[Advocacy Advisors] Wikipedia Zero and net neutrality

[Seb35]

Le Thu, 14 Aug 2014 14:45:10 +0200, John Mark Vandenberg <jayvdb at gmail.com> a écrit:
> On Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 7:05 PM, Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 2:28 AM, John Mark Vandenberg <jayvdb at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 4:35 AM, Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> > I think that would be great. But how do we make it work in a world where
>>> > most network infrastructure is owned by corporate entities? We have to
>>> > work
>>> > within the paradigm that exists, and we must consider the knock-on
>>> > effects
>>> > of our actions (such as promoting zero-rated content, or effectively a
>>> > free
>>> > "slow lane" on the net) within this paradigm. But...
>>> >
>>> > Our mission is to provide a public service (a source for knowledge) to
>>> > as
>>> > many people as possible; the Wikimedia movement is not dedicated to open
>>> > source content,
>>>
>>> err .. what?
>>>
>>> The mission of the WMF is almost solely dedicated to open source content!
>>> Or, as written "educational content under a free license or in the
>>> public domain".
>>> Which links to
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_content
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> I should have written open source software, true.
>
> That makes more sense!  Thanks for clarifying.
>
>> But again, I think these
>> are great goals that are secondary for us, and we use them as tools in
>> achieving the primary goal. My point is that Wikimedia is not an advocacy
>> organization on behalf of net neutrality or many of these other worthy
>> goals, and we don't need to be out on the frontlines here or zealous in our
>> adherence to principles secondary to our actual mission.
>>
>> That doesn't mean we should actively harm efforts that we generally agree
>> with, but I haven't seen much evidence that WP0 is actually being used to
>> undercut net neutrality. If that's happening, and the concern isn't purely
>> theoretical, I'd like to read about it and would appreciate any links.
>
> The PR put out by WMF and Facebook about their respective Zero
> programs is remarkably similar.
> Unfortunately, whether good intentioned or not, Wikipedia Zero is
> muddying the water.
>
> That may not be a problem if the EFF endorse the 'zero lane' and
> believe that it doesnt detract from their overall message.  But if the
> EFF doesnt publicly agree with the WMF's 'zero lane' and work it into
> their strategy, or worse publicly rejects the WMF's position, expect
> to see a large cohort of donors sending money EFF's way instead of
> WMF's way, and that cohort of donor is unlikely to return, _ever_ .
>
> --
> John Vandenberg

I have not been vocal about this issue, but before this thread die, I would like to humbly say I’m really sad about this story of WP0.

Sad because the WMF and Wikimedia have a really great track of actions and successes in the fields of mass surveillance, copyright reform, promotion of public domain, help in defeating SOPA/PIPA, etc., and, although WP0 is by itself a great project, it is objectively against the net neutrality in the common sense (*) and it will make more difficult for our allies in this field to sustain a true net neutrality and all the linked stakes… if our allies want to stay our allies.

I really hope that WMF will return back about WP0, that Wikimedia as a whole will stay friend with its long-term allies, and that NN-respectful projects like offline Wikipedia or free access to Wikipedia in public spaces (as it was discussed in this thread) will become more supported. I guess we can find creative ideas to disseminate Wikipedia (and its sources? and the editing?) together with respecting the NN.

(*) one could argue WP0 is a "positive net non-neutrality" as I heard, but it is really a fallacy to sustain it is a net neutrality, because at the end the ISP have to check each IP packet to check if it is from/to Wikipedia or not, which is one of the criteria of net neutrality in the common sense (**)

(**) I quote en.wp for [[net neutrality]] (oldid=621921148) : "principle that Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, and modes of communication." ; see also the definition by Benjamin Bayard in France <https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutralité_du_réseau?oldid=104975889#D.C3.A9finition>.

~ Seb35