charge, suppresses competition.
I pointed out that Lohninger, AccessNow and EFF consider it obvious that there is such an effect.
You cannot seriously argue that there are "no facts" available to demonstrate this. It's business studies 101. Competition is driven by cost, service and quality. Wikipedia's own growth, and the demise of its paid-for competitors like Encarta, is in large part due to the fact that Wikipedia's users occurred no cost for accessing it, other than the cost of being online. Removing that cost in developing markets for Wikipedia, while imposing it on everyone else aiming to serve the public, is a strategy aimed at creating a monopoly. Monopolies are ultimately harmful to freedom.
You may call that an opinion, too, but history presents us with a wealth of evidence demonstrating the truth of that assertion. I presented examples earlier in this thread of how restricting users to a "Walled Wikipedia" can do real-world harm. And I agree with Jens when he voices the opinion that it is hubristic to believe that Wikipedia is the sum of all human knowledge. At the most basic level, Wikipedia content is always dependent on sources generated outside Wikipedia itself, whose combined volume dwarfs Wikipedia.
Speaking more generally, I would like to see a humbler Wikimedia Foundation: less in love with its own carefully cultivated image, more interested in quality, more interested in serving the public than in taking over the world, more aware, honest and transparent about its projects' failings. Wikipedia should have nothing to sell, not even itself. It should just be helpful to the consumer. The degree to which Wikipedia realised that ideal is what originally attracted me to it. I also believe it is a wiser long-term strategy for Wikimedia itself.
In your post, Mike, you acknowledge the "heterodoxy" of your position, and that you haven't been ostracised for it. That's great, but it is important to remember that yours is a minority view, and that your more "orthodox" peers aren't participants on this mailing list. Perhaps we should make them aware of this discussion, and invite them to participate.
Andreas
On Thu, Apr 2, 2015 at 3:06 AM, Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com wrote:
[Resubmitted with some HTML stuff removed, I hope.]
Andreas writes:
"Prominent organisations campaigning for a free and open web very strongly disagree with your view."
I said there are no facts, and you responded by citing opinion pieces. That's cool, but opinions are not themselves facts.
Furthermore, in some circles, I've been considered from time to time to be someone "prominent" whose entire career has been dedicated to a free and open web. If you're suggesting that everyone -- or even everyone "prominent" -- who believes in a free and open web "very strongly" disagrees with me, then you are misinformed. There is an honest difference of opinion about what the developing world needs first. And, in my experience, it is only individuals in developed, industrialized countries with very little direct knowledge about the infrastructural and access challenges in developing countries who imagine that zero-rated services are categorically a threat to "a free and open web."
I've actually written about this issue at length, and will be publishing another article on the issue next week. I'll post the link here when I have it.
Whether the U.S. government's Federal Communications is not itself a "prominent organization" that has committed itself to "a free and open web" is a proposition worth challenging is, of course, up to you. But I hope you don't expect such a challenge to be taken seriously. I know the FCC's new Report and Order on net neutrality is a very long (400-page) document, and there is of course no requirement that you actually have read it (much less some appreciable fraction of the comments that led to it). But I've done so. The FCC expressly refused to adopt the categorical, simplistic, binary approach you have posted here.
My friends and colleagues at EFF, Access Now, and elsewhere -- as well as individual scholars and commentators like Marvin Ammori -- know me, and they know why I differ with them about this stuff. What I have explained to them is that my experiences of working with in-country NGOs in the developing world (who don't, in fact, disagree with me about this) have shaped my opinion. If your own experience in working on access issues in (say) Africa or Southeast Asia is stronger than my own, I'd be more likely to be persuaded by your, uh, "original research" than by your effort to selectively adduce footnotes in support of your assertions. At least that's my inclination after a quarter of a century of working for internet freedom. (I was the first employee at EFF, where I worked for nine years.)
The Access Now editorial, in particular, was drafted by someone who had not been open to discussing why it doesn't make sense to describe Wikipedia Zero as having "forged deals" with telcos. How do I happen to know this? Because, as a result of conversations with Marvin Ammori, I tried reaching out to Access Now. (The author is not among the many Access Now lawyers I know personally.) Those efforts never went anywhere--the writer wasn't interested in discussing it. What you may not know, if you are not based in Washington, DC, policy circles, is that very many (although not all) network-neutrality activists are afraid that if there is *any* exception to a categorical prohibition on zero-rated services, this will somehow undermine network neutrality forever. I do not share their predisposition (or yours) to understand the issue in such simplistic, binary terms.
Please forgive me for not re-reading the Access Now editorial again, even though you quote it so heavily here. I've discussed the editorial face-to-face, however, with my Access Now friends in DC, and again at the Internet Governance Forum in Istanbul last year, and just last week at RightsCon in Manila, where I was a guest speaker and moderator of a panel on internet-rights initiatives in Southeast Asia.
I didn't happen to see you at any of those events, but they were quite busy and crowded, so perhaps I missed you. Perhaps your own labors on behalf of a free and open internet were so demanding that they prevented you from attending. If so, I understand entirely.
I'll be back in Phnom Penh working on the Great Charter for Cambodian Internet Freedom for a couple of weeks in June--if you can find your way there, I'd be happy to introduce you to activists who, like me, believe that Wikipedia Zero is the kind of project that helps citizens more immediately and pervasively than a commitment to charging for mobile internet access by the byte.
Fortunately, my heterodoxy on the issue of net neutrality has not prevented the prominent organizations you mention from continuing to work with me on issues like NSA reform, copyright and patent reform, and updating the U.S. Electronic Communications Privacy Act. That stuff is going to be my major work obligation in April and May. I guess I'm lucky that the prominence of those organizations has not led them to being so casually dismissive of me as you have chosen to be.
