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Wikipedia Zero and Net Neutrality: Protecting the Internet as a Public Space

92 points by user_235711 12y ago

_h__ 12y ago
This is a difficult choice. On one hand I believe that Wikipedia should be FREE in all senses of the word. On the other hand making one exception will create more exceptions. Why not make facebook and Gmail free to access so that people can communicate? I want this exception for Wikipedia. But I am worried.
- Ys5ixcu 12y ago
  "We believe in Net Neutrality, but it doesn't apply to us." This is bullshit. How many of the big incumbent websites would like to be in the blessed exception category? Facebook is one (http://internet.org/press/introducing-the-internet-dot-org-app http://internet.org/press/introducing-the-internet-dot-org-a...), and they are most certainly a for-profit corporation with many competitors (which are not included in the Zambia deal, of course). If the intention were truly to benefit these parts of the world, and not just to drive more users for the existing big players, why not give free access to local sites, to help drive growth in the local economy? Of course, then there is a risk of them competing with American websites, and they might have a cultural/linguistic advantage. Surely there is a way to provide a basic, inexpensive free tier of Internet service that is content-neutral.
- ams6110 12y ago
  I think it breaks pretty cleanly on whether the content provider is for-profit or not-for-profit. Not for profits organized as public charities (e.g. Wikipedia) could arguably be granted some treatment that is not available to for-profit entities such as Facebook and Google. This is consistent with their treatment in the tax code, etc. Gmail and Facebook very clearly allow people to communicate but their reason for existence is not that but to deliver advertising, a commercial objective.
- ge0rg 12y ago
  from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Zero http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Zero : Facebook Zero is an initiative undertaken by social networking service company Facebook in collaboration with mobile phone-based Internet providers, whereby the providers waive data (bandwidth) charges (also known as zero-rate) for accessing Facebook on phones via a stripped-down text-only version of its mobile website, located at 0.facebook.com or zero.facebook.com It is hard to say if Wikimedia will stay credible regarding their net neutrality effort without disabling WP0. The no-money-paid and no-exclusive-deals approach sounds reasonable at least.
- doctorshady 12y ago
  Likewise, this is a messy grey area. It looks like Wikipedia is trying pretty hard to avoid the slippery slope of cable packaged internet here, but they're still playing by the ISPs' non-neutral internet rules. That alone really isn't a good sign.
- _h__ 12y ago
  I am from India. Bandwidth is costly here. Internet enabled devices have surprisingly have become cheaper. Making some access 'Free' could change the world of many people. I agree where there is food and shelter in short, giving Internet free may not help to fight these. But it will help to fight corruption and bureaucracy. Many important government services are online nowadays. In West-Bengal, government stopped online college admission just to keep bureaucratic system going. They fear free Internet, it is a killer for corruption here.
  - chimeracoder 12y ago
    Allowing certain organizations to bypass data caps or data rates and not others is an incredible opportunity for corruption. It's like the "licenses Raj" days all over again. Nehru might have had good intentions, but it just created a massively corruption system of extortion.
mwsherman 12y ago
Net neutrality is a very confused idea. Once one tries to define a testable law, it becomes a lot less desirable. Since I started paying attention, the definition has changed from “QoS on the last mile” to “slowing certain protocols” to “blocking competitive services” to “blocking any services” to “not building enough capacity” to “fast lanes that aren’t CDNs” to “throttling any user” to “paying for interconnect”. In the Wikipedia case above, it’s clearly a violation of NN and it’s clearly good for consumers. It’s a very progressive policy, I support it – and it’s not neutral. The justification Wikimedia offers here is that they are serving the community and are not exchanging $$ with the ISP. Is this part of the definition now? And if so, do we want to start defining which sites we feel serve the community?
- nitrogen 12y ago
  Since I started paying attention, the definition has changed from “QoS on the last mile” to “slowing certain protocols” to “blocking competitive services” to “blocking any services” to “not building enough capacity” to “fast lanes that aren’t CDNs” to “throttling any user” to “paying for interconnect”. Effective net neutrality regulation has to address all of those things. If it seems like the goalposts have shifted, it's because ISPs have kept pushing the boundaries of what they can get away with in their quest to gouge their customers and extort Internet companies. A neutral ISP only has to provide two things at minimum: 1. Guaranteed minimum throughput at peak times, with customer-controlled QoS determining which packets get dropped, and no discrimination on source, destination, protocol, or content that cannot be disabled by the user for free. 2. Sufficient upstream bandwidth, to those third-party services and networks customers are paying to use, to satisfy all minimum guaranteed demands under #1.
