[Advocacy Advisors] Wikipedia Zero and net neutrality

[Juergen Fenn]

2014-08-03 22:22 GMT+02:00 Jens Best <jens.best at wikimedia.de>:
> We as WMDE have not yet written a formal position on this special subject,
> but be assured that net neutrality is a very important subject for us.

As a German community member with no affiliation to the German chapter
or indeed any other Wikimedia organisation I would like to add that
net neutrality is indeed a rather important issue to anyone interested
in the politics of the information economy in this country. I presume
no one would tolerate a breach of net neutrality anywhere, and it is a
bad sign if Wikimedia is associated with something like that in the
first place.

However, there is a long-standing discussion on legally constituting
libraries as a statutory basic public service in this country. So, the
discussion on the introduction of library acts, or a
Bibliotheksgesetz, in all German länder as well as on the Federal
level would be the right way to address the issue of how to offer free
access to information for everyone. I have a hunch that this might
hold true for other countries, too. Wikipedia Zero seems to have been
designed too much with a U.S. perspective in mind. That's why it is
bound to fail in other parts of the world.

Regards,
Jürgen.