Best regards,
--Mike Godwin Staff Counsel, Electronic Frontier Foundation, 1990-1999 General Counsel, Wikimedia Foundation, 2007-2010 Director and General Counsel, The R Street Institute, 2015-present
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2015-04-02 15:16 GMT+02:00 Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com:
I pointed out that Lohninger, AccessNow and EFF consider it obvious that there is such an effect.
Not so obvious, in my opinion.
The EFF says about Wikipedia zero that it is a "laudable effort"[1] even acknowledging that it may harm competition even in the non-profit world. In another article the EFF says that Wikipedia Zero is "an exception"[2] among Zero rating services because his procedures are more transparent.
This is very different from asking to stop or shut down Wikipedia Zero.
You cannot seriously argue that there are "no facts" available to demonstrate this. It's business studies 101.
I keep hearing this argument, but what myself (and I think also Mike) am contesting is this "automatic implication" that Wikipedia Zero brings behind itself Facebook Zero, Twitter Zero and all the others zero rating services. I don't see this automatism, and I would like therefore see some evidence for it, with dates possibly. (I have already demanded it in the past[3]) I do not consider it obvious at all. Please note that I am not saying that this effect can not exist /a priori/, I am completely agnostic about it and for this exact reason I would like it to be tested (it is also worth pointing out that since you are making the claim you are the one with the burden of proof).
About Thomas Lohninger's opinion, he stated in the talk that you linked previously [4a] that WMF and Wikimedia Chile ask to withdraw or amend the Chilean net neutrality law, but if you read the letter sent (see [4b] for the letter, [4c] has context) the letter "asked to confirm that Wikipedia Zero is not covered by this order [the circular from Chilean government implementing the Net Neutrality law]"[*]. Again, this is different: asking that Wikipedia Zero could continue running in the framework of the net neutrality law is different from demanding an amendment to the law, in the fact that it is asking to consider Wikipedia an exception. From what I can gather from the discussions on the advocacy advisors list I think that this is an opinion held by several Wikimedians (including myself).
I think, Andreas, that your view (or Jens' or Thomas') is a legitimate position, but taking a really materialistic stance this is not a zero sum game. IMHO the "exception approach" is the only one, at least the only one I can think of, that may have a net positive outcome (i.e. giving access to Wikipedia to people and having a very wide-covering net neutrality protection), your proposition has the negative effect of eliciting the access to Wikipedia to people (and I very much understand Josh's reaction in this respect). Always taking this materialistic approach, I think it is legitimate to weight competing values, i.e. it is not automatic that Net Neutrality is a value that has a greater weight than access to knowledge (even if mediated through the in-many-ways-imperfect Wikipedia).
Cristian
[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/net-neutrality-and-transparency-princi... [2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/net-neutrality-and-global-digital-divi... [3] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/advocacy_advisors/2014-September/00075... [4a] http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2014/31c3_-_6170_-_en_-_saal_g_-_2014122... (from 40.45) [4b] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carta_a_SUBTEL_ref_Wikipedia_Zero.pd... [4c] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/advocacy_advisors/2014-September/00075...
On Thu, Apr 2, 2015 at 3:00 PM, Cristian Consonni kikkocristian@gmail.com wrote:
2015-04-02 15:16 GMT+02:00 Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com:
I pointed out that Lohninger, AccessNow and EFF consider it obvious that there is such an effect.
I keep hearing this argument, but what myself (and I think also Mike) am contesting is this "automatic implication" that Wikipedia Zero brings behind itself Facebook Zero, Twitter Zero and all the others zero rating services. I don't see this automatism, and I would like therefore see some evidence for it, with dates possibly.
As mentioned previously, what I have seen is recent additions to Internet.org, describing Internet.org app launches bundling Wikipedia Zero and Facebook Zero (along with a small and varying number of other sites) in the following countries:
Zambia (31 Jul 2014) https://internet.org/press/introducing-the-internet-dot-org-app Tanzania (29 Oct 2014) https://internet.org/press/internet-dot-org-app-launches-in-tanzania Kenya (14 Nov 2014) http://internet.org/press/internet-dot-org-app-comes-to-kenya Colombia (14 Jan 2015) https://internet.org/press/internet-dot-org-app-launches-in-colombia Ghana (22 Jan 2015) https://internet.org/press/internet-dot-org-app-available-in-ghana India (10 Feb 2015) http://internet.org/press/internet-dot-org-app-now-available-in-india
A few months prior to the start of these bundles, Jimmy Wales was asked on Quora "What does Jimmy Wales think about Mark Zuckerberg's Internet.org project, especially in light of Wikipedia Zero? Is there a chance for it to become a collaborative project between Facebook and the Wikimedia Foundation?",
He replied:
---o0o---
I like what they are doing. I have spoken to both Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg about it, and the internet.org team is in contact with our Wikipedia Zero team.
Because Wikipedia/Wikimedia is somewhat "the Switzerland of the Internet" (i.e. with a strong tendency to be very vendor neutral) we are always going to be supportive of efforts like this, which are broad industry coalitions to do something useful particularly relating to broad access to knowledge, our core value. But we won't generally be tied up in any one thing per se. But we'll work with them where it makes sense, of course.
In my personal capacity, I am a big fan of what they are trying to do and support it fully.
---o0o---
http://www.quora.com/What-does-Jimmy-Wales-think-about-Mark-Zuckerbergs-Inte...
I am less convinced of Facebook's altruistic motives.
Note that Facebook actually seems to contain a complete mirror of Wikipedia, judging by the presence of even fairly obscure Wikipedia articles on its pages (selected using "Random article"). See e.g.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/FIS-Alpine-World-Ski-Championships-2007-Mens-... https://www.facebook.com/pages/Hopf-algebra/110243959027029?fref=ts https://www.facebook.com/pages/Minimum-alveolar-concentration/13264811677316... https://www.facebook.com/pages/Brian-Luighnech-Ua-Conchobhair/12459705429341...
Given the limitations Wikipedia Zero users labour under, it is actually fairly immaterial to users whether they see the Wikipedia article in Facebook Zero or Wikipedia Zero. The key difference is that in Facebook Zero, they will not see Wikipedia's logo and fundraising banners. (They also can't see the talk pages in Facebook.) They will have a less clear impression of Wikipedia's brand, and the whole thing will still primarily be a Facebook experience to them.
So, in the context of Facebook Zero/Wikipedia Zero bundles, it seems to me the Wikipedia Zero deal is to a large extent there to ensure that Wikipedia becomes part of the telco's advertising. Access to Wikipedia articles is already a given in Facebook Zero.
(I have already demanded it in the past[3]) I do not consider it obvious at all. Please note that I am not saying that this effect can not exist /a priori/, I am completely agnostic about it and for this exact reason I would like it to be tested (it is also worth pointing out that since you are making the claim you are the one with the burden of proof).
About Thomas Lohninger's opinion, he stated in the talk that you linked previously [4a] that WMF and Wikimedia Chile ask to withdraw or amend the Chilean net neutrality law, but if you read the letter sent (see [4b] for the letter, [4c] has context) the letter "asked to confirm that Wikipedia Zero is not covered by this order [the circular from Chilean government implementing the Net Neutrality law]"[*].
Thanks for the link. The Spanish text in the linked document bears you out, though I would assume the correspondence went on a bit after that.
Regards, Andreas
Again, this is different: asking that Wikipedia Zero could continue running in the framework of the net neutrality law is different from demanding an amendment to the law, in the fact that it is asking to consider Wikipedia an exception. From what I can gather from the discussions on the advocacy advisors list I think that this is an opinion held by several Wikimedians (including myself).
I think, Andreas, that your view (or Jens' or Thomas') is a legitimate position, but taking a really materialistic stance this is not a zero sum game. IMHO the "exception approach" is the only one, at least the only one I can think of, that may have a net positive outcome (i.e. giving access to Wikipedia to people and having a very wide-covering net neutrality protection), your proposition has the negative effect of eliciting the access to Wikipedia to people (and I very much understand Josh's reaction in this respect). Always taking this materialistic approach, I think it is legitimate to weight competing values, i.e. it is not automatic that Net Neutrality is a value that has a greater weight than access to knowledge (even if mediated through the in-many-ways-imperfect Wikipedia).
Cristian
[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/net-neutrality-and-transparency-princi... [2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/net-neutrality-and-global-digital-divi... [3] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/advocacy_advisors/2014-September/00075... [4a] http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2014/31c3_-_6170_-_en_-_saal_g_-_2014122... (from 40.45) [4b] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carta_a_SUBTEL_ref_Wikipedia_Zero.pd... [4c] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/advocacy_advisors/2014-September/00075...
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Hi Andreas,
2015-04-02 18:25 GMT+02:00 Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com:
On Thu, Apr 2, 2015 at 3:00 PM, Cristian Consonni kikkocristian@gmail.com wrote:
2015-04-02 15:16 GMT+02:00 Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com:
As mentioned previously, what I have seen is recent additions to Internet.org, describing Internet.org app launches bundling Wikipedia Zero and Facebook Zero (along with a small and varying number of other sites) in the following countries:
I need another clarification. As far as I know (and I recall a question in the board Q&A at Wikimania in London), it's internet.org making available Wikipedia content (as per the license) on their app. It is not an initiative of the Wikimedia Foundation and (therefore) it is not related to Wikipedia Zero. Also, internet.org/Facebook can do this thanks to our license (more below). Unless something changed in the last months you can not say that Wikipedia Zero is bundled with Facebook Zero.
[...]
Note that Facebook actually seems to contain a complete mirror of Wikipedia, judging by the presence of even fairly obscure Wikipedia articles on its pages (selected using "Random article"). See e.g.
This is failry old news, these pages exists since 2010: https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/21721
Given the limitations Wikipedia Zero users labour under, it is actually fairly immaterial to users whether they see the Wikipedia article in Facebook Zero or Wikipedia Zero. The key difference is that in Facebook Zero, they will not see Wikipedia's logo and fundraising banners. (They also can't see the talk pages in Facebook.) They will have a less clear impression of Wikipedia's brand, and the whole thing will still primarily be a Facebook experience to them.
I see the problem, but this is not related at all with Net Neutrality.
This is what you can do with any free/libre content. There is no way to stop Facebook (or Flickr [sic et simpliciter]) from reusing our content. Let me quote SJ (again from the Board Q&A in London) "Please reuse our content". There should be as few limitations as possible to reusing the content, in principle. Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia for this very exact reason after all. Even in a world with the strongest possible Net Neutrality laws in force Facebook will be able to do this.
Let me weigh in another argument, I know that the idea of a "Public space on the internet" is accepted even in the framework of Net Neutrality. The idea is that some list of websites that offer public services (e.g. government websites, public libraries websites, schools and universities websites) should always be accessible with no charge. In this view Wikipedia could be included in the list as an educational non-profit (other projects may also be included, e. g. the Khan Academy). Wikimedia Foundation, in this sense, is leading by example.
C
No one would care about Wikipedia Zero if Wikipedia was a reliable source.
Anthony Cole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole
On Sun, Apr 5, 2015 at 1:44 AM, Cristian Consonni kikkocristian@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Andreas,
2015-04-02 18:25 GMT+02:00 Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com:
On Thu, Apr 2, 2015 at 3:00 PM, Cristian Consonni <
kikkocristian@gmail.com>
wrote:
2015-04-02 15:16 GMT+02:00 Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com:
As mentioned previously, what I have seen is recent additions to Internet.org, describing Internet.org app launches bundling Wikipedia
Zero
and Facebook Zero (along with a small and varying number of other sites)
in
the following countries:
I need another clarification. As far as I know (and I recall a question in the board Q&A at Wikimania in London), it's internet.org making available Wikipedia content (as per the license) on their app. It is not an initiative of the Wikimedia Foundation and (therefore) it is not related to Wikipedia Zero. Also, internet.org/Facebook can do this thanks to our license (more below). Unless something changed in the last months you can not say that Wikipedia Zero is bundled with Facebook Zero.
[...]
Note that Facebook actually seems to contain a complete mirror of Wikipedia, judging by the presence of even fairly obscure Wikipedia articles on its pages (selected using "Random article"). See e.g.
This is failry old news, these pages exists since 2010: https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/21721
Given the limitations Wikipedia Zero users labour under, it is actually fairly immaterial to users whether they see the Wikipedia article in Facebook Zero or Wikipedia Zero. The key difference is that in Facebook Zero, they will not see Wikipedia's logo and fundraising banners. (They also can't see the talk pages in Facebook.) They will have a less clear impression of Wikipedia's brand, and the whole thing will still primarily be a Facebook experience to them.
I see the problem, but this is not related at all with Net Neutrality.
This is what you can do with any free/libre content. There is no way to stop Facebook (or Flickr [sic et simpliciter]) from reusing our content. Let me quote SJ (again from the Board Q&A in London) "Please reuse our content". There should be as few limitations as possible to reusing the content, in principle. Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia for this very exact reason after all. Even in a world with the strongest possible Net Neutrality laws in force Facebook will be able to do this.
Let me weigh in another argument, I know that the idea of a "Public space on the internet" is accepted even in the framework of Net Neutrality. The idea is that some list of websites that offer public services (e.g. government websites, public libraries websites, schools and universities websites) should always be accessible with no charge. In this view Wikipedia could be included in the list as an educational non-profit (other projects may also be included, e. g. the Khan Academy). Wikimedia Foundation, in this sense, is leading by example.
C
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Hoi, Reliable is not an absolute. Wikipedia is in the final analysis an encyclopaedia. It is not original research. Studies have indicated that Wikipedia is as reliable as its competitors. Wikipedia does link ever more to the VIAF indicators by the OCLC and thereby it links to the sum of all knowledge as it is available in libraries.
I think you have it backward. Given that Wikipedia is best of breed, people do care about Wikipedia Zero. It is why Wikipedia Zero is not part of any walled garden; it is there for every company who cares to provide it free of charge.
For the rest I find that I am getting annoyed. Thanks, GerardM
On 5 April 2015 at 01:52, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
No one would care about Wikipedia Zero if Wikipedia was a reliable source.
Anthony Cole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole
On Sun, Apr 5, 2015 at 1:44 AM, Cristian Consonni <kikkocristian@gmail.com
wrote:
Hi Andreas,
2015-04-02 18:25 GMT+02:00 Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com:
On Thu, Apr 2, 2015 at 3:00 PM, Cristian Consonni <
kikkocristian@gmail.com>
wrote:
2015-04-02 15:16 GMT+02:00 Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com:
As mentioned previously, what I have seen is recent additions to Internet.org, describing Internet.org app launches bundling Wikipedia
Zero
and Facebook Zero (along with a small and varying number of other
sites)
in
the following countries:
I need another clarification. As far as I know (and I recall a question in the board Q&A at Wikimania in London), it's internet.org making available Wikipedia content (as per the license) on their app. It is not an initiative of the Wikimedia Foundation and (therefore) it is not related to Wikipedia Zero. Also, internet.org/Facebook can do this thanks to our license (more below). Unless something changed in the last months you can not say that Wikipedia Zero is bundled with Facebook Zero.
[...]
Note that Facebook actually seems to contain a complete mirror of Wikipedia, judging by the presence of even fairly obscure Wikipedia articles on its pages (selected using "Random article"). See e.g.
This is failry old news, these pages exists since 2010: https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/21721
Given the limitations Wikipedia Zero users labour under, it is actually fairly immaterial to users whether they see the Wikipedia article in Facebook Zero or Wikipedia Zero. The key difference is that in Facebook Zero, they will not see Wikipedia's logo and fundraising banners. (They also can't see the talk pages in Facebook.) They will have a less clear impression of Wikipedia's brand, and the whole thing will still
primarily
be a Facebook experience to them.
I see the problem, but this is not related at all with Net Neutrality.
This is what you can do with any free/libre content. There is no way to stop Facebook (or Flickr [sic et simpliciter]) from reusing our content. Let me quote SJ (again from the Board Q&A in London) "Please reuse our content". There should be as few limitations as possible to reusing the content, in principle. Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia for this very exact reason after all. Even in a world with the strongest possible Net Neutrality laws in force Facebook will be able to do this.
Let me weigh in another argument, I know that the idea of a "Public space on the internet" is accepted even in the framework of Net Neutrality. The idea is that some list of websites that offer public services (e.g. government websites, public libraries websites, schools and universities websites) should always be accessible with no charge. In this view Wikipedia could be included in the list as an educational non-profit (other projects may also be included, e. g. the Khan Academy). Wikimedia Foundation, in this sense, is leading by example.
C
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On 05/04/2015 06:36, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, Reliable is not an absolute. Wikipedia is in the final analysis an encyclopaedia. It is not original research.
One can indeed engage in original research by cherry picking the sources.
Studies have indicated that Wikipedia is as reliable as its competitors.
Nonsense. Reliability has only ever been checked in the case of well established scientific knowledge (where it was found to have 30% more errors), and highly disputed content. It has not been checked over the millions of articles that are neither of the above.
