[Advocacy Advisors] Wikipedia Zero and net neutrality

[Erik Moeller]

On Sun, Aug 10, 2014 at 6:32 PM, Jens Best <jens.best at wikimedia.de> wrote:

> According to the press Patricio Lorente, member of the Foundation's board,
> said:
>
> "Access to information is a basic human right. If net neutrality is hurting
> a human right, we have to rethink net neutrality."

Dear Jens,

This is not what Patricio said. Thanks to him for linking to the
relevant segment of the video. Here is a full transcript:

"In the last couple of weeks, it's [sic] been some debate about
Wikipedia Zero and whether it conflicts with the concept of net
neutrality .. and .. my opinion is that net neutrality refers
specifically or mostly to the fact that some services or some ..
certain companies are trying to pay to use what is called the fast
lane, lanes of the Internet. If there are fast lanes, there are also
slow lanes, and that's not the Internet we want, we completely reject
that possibility. In this sense, we completely support the concept of
net neutrality. But when going to Wikipedia Zero, we are not going ..
we are not talking about fast or slow, we are talking about people who
is outside the road(?) at all .. so what we are trying, is to give
them access to a basic human right, which is access to information and
knowledge. And .. I know some people don't agree with this opinion
because they have a wider notion of net neutrality. And, I'm sorry,
but my opinion is quite different. If our concept of net neutrality
prevents us to secure human rights then we should revise the concept
of net neutrality."

This makes it clear that:

- Patricio's opinion as expressed was clearly nuanced, and explicitly
acknowledged that reasonable people can disagree on the matter. In
turn I have a hard time seeing how a reasonable person would be
offended by how it was stated. If you're going mostly off the heise.de
report, though, please make sure you read the full statement above or
watch the video Patricio linked to.

- The heise.de news article misquoted Patricio, since in context it is
clear that he strongly supported a basic principle of net neutrality,
but not necessarily an expanded notion that may conflict with
right-to-knowledge objectives. The words "our concept of" are pretty
important to the meaning of what he said and were omitted in
translation, alongside the full context of his statement.

Sincerely,
Erik

-- 
Erik Möller
VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation