Hi,
Thanks to Osmar and Marco for getting some more detailed background information on the developments in Chile.
I think that the points Osmar made can lay the groundwork for a path that unite the important principle of net neutrality with the free access to knowledge/education stuff like Wikipedia.
We all should develop this discussion transparently together in a global framework even if I can understand that WMF would like to keep some of its own legal work in this field out of public mailinglists etc.
Not sure if there is a critical discussion about all this developments planned at Wikimania, but I would appreciate if the WMF or interested active volunteers would continue on this discussion in London and/or on Meta.
best regards
Jens Best
2014-06-02 6:08 GMT+02:00 Marco Correa marcorrea.perez@gmail.com:
I asked to the Chilean Undersecretary of Telecommunications in Twitter, and he confirmed that Wikipedia Zero and the zero-rated programs are not forbidden in Chile. He said that the criteria applied is based on practices of providers. [1]
I'm also happy to read that the WMF thinks that Wikipedia Zero could be applied in our country.
Best,
Marco Correa WMCL Board Member
[1] https://twitter.com/huichalaf/status/473310511711682560
2014-06-01 23:17 GMT-04:00 Osmar Valdebenito b1mbo.wikipedia@gmail.com:
Regarding the news from Chile, the QZ article is pretty misleading regarding the decision taken by the Subtel. I've been talking with some people that have been more involved in net neutrality discussions in
Chile
and they say that the decision doesn't forbid zero-rated programs in general. It just says that the current promotions were illegal,
considering
certain social networks got preferential access (namely, Twitter,
and WhatsApp) over other services, breaking net neutrality and free
market
rules. The decree says specifically that arbitrary discrimination between services of "similar nature" is forbidden.
Technically, Wikipedia Zero can still be applied in Chile (if mobile providers agree), but there shouldn't be a preferential treatment
compared
to those platform "of similar nature". Certainly, it would be interesting to know what might be considered as the competition of Wikipedia and the rest of the market (is there a competing website? can we consider all educational resources as competition?). As far as I know, there were some internet pre-paid plans in the past that had several educational websites available for free, including Wikipedia, but I'm not sure if they are
still
available.
The full decree (in Spanish) is available here:
http://www.subtel.gob.cl/transparencia/Perfiles/Transparencia20285/Normativa...
2014-06-01 3:57 GMT-04:00 Yana Welinder ywelinder@wikimedia.org:
As the Quartz article from Jens's email discusses, the decision in
Chile
is
very unfortunate.[1] It's an example of when net neutrality — which is
an
important principle for the free and open internet — is poorly
implemented
to prevent free dissemination of knowledge. Although Wikipedia Zero is
not
yet available in Chile, it is a country of interest for the program, so
we
are thinking about what options are available in light of this
decision.
That said, I would like to clarify a couple of points about the implementation of Wikipedia Zero that were raised in this thread:
- The newer Wikipedia Zero partnerships have provided the full
Wikipedia
sites (m.wikipedia) free of data charges for some time now and we are phasing out the reduced version (zero.wikipedia) from the older partnerships.
- While earlier Wikipedia Zero partnerships only zero-rated Wikipedia,
we
are working on getting carriers to zero-rate all the Wikimedia
projects.
- We are also working on getting editing functions zero-rated, though
there are some technical hurdles for that right now. But, eventually, Wikipedia Zero will not only make knowledge more accessible, but also empower more people in the Global South to contribute to the projects.
- Finally, WMF does *not* pay carriers to zero-rate Wikipedia under
Wikipedia Zero. Carriers zero-rate the sites because they want to make
a
commitment to access to knowledge as a corporate social
responsibility.[2]
I believe this question has already been answered in this thread since Scott raised it earlier, but I just wanted to confirm that Wikipedia
Zero
does not involve payments.
Hope this is helpful!
Best, Yana
[1]
http://qz.com/215064/when-net-neutrality-backfires-chile-just-killed-free-ac...
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_social_responsibility
-- Yana Welinder Legal Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext. 6867 @yanatweets https://twitter.com/yanatweets
NOTICE: As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for,
community
members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For
more
on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer.
On Sat, May 31, 2014 at 5:52 AM, Jens Best jens.best@wikimedia.de
wrote:
News from Chile
Chile’s Subsecretaria de Telecomunicaciones just decided that
zero-rating
is a promotion tool which is against net neutrality. Therefore all zero-rated-related marketing deals have to stop at the 1st of June. According to a WMF-list in Chile no provider has been offering
Wikipedia
Zero. Also I'm not sure if this dismissal reflects only on zero-rated offers where payment of money is done by the content provider. So it
still
needs to be checked how/if this decision is influencing our intent to spread Wikipedia Zero.