Take the WP article on John Dee and compare it to the Britannica article. The Britannica article is both readable and well rounded. The WP article is a rambling mess that tries to present Dee the Mathematician, Scientist and natural philospher, but is thwarted at every turn by those that want John Dee to be foremost the magician and conjuror.
Perhaps in the end Dee the mathematician wins out, but it is a close run thing, and one has to pour over the stilted language and mish mash of thought processes to get there.
Ironically enough many of the sources used to promote Dee the magician are instead promoting Dee the mathematician.
I think you have it backward. Given that Wikipedia is best of breed, people do care about Wikipedia Zero.
God help us if that is the case. Fortunately there are far more informative and reliable sites about then wikipedia. Unfortunately they tend not to be on the first page of a search engine's results.
Hoi, Research is not what we compete with. Research is not encyclopaedic either. The research I refer to compared a set of subjects and compared those in several sources... Then again why bore you with information you already could know..
Cherry picking an article from Brittanica is wonderful, it "proves" your point, it however fails to convince.
Your God or mine, the fact is that Wikipedia is a most relevant source. Given your complaint about the John Dee article, there is an opportunity for you. You claim to know the subject matter. Thanks, GerardM
On 5 April 2015 at 12:06, Lilburne lilburne@tygers-of-wrath.net wrote:
On 05/04/2015 06:36, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, Reliable is not an absolute. Wikipedia is in the final analysis an encyclopaedia. It is not original research.
One can indeed engage in original research by cherry picking the sources.
Studies have indicated that
Wikipedia is as reliable as its competitors.
Nonsense. Reliability has only ever been checked in the case of well established scientific knowledge (where it was found to have 30% more errors), and highly disputed content. It has not been checked over the millions of articles that are neither of the above.
Take the WP article on John Dee and compare it to the Britannica article. The Britannica article is both readable and well rounded. The WP article is a rambling mess that tries to present Dee the Mathematician, Scientist and natural philospher, but is thwarted at every turn by those that want John Dee to be foremost the magician and conjuror.
Perhaps in the end Dee the mathematician wins out, but it is a close run thing, and one has to pour over the stilted language and mish mash of thought processes to get there.
Ironically enough many of the sources used to promote Dee the magician are instead promoting Dee the mathematician.
I think you have it backward. Given that Wikipedia is best of breed,
people do care about Wikipedia Zero.
God help us if that is the case. Fortunately there are far more informative and reliable sites about then wikipedia. Unfortunately they tend not to be on the first page of a search engine's results.
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Hello,
Might I suggest that if folks want to continue talking about this, they rename this thread, as it is no longer about Kourosh Karimkhany, and it is just creating background noise for those of us who have no desire to discuss the whole Wikipedia Zero freedom thing yet again?
Cheers, Craig
On 5 April 2015 at 21:07, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Research is not what we compete with. Research is not encyclopaedic either. The research I refer to compared a set of subjects and compared those in several sources... Then again why bore you with information you already could know..
Cherry picking an article from Brittanica is wonderful, it "proves" your point, it however fails to convince.
Your God or mine, the fact is that Wikipedia is a most relevant source. Given your complaint about the John Dee article, there is an opportunity for you. You claim to know the subject matter. Thanks, GerardM
On 5 April 2015 at 12:06, Lilburne lilburne@tygers-of-wrath.net wrote:
On 05/04/2015 06:36, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, Reliable is not an absolute. Wikipedia is in the final analysis an encyclopaedia. It is not original research.
One can indeed engage in original research by cherry picking the sources.
Studies have indicated that
Wikipedia is as reliable as its competitors.
Nonsense. Reliability has only ever been checked in the case of well established scientific knowledge (where it was found to have 30% more errors), and highly disputed content. It has not been checked over the millions of articles that are neither of the above.
Take the WP article on John Dee and compare it to the Britannica article. The Britannica article is both readable and well rounded. The WP article is a rambling mess that tries to present Dee the Mathematician, Scientist and natural philospher, but
is
thwarted at every turn by those that want John Dee to be foremost the magician and conjuror.
Perhaps in the end Dee the mathematician wins out, but it is a close run thing, and one has to pour over the stilted language and mish mash of thought processes to get there.
Ironically enough many of the sources used to promote Dee the magician
are
instead promoting Dee the mathematician.
I think you have it backward. Given that Wikipedia is best of breed,
people do care about Wikipedia Zero.
God help us if that is the case. Fortunately there are far more informative and reliable sites about then wikipedia. Unfortunately they tend not to be on the
first
page of a search engine's results.
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Boi,
All comparisons of WP with other sources were cherry picked. They picked articles where the science was well established, or they picked articles which were being edit warred to exhaustion if you know of comparisons where that isn't the case then cough them up.
Wikipedia happens to figure high in Google search rankings. That is the only reliable relevance that it has to any subject. Often its high ranking is to the detriment of far more reliable sites. Richard II king of England in 1345 - three years that resided in a feature article. Thomas Rainsborough the noted Ranter a year. Jagged85 years and years falsifying articles in History, Medicine, Mathematics, and Literature, and allowed to carry on doing so for several years after discovery. Much of his nonsense remains.
Ignoring the millions of "X is a footballer in the 6th division of the Y league", "X is a moth in the Y family", "X is a village of 50 people in the region of Y" type articles. Most of the rest are like John Dee. An unreadable hodge-podge of 'maybe facts' culled from ancient sources, and mangled into nonsense to avoid charges of plagiarism. Article that give as much weight to gossip and sensation as they do to achievements. Lets try "Alfred Gilbert" where the pursuit of gossip has lost the actual story of his life.
On 05/04/2015 12:07, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, Research is not what we compete with. Research is not encyclopaedic either. The research I refer to compared a set of subjects and compared those in several sources... Then again why bore you with information you already could know..
Cherry picking an article from Brittanica is wonderful, it "proves" your point, it however fails to convince.
Your God or mine, the fact is that Wikipedia is a most relevant source. Given your complaint about the John Dee article, there is an opportunity for you. You claim to know the subject matter. Thanks, GerardM
On 5 April 2015 at 12:06, Lilburne <lilburne@tygers-of-wrath.net mailto:lilburne@tygers-of-wrath.net> wrote:
On 05/04/2015 06:36, Gerard Meijssen wrote: Hoi, Reliable is not an absolute. Wikipedia is in the final analysis an encyclopaedia. It is not original research. One can indeed engage in original research by cherry picking the sources. Studies have indicated that Wikipedia is as reliable as its competitors. Nonsense. Reliability has only ever been checked in the case of well established scientific knowledge (where it was found to have 30% more errors), and highly disputed content. It has not been checked over the millions of articles that are neither of the above. Take the WP article on John Dee and compare it to the Britannica article. The Britannica article is both readable and well rounded. The WP article is a rambling mess that tries to present Dee the Mathematician, Scientist and natural philospher, but is thwarted at every turn by those that want John Dee to be foremost the magician and conjuror. Perhaps in the end Dee the mathematician wins out, but it is a close run thing, and one has to pour over the stilted language and mish mash of thought processes to get there. Ironically enough many of the sources used to promote Dee the magician are instead promoting Dee the mathematician. I think you have it backward. Given that Wikipedia is best of breed, people do care about Wikipedia Zero. God help us if that is the case. Fortunately there are far more informative and reliable sites about then wikipedia. Unfortunately they tend not to be on the first page of a search engine's results. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org>?subject=unsubscribe>
hi mike,
while i love irony, and value your opinion a lot, i find the tone of this email a little harsh, not to call it unfair. net neutrality targets censorship in some countries, but price to access internet in most countries, which is antitrust or competition law. You are well known for free speech advocacy, and beeing libertarian. Per definition of this you are one of the last persons on this globe I d seek advise for antitrust law and net neutrality. But at the same time you d be one of the first persons I d love to discuss this matter with.
BTW, the U.S. federal communications achievement for this can be judged according the price the U.S. american clients pay for mobile internet services and its quality. they can write as many and as lengthy documents as they want, what they reached up to now is a shame for the country which created the internet, if what is written by the ITU is true [0]. as i am not a professional in this business and surely lack global knowledge i would love to get a different angle on that as well. with a lot of joy i am looking forward to your article.
my personal impression is that the price is ok when 3 factors are given: first, at least four competitors in the market having to cover the whole area, two, net neutrality, and three, appropriate connection "to the internet". i base this assumption from comparing austria and switzerland, both mountainous, land locked, 8 mio people, switzerland having half he surface of austria, and three times more expensive mobile data rates. austria had four competitors (now only three and prices rising), switzerland three. i cannot judge what happens in asia where indonesia looks better positioned than philippines, and africa, where eg ghana has 5 competitors, nigeria four [1][2][3] which both look in a better position than others.
a couple of links: [0] http://gizmodo.com/the-price-of-500mb-of-mobile-data-across-the-world-144204... [1] e.g. p 100 on https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/publications/mis2013/MIS20... [2] http://technologytimes.ng/again-glo-wins-lead-over-airtel-in-telecoms-market... [3] http://www.nca.org.gh/40/105/Market-Share-Statistics.html
rupert
On Thu, Apr 2, 2015 at 3:54 AM, Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com wrote:
Andreas writes:
"Prominent organisations campaigning for a free and open web very strongly disagree with your view."
I said there are no facts, and you responded by citing opinion pieces. That's cool, but opinions are not themselves facts.
Furthermore, in some circles, I've been considered from time to time to be someone "prominent" whose entire career has been dedicated to a free and open web. If you're suggesting that everyone -- or even everyone "prominent" -- who believes in a free and open web "very strongly" disagrees with me, then you are misinformed. There is an honest difference of opinion about what the developing world needs first. And, in my experience, it is only individuals in developed, industrialized countries with very little direct knowledge about the infrastructural and access challenges in developing countries who imagine that zero-rated services are categorically a threat to "a free and open web."
I've actually written about this issue at length, and will be publishing another article on the issue next week. I'll post the link here when I have it.
Whether the U.S. government's Federal Communications is not itself a "prominent organization" that has committed itself to "a free and open web" is a proposition worth challenging is, of course, up to you. But I hope you don't expect such a challenge to be taken seriously. I know the FCC's new Report and Order on net neutrality is a very long (400-page) document, and there is of course no requirement that you actually have read it (much less some appreciable fraction of the comments that led to it). But I've done so. The FCC expressly refused to adopt the categorical, simplistic, binary approach you have posted here.
My friends and colleagues at EFF, Access Now, and elsewhere -- as well as individual scholars and commentators like Marvin Ammori -- know me, and they know why I differ with them about this stuff. What I have explained to them is that my experiences of working with in-country NGOs in the developing world (who don't, in fact, disagree with me about this) have shaped my opinion. If your own experience in working on access issues in (say) Africa or Southeast Asia is stronger than my own, I'd be more likely to be persuaded by your, uh, "original research" than by your effort to selectively adduce footnotes in support of your assertions. At least that's my inclination after a quarter of a century of working for internet freedom. (I was the first employee at EFF, where I worked for nine years.)
The Access Now editorial, in particular, was drafted by someone who had not been open to discussing why it doesn't make sense to describe Wikipedia Zero as having "forged deals" with telcos. How do I happen to know this? Because, as a result of conversations with Marvin Ammori, I tried reaching out to Access Now. (The author is not among the many Access Now lawyers I know personally.) Those efforts never went anywhere--the writer wasn't interested in discussing it. What you may not know, if you are not based in Washington, DC, policy circles, is that very many (although not all) network-neutrality activists are afraid that if there is *any* exception to a categorical prohibition on zero-rated services, this will somehow undermine network neutrality forever. I do not share their predisposition (or yours) to understand the issue in such simplistic, binary terms.
