[Advocacy Advisors] Wikipedia Zero and net neutrality

Sat Apr 26 05:00:47 UTC 2014

I have to agree with Jens and Dimi here that this op-ed is wading into
possibly dangerous waters, and appreciate that the WMF has sought
feedback on this before launching.

I am rolling my eyes a bit to see this op-ed draft suggesting that the
negatives havent been considered. ("unintended consequences";
"unintentionally hamper the free flow of information they seek to
protect", etc) They have been talked about to death!  The problem is
deciding which 'information' to protect, and often the verdict is that
it is better to keep carriers and/or governments out of the
information flow protection game, unless it is very transparent, *but*
the purist model of net neutrality (which eliminates 'free' services)
is usually viewed as stifling innovation and governments tend to avoid
limitations on industry offering free services to customers.  There
was a vibrant session about it at the last Internet Governance Forum
(did WMF staff attend the last one? Will you attend the next one?).
It is good to see you (Yana) is a member of the Dynamic Coalition on
Network Neutrality. [1]

If the WMF wants to put out a quick response to the developments in
Brazil, it would be less abrasive to focus on congratulating those
involved in drafting for making a strong stand on privacy but not
eliminating the ability for ISPs to provide free services like
Wikipedia Zero.  Irrespective of whether they are offering Facebook,
Twitter, Wikipedia, or Google, free access to content (esp. large
platforms) helps people participate online.  Free content can be
anti-competitive, but can be dealt with by laws better tailored to
that problem.

I would think that it would be remiss of the WMF to put out an Op-Ed
now on net neutrality that doesnt take into account the very recent
developments in the EU policy in this area.[2]  It seems like the
civil rights organisations in the EU are quite happy with the result,
and it would be a shame if WMF was promoting a view that was in
conflict with that.  I am not fully across the detail of that;
hopefully someone else can give a summary of the EU situation.  If the
EU's decision doesnt prevent Wikipedia Zero, and it appears that it
doesnt, then this is another opportunity to thank the relevant
organisations for crafting a sensible approach, and encourage other
Net Neutrality lawmakers to do the same.

I am surprised to see this op-ed painting the Dutch law in a bad light
without some concrete examples to back up the concerns. ("However the
Dutch law would also prohibit ISPs from providing free access to
certain sites, as they would technically be charging different rates
(in this case, nothing) for different services.")  Yes, some types of
Internet access packages are now illegal in the Netherlands, but Dutch
Internet providers have continued bundling free services into their
Internet access products, including free video content (e.g. Sizz),
without much concern by the regulator.  Even traffic management
(shaping/blocking) of video content, which is arguable the primary
purpose of the law, was given the tick of approval by the regulator
when the Internet provider provided justification for it based on
their infrastructure having limited capacity and claiming that video
traffic degrades the performance of the internet for all users of
their network. [3]  Either free services does not appear to be what
the Dutch law was intended to prevent, or that is how the regulator is
interpreting the law in some circumstances, and that the regulator is
slowly evolving.

Is the Wikimedia Foundation aware of actual problems with the Dutch
system wrt zero-rating of content?  Has Wikimedia Foundation received
legal advice that would suggest that Wikipedia Zero would run afoul of
the Dutch laws?  Or Chilean laws? etc?

Also the op-ed currently comes across as the WMF fearing some
developing countries are going to adopt the Dutch model as-is without
bothering to consider the repercussions it would have to the
telecommunications market in their own country.  Maybe some fine
tuning can remove the rough edges on that, or maybe others think it
has an appropriate amount of sharpness for an op-ed.

If Wikimedia is going to ask for an exception for Wikipedia Zero, and
mention a few other worthy causes, putting forward that proposition
needs to be accompanied by a very clear position on where that
convoluted line should be drawn, who is in and who is out, how and
why.

Wikimedias own position is conflicted in several ways; any advocacy
needs to have good answers to the following complexities, and probably
others that I havent thought of.