All in all it shows that we have to improve our arguments in a
broader
scale if we don't want to get caught by promoting Free Knowledge" but
in
fact 'only' pushing the use of a reduced version of one (very well
known
and superb) website which stand exemplary for this idea. We are
caught
in a
dilemma which imho only can be solved when reaching out to more
partners
which stand for Free Knowledge and Free Education. Not sure how this
could
work, but fortunately that never was a reason to stop.
News from Chile:
http://qz.com/215064/when-net-neutrality-backfires-chile-just-killed-free-ac...
http://www.subtel.gob.cl/noticias/138-neutralidad-red/5311-ley-de-neutralida...
Overview Wikipedia Zero:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mobile_partnerships
2014-05-30 6:59 GMT+02:00 rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.com:
participation is another aspect. wp zero allows free reading. it
does
not allow free participation. write emails, search for references, download and adjust code. just as a side note, the oxford
university
stated: until 2012, europe, i.e. 10% of the worlds population, produced 50%+ of wikipedias geotagged contents [1].
imo it is not necessary to terminate wikipedia zero, it "just"
needs
to be negotiated differently: if a telco wants to support our case, give every person 200mb free internet access. unrestricted. or, if
we
need to break some law like now or be in the grey area, we could support additionally a viral model, like: if somebody is a
wikipedia
contributor (as defined in election criteria, or like in ghana, 3 edits per week), give them 2 GB free internet traffic for free, unrestricted.
if the WMF legal department would be able to negotiate _this_ e.g.
in
nigeria or india, i would have _big_ respect for them, and with pleasure say in future: you guys are worth every cent of the 5
million
we pay you a year.
[1]
http://geography.oii.ox.ac.uk/?page=the-geographically-uneven-coverage-of-wi...
On Fri, May 30, 2014 at 12:43 AM, Jens Best <
jens.best@wikimedia.de>
wrote:
"Giving access to educational resources" isn't the same statement
as
"zero-rating wikipedia" - If the mobile providers are willing to
give
more
open educational ressources (incl. video) a zero-rated access to
the
people
THEN you can say "giving access to educational ressources for
free" -
right
now it 'only' means "giving free access to wikipedia" (which is
great
and
awesome for the wikipedia and the people).
Let's not be naive on the point that mobile providers have
different
motivations for zero-rating services as the movement has for
fighting
for
free knowledge around the globe.
In the beginning it was mainly zero.wikipedia (text-only), now
more
and
more providers giving access to m.wikipedia (some-pictures), but
where
are
their restrictions and what will these restrictions mean for
further
development on free knowledge and free education? - And above
that
what
will be our argument when other free knowledge/free education
organisations
don't get zero-rated? When it becomes clear that the marketing
scoop
of
giving "free wikipedia" wasn't at all meant as the start of
giving
free
access to free knowledge around the world?
I'm all in to make all open knowledge and all open educational
ressources
zero-rated available around the globe - but I'm also quite sure
that
this
is not the deal the mobile providers are looking forward to. I
prefer
to
stay critical and not giving up an important principle like net
neutrality
just because some mobile providers made a nice marketing deal
with
us
which
seemed to serve our own goals in short-term, but isn't reflected
enough
on
its deeper implications on a free web and its liberated use.
best regards
Jens Best
2014-05-29 23:31 GMT+02:00 Marc A. Pelletier marc@uberbox.org:
> On 05/29/2014 05:24 PM, Jens Best wrote: > > A noble cause > > doesn't necessarily make breaking an important principle
unproblematic.
> > In my opinion, if the definition of the principle makes the
obviously
> perverse conclusion that a beneficial thing like giving access
to
> educational resources for free to the world's least economically > fortunate people "a bad thing", then the definition is obviously
broken.
> > > It could be the time to start talking > > globally about an in-the-future exit strategy on the surely
noble
> > initiative e.g. when certain milestones are reached in
participating
> > countries/regions. > > So you're telling me that there is a point where we can say "Oh,
you
> can't afford access? Too bad." and it's not a bad thing because
some
> /other/ metric has been reached? >
> -- Marc
Jens Best Präsidium Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. web: http://www.wikimedia.de mail: jens.best http://goog_17221883@wikimedia.de
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