Please forgive me for not re-reading the Access Now editorial again, even though you quote it so heavily here. I've discussed the editorial face-to-face, however, with my Access Now friends in DC, and again at the Internet Governance Forum in Istanbul last year, and just last week at RightsCon in Manila, where I was a guest speaker and moderator of a panel on internet-rights initiatives in Southeast Asia.
I didn't happen to see you at any of those events, but they were quite busy and crowded, so perhaps I missed you. Perhaps your own labors on behalf of a free and open internet were so demanding that they prevented you from attending. If so, I understand entirely.
I'll be back in Phnom Penh working on the Great Charter for Cambodian Internet Freedom for a couple of weeks in June--if you can find your way there, I'd be happy to introduce you to activists who, like me, believe that Wikipedia Zero is the kind of project that helps citizens more immediately and pervasively than a commitment to charging for mobile internet access by the byte.
Fortunately, my heterodoxy on the issue of net neutrality has not prevented the prominent organizations you mention from continuing to work with me on issues like NSA reform, copyright and patent reform, and updating the U.S. Electronic Communications Privacy Act. That stuff is going to be my major work obligation in April and May. I guess I'm lucky that the prominence of those organizations has not led them to being so casually dismissive of me as you have chosen to be.
Best regards,
--Mike Godwin
On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 8:02 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 12:05 PM, Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com wrote:
It should be noted that the Federal Communications Commission, in its recent Report and Order requiring network neutrality for American telcos and service providers, expressly refused to draw a categorical conclusion whether zero-rated services (including Wikipedia Zero) harmed competition. Instead, the Commission said it would make case-by-case determinations based on the particular services each zero-rated service is providing. If it were shown that Wikipedia Zero is suppressing competition from other encyclopedic knowledge bases or suppressing sharing of knowledge, that would be something for the Commission to consider -- but of course there are no facts that support this argument, at least not yet.
Prominent organisations campaigning for a free and open web very strongly disagree with your view.
The anti-competitive nature of zero-rated services is the exact point
Thomas
Lohninger makes in the presentation I linked to earlier.[1] (Comments on Wikipedia Zero specifically start at time code 40.45.)
---o0o---
Imagine if Encyclopaedia Britannica had a service like this 10 years ago. Something like Wikipedia never could have come into existence, because
there
would already be one incumbent player that's hugely dominant, that has
free
access to all the customer base. And it doesn't matter if it's the best service ... but it's free. And so people will use that. And Wikipedia as
a
community project never would have taken off and come to the point where they are right now.
---o0o---
Would you really argue with that?
Facebook Zero and Wikipedia Zero are transparently about getting to
market
early, ahead of other corporate players, and establishing dominant
positions
before others – including non-Western, home-grown solutions – can get a
foot
in the door.
AccessNow[2] takes the same view:
---o0o---
Wikimedia is not alone in forging “zero-rating” deals with telcos.
has also struck deals to offer low-data versions of its services in both developed and developing countries. But Wikimedia argues that unlike Facebook Zero, its service is non-commercial, and therefore deserves a special Wikipedia carve-out because no money is changing hands in
exchange
for prioritization over other services. No money, no net neutrality violation.
This reasoning fails to pass the smell test. The company’s own recently updated terms of service recognize that payment and benefit need not be monetary. In fact, Wikimedia is using its well-known trademarks as
currency
in deals with telecom partners as it seeks to acquire more users via Wikipedia Zero.
Current users understand that the revolutionary nature of the internet
rests
in its breadth and diversity. The internet is more than Wikipedia,
Facebook,
or Google. But for many, zero-rated programs would limit online access to the “walled gardens” offered by the Web heavyweights. For millions of
users,
Facebook and Wikipedia would be synonymous with “internet.” In the end, Wikipedia Zero would not lead to more users of the actual internet, but Wikipedia may see a nice pickup in traffic.
As the Wikimedia Foundation claims to know, the diversity and plurality
of
knowledge the internet can deliver is, in essence, what makes net
neutrality
so important; equal treatment of data results in equal access to all.
It’s
hard to see how zero-rated services can comport with this principle.
In addition, suggesting that free access to Wikipedia or Facebook is the solution to limited internet access in the developing world is like
putting
a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. It leaves the underlying, complex causes of the digital divide untreated. Moreover, offering services that don't
count
against data caps, in developed and less-developed countries alike, tips
the
balance in favour of zero-rated services, effectively salting the earth
of
low-cost net neutral alternatives in the future. The long-term effect of these services will be a decline in innovation and competition online —
with
a particular bias against homegrown services in favor of companies based thousands of miles away in Silicon Valley — and, ironically, a reduction
in
access to information and knowledge.
---o0o---
"Fails to pass the smell test."
"Salting the earth."
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which you used to work for before you took your job at Wikimedia, makes the same point about the
anti-competitive
nature of zero-rated services, specifically with reference to Wikipedia Zero:[3]
---o0o---
It goes without saying that users will be much more inclined to access a zero rated service than one for which they need to pay, and that this
tilts
the playing field in favor of the zero rated content owner. On its face, this isn't neutral at all. Yet some have argued that it is worth allowing poor consumers to access at least part of the Internet, even if they are shut out from accessing the rest of it because they can't afford to do
so.
However, we worry about the downside risks of the zero rated services. Although it may seem like a humane strategy to offer users from
developing
countries crumbs from the Internet's table in the form of free access to walled-garden services, such service may thrive at the cost of stifling
the
development of low-cost, neutral Internet access in those countries for decades to come.
---o0o---
These organisations have excellent credentials, and they all argue that developing countries are taken advantage of, in line with a centuries-old tradition. It's internet colonialism.