- A_COMPUTER 12y ago
  The argument that QoS would violate net neutrality is FUD from net neutrality opponents. The only time I've seen proponents call it that was because ISPs would block bittorrent for "quality of service" reasons, which of course isn't QoS at all.
  - PeterisP 12y ago
higherpurpose 12y ago
Just because it's Wikimedia doing it, doesn't mean that all of the sudden I'm all for it. I believe it's still discriminatory against small organization/websites and against net neutrality principles.
fsniper 12y ago
This is absolutely non NetNeutral. There are billions of websites out there and each one of them is some kind of information. Giving wikipedia free access but charging others may seem to be innocent. But I believe on the contrary, it is opening one door that should not be used. There are thousands (millions?) of wikipedia articles and all have some kind of linked citation. How will you draw the line? Wikipedia is open information but these citations are not? In my country we have operator giving twitter and facebook free access. And I always thought that was another nail on net neutralities coffin. Wikipedia is nailing one more too.
- Ys5ixcu 12y ago
  +1 If it becomes the norm in these countries for wikipedia articles to not have citations, it becomes that much easier for those in power to control/manipulate information.
- asadotzler 12y ago
  Public benefit organizations like Wikipedia already operate by a somewhat different set of tax laws than traditional for profit corporations. This is precisely because governments around the world believe there is high value in organizations other than governments that serve the people with a public good or service. Why can you not imagine similar carve-outs for non-profits when it comes to communications regulations on the Internet.
  - fsniper 12y ago
    This is not regulation. Also I'm not against free wikipedia access. I'm against using connection provider power to limit access to any where. If an ISP starts with free wikipedia where would it land then? I believe "You can freely connect wikipedia but you can't use whatsapp or you must reimburse us for the lost sms revenue" is only one step ahead.
habosa 12y ago
Maybe we can make an exception for non-profit organizations that don't pay the ISPs or get paid? Although since the NFL is a non-profit, maybe not...
- skybrian 12y ago
  I think these rules have it covered: "No exchange of payment." "Wikipedia Zero cannot be sold as part of a bundle" If the NFL wants to provide free football games to all cable subscribers, I think we should let them.
sparkzilla 12y ago
>Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That’s our commitment. Wikipedia can never be the sum of all human knowledge and anyone who thinks so is seriously deluded. The web in its entirety still doesn't include even a fraction of all knowledge. To think that one website -- a poorly designed one, with terrible software, design, media handling, policies and leadership -- is claiming this is simply laughable. That goes for Wikipedia "protecting the internet". Protecting it from who exactly? Wikipedia's leadership and its acolytes constantly use false utopian goals to justify their expansion into areas that they are ill-equipped to deal with (see: dangerous and incorrect medical data). It seems they are trying to use the same lofty ideals to carve out market protection in Africa.
- dictum 12y ago
  > Wikipedia can never be the sum of all human knowledge and anyone who thinks so is seriously deluded. Especially when any article that is not about something widely and globally known is deleted for lack of notability.
- adityab 12y ago
  Ok. Instead of simply spouting vitriol, suggest an alternative service, solving the same problems, that you think genuinely cares about a fair internet. Or do you dismiss anyone who strives to make things better as "false utopian" and "acolytes"?
  - sparkzilla 12y ago
    That depends what you call a "fair" internet. There is a large body of people who don't believe Wikipedia embodies any kind of fairness. There are also many people who are trying to provide better information than Wikipedia. I have my own claim in that area and am happy to support others who see Wikipedia's failures for what they are -- right here, right now -- rather than some imaginary future ideal. Whatever the case, I don't think it is right for Wikipedia to claim special privileges and considerations based on utopian goals that will never happen -- that's politics not progress.
- 12y ago
wodenokoto 12y ago
>Wikipedia Zero cannot be sold as part of a bundle. Access > to the Wikimedia sites through Wikipedia Zero cannot be >sold through limited service bundles. Sounds to me like it is ONLY available in some sort of bundles. This is a brilliant display of the good that non-NN can bring to the world while showing the potential sliding slope. Interesting stuff.

92 points by user_235711 12y ago

_h__ 12y ago

This is a difficult choice. On one hand I believe that Wikipedia should be FREE in all senses of the word. On the other hand making one exception will create more exceptions. Why not make facebook and Gmail free to access so that people can communicate? I want this exception for Wikipedia. But I am worried.

Ys5ixcu 12y ago
"We believe in Net Neutrality, but it doesn't apply to us." This is bullshit. How many of the big incumbent websites would like to be in the blessed exception category? Facebook is one (http://internet.org/press/introducing-the-internet-dot-org-app http://internet.org/press/introducing-the-internet-dot-org-a...), and they are most certainly a for-profit corporation with many competitors (which are not included in the Zambia deal, of course). If the intention were truly to benefit these parts of the world, and not just to drive more users for the existing big players, why not give free access to local sites, to help drive growth in the local economy? Of course, then there is a risk of them competing with American websites, and they might have a cultural/linguistic advantage. Surely there is a way to provide a basic, inexpensive free tier of Internet service that is content-neutral.
ams6110 12y ago
I think it breaks pretty cleanly on whether the content provider is for-profit or not-for-profit. Not for profits organized as public charities (e.g. Wikipedia) could arguably be granted some treatment that is not available to for-profit entities such as Facebook and Google. This is consistent with their treatment in the tax code, etc. Gmail and Facebook very clearly allow people to communicate but their reason for existence is not that but to deliver advertising, a commercial objective.
ge0rg 12y ago
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Zero http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Zero : Facebook Zero is an initiative undertaken by social networking service company Facebook in collaboration with mobile phone-based Internet providers, whereby the providers waive data (bandwidth) charges (also known as zero-rate) for accessing Facebook on phones via a stripped-down text-only version of its mobile website, located at 0.facebook.com or zero.facebook.com It is hard to say if Wikimedia will stay credible regarding their net neutrality effort without disabling WP0. The no-money-paid and no-exclusive-deals approach sounds reasonable at least.
doctorshady 12y ago
Likewise, this is a messy grey area. It looks like Wikipedia is trying pretty hard to avoid the slippery slope of cable packaged internet here, but they're still playing by the ISPs' non-neutral internet rules. That alone really isn't a good sign.
_h__ 12y ago
I am from India. Bandwidth is costly here. Internet enabled devices have surprisingly have become cheaper. Making some access 'Free' could change the world of many people. I agree where there is food and shelter in short, giving Internet free may not help to fight these. But it will help to fight corruption and bureaucracy. Many important government services are online nowadays. In West-Bengal, government stopped online college admission just to keep bureaucratic system going. They fear free Internet, it is a killer for corruption here.
- chimeracoder 12y ago
  Allowing certain organizations to bypass data caps or data rates and not others is an incredible opportunity for corruption. It's like the "licenses Raj" days all over again. Nehru might have had good intentions, but it just created a massively corruption system of extortion.

mwsherman 12y ago

Net neutrality is a very confused idea. Once one tries to define a testable law, it becomes a lot less desirable. Since I started paying attention, the definition has changed from “QoS on the last mile” to “slowing certain protocols” to “blocking competitive services” to “blocking any services” to “not building enough capacity” to “fast lanes that aren’t CDNs” to “throttling any user” to “paying for interconnect”. In the Wikipedia