Why should 'Wikipedia Zero' be exempt, and Wikisource or Wiktionary
not be exempt?  How about Wikiquote?  What about Wikivoyage?  Or
Wikidata? (When I briefly looked at the XL offering of Wikipedia Zero
in Indonesia, I think the sister projects were also zero-rated, but I
might be mistaken - it was a while ago)  If they all qualify, why not
the Museum van het Nederlandse Uurwerk Wiki?  Or the now online-only
of Encyclopædia Britannica?  Or JSTOR?  Or Google Books public domain
books?  etc. etc.  Or Flickr and Youtube's Creative Commons licensed
content?

Wikimedia Foundation is non-profit, but the content is not
"non-commercial".  Jan has touched on the 'non-commercial' problem a
bit in his email.  If 'Wikipedia Zero' is deemed exempt from Net
Neutrality, why wouldnt a for-profit providing Wikipedia content (sans
trademarks) also be also exempt?  What if they cover costs with
adverts?  Be careful what you ask for, I guess.

The Wikipedia Zero program is usually, whether intentional or not,
favouring only one internet provider in each country / region.  Only
in Bangladesh and Kenya is there more than one provider that is part
of the Zero program.  In 22 of 24 countries where Zero is available,
only one provider is part of the program. [4]

Wikipedia Zero has two instances of favouring only one web browser.
In each case this is Opera Mini.[4]  Knowing the capabilities of Opera
Mini, this is not surprising as they bring a lot to the table that is
complementary to Wikipedia Zero, but again it looks bad!

In almost half of the Wikipedia Zero deployments, only a small number
of languages are supported.  For example, why is free knowledge in
Russian only accessible in Russian and English, but not free in in all
of the other official languages of the Russian Federation, and the
unofficial languages, and especially the endangered languages of
Russia? [4]  This is especially problematic as legislation is
increasingly requiring service providers cater to minorities,
providing *equivalent* levels of service.

These existing Zero partnerships are the result of opportunities
capitalised on with limited resources, are beneficial to both parties,
and improve public access to information, but combined they all paint
a picture of Wikipedia Zero not being net neutral, or browser neutral,
or language neutral, etc etc.

Alternatives to opposing pure net neutrality also exists.  Wikimedia
is essentially saying that Wikipedia should be treated as a
'universial service'.  To reflect on the Refugees United example used
in the draft op-ed, while there are some Internet providers
zero-rating *Internet* traffic to http://m.refunited.org/ , the main
access method for Refugees United is their USSD (Unstructured
Supplementary Service Data) service, toll-free lines and SMS.  Those
access methods are not part of the Net Neutrality discussions. (Before
using Refugees United as an example in the op-ed, it would be good to
check how much of their user base is accessing their services using
zero-rated *Internet*.  If it is low, it may be a bad example to run
with.)  Wikimedia now has a USSD service, in beta deployed in Africa
IIRC.  It may not be the ideal access method for Wikipedia content, as
it has low bandwidth making it unsuitable for multimedia, but it is a
way to provide a universal level of access to the information in
Wikipedia.  Wikipedia Zero has had similar types of limitations
imposed on the service.

Another option is to distribute Wikipedia with phones and as large
content bundles, like the Smart Health app is 15Meg pre-installed on
all Samsung devices in eight countries of Africa now, and the app and
updates are zero-rated data from Google Play.  If Wikimedia is
advocating for zero-rating of Wikipedia content bundles updated
periodically (e.g. every three months), pure Net Neutrality advocates
are not going to be worried about a gorilla dancing at the top of a
slippery slope.  I would expect that mobile operators providing
zero-rating of app store downloads is going to be seen as a good thing
(almost) universally, at least for app security updates or for content
bundles that have become outdated with the passage of time, such as
constantly evolving (improving?!) Wikipedia articles.  No doubt there
will be some zealots demanding that they should be able to download
1Gb updates of English Wikipedia for free at maximum speeds while
zooming across the Netherlands on the Dutch rail network, but their
regulator is probably not interested. ;-)

1. http://www.networkneutrality.info/members.html
2. https://theconversation.com/europe-votes-for-a-neutral-net-but-what-does-that-mean-25252
3. http://policyreview.info/articles/news/proof-pudding-eating/232
4. https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mobile_partnerships#Where_is_Wikipedia_free_to_access.3F

-- 
John Vandenberg