Wikimedia is behaving like an exploitative corporate player here,
striking
deals with other first-world corporate players interested solely in their bottom line. Since the beginning of the year, at least three Facebook Zero/Wikipedia Zero bundles have appeared on Facebook's Internet.org website.
Plus ça change ...
[1]
http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2014/31c3_-_6170_-_en_-_saal_g_-_2014122...
[2]
https://www.accessnow.org/blog/2014/08/08/wikipedia-zero-and-net-neutrality-...
[3]
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/net-neutrality-and-global-digital-divi...
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Rupert Thurner writes:
while i love irony, and value your opinion a lot, i find the tone of this email a little harsh, not to call it unfair.
I'm strangely untroubled by "harsh," but I'm glad you don't call it "unfair." I don't think I was unfair. Besides, when someone is as insignificant as I am, especially in comparison to what the weighty opinion-makers at what Andreas calls "prominent organizations," one has to speak with a little more bite.
You are well known for free speech advocacy, and beeing libertarian.
I'm not a libertarian, as those who know me personally can attest. Many things that are "well-known" are untrue, and this is one of them. Yes, I'm a *civil libertarian*, and I work with libertarians quite often (I work with folks of other political views as well), but the only people who know me to be "libertarian" are people who don't know me at all. My politics, to the extent that they can be easily characterized by people who don't know me personally, might be best described as "reflexively pro-Labour" (to someone in the UK) or "social democrat" (to someone elsewhere in the EU) or "yellow-dog Democrat" (to someone in the American South).
Per definition of this you are one of the last persons on this globe I d seek advise for antitrust law and net neutrality.
Perhaps you should reason less "per definition" and reason more from actual facts about what my beliefs actually are. You don't actually seem to know what my politics are. So I imagine you couldn't know that I happen to think the FCC's Report and Order is pretty good, in general, and, speaking personally, I'm pleased to see these network neutrality obligations imposed -- with an express refusal to make categorical judgments about zero-rated services, including Wikipedia Zero.
i cannot judge what happens in asia where indonesia looks better positioned than philippines, and africa, where eg ghana has 5 competitors, nigeria four [1][2][3] which both look in a better position than others.
Data costs in the Philippines are remarkably high, and penetration to rural areas (and islands) is low. Indonesia does a little better, not least because the problem of reaching higher percentages of the population (at lower cost) is particularly pronounced in Indonesia (every place in Indonesia is really far from every other place).
As for Africa: it's a big continent (as is Asia, of course). Nigeria and Ghana are not typical.
Once the folks who preach about net-neutrality-with-no-exceptions get out to developing countries and do some actual development work with local NGOs, their notions about network neutrality and development may change. But I'm perpetually bemused by individuals in developed countries who imagine that the world is better off if would-be Wikipedians have to pay extra for the privilege of reading and editing Wikipedia articles (which is apparently what opponents of Wikipedia Zero want).
--Mike
On 02/04/2015 02:54, Mike Godwin wrote:
Andreas writes:
"Prominent organisations campaigning for a free and open web very strongly disagree with your view."
I said there are no facts, and you responded by citing opinion pieces. That's cool, but opinions are not themselves facts.
Furthermore, in some circles, I've been considered from time to time to be someone "prominent" whose entire career has been dedicated to a free and open web. If you're suggesting that everyone -- or even everyone "prominent" -- who believes in a free and open web "very strongly" disagrees with me, then you are misinformed.
No we think that there are relationships between faux advocacy and what benefits large multinational tech corporations to the detriment of everyone else. That we do not see 'citizen advocacy' groups speak out against the rape of privacy that online web operators engage in, that they speak mainly of governments who by and large out-source the surveillance to private companies.
For example did the EFF speak out about Google using "Apps for Education" to profile kids? No totally silent on the vile behavour of its pay master: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/03/13/26google.h33.html https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2014/04/30/google-stops-data-mining-student...
There is an honest difference of opinion about what the developing world needs first. And, in my experience, it is only individuals in developed, industrialized countries with very little direct knowledge about the infrastructural and access challenges in developing countries who imagine that zero-rated services are categorically a threat to "a free and open web.
That "free and open" is bullshit for the entrenchment of the status quo. That Government turned a blind eye to the abuses in the early days, effectively allowing monopolies to become established and that it about time that they reigned the bastards back. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/01/modernise_safe_harbour_for_the_tech_...
I've actually written about this issue at length, and will be publishing another article on the issue next week. I'll post the link here when I have it.
Whether the U.S. government's Federal Communications is not itself a "prominent organization" that has committed itself to "a free and open web" is a proposition worth challenging is, of course, up to you. But I hope you don't expect such a challenge to be taken seriously. I know the FCC's new Report and Order on net neutrality is a very long (400-page) document, and there is of course no requirement that you actually have read it (much less some appreciable fraction of the comments that led to it). But I've done so. The FCC expressly refused to adopt the categorical, simplistic, binary approach you have posted here.
Yeah we heard that. That despite all the supposed brouhaha http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/05/us-usa-internet-google-idUSKBN0L91...
The FCC came out in favour of - GOOGLE http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/13/net_neutrality_rules/
I gather that a recent FTC report is being investigated by a Senate that is waking up to the fiddling that is going on http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/03/senate_to_probe_obamagoogle_lovein/
My friends and colleagues at EFF, Access Now, and elsewhere -- as well as individual scholars and commentators like Marvin Ammori -- know me,
Those will all be Google shills correct? http://www.scribd.com/doc/103158031/Google-Shill-List http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/03/10/sopa_copyright_voluntary_...
In effect it is becoming clearer and clearer that the later day robber barons, their supporters and fellow travellers need a clear lessons in citizenship. That the rule of law is catching up. http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/03/us/califomia-revenge-porn-sentence/index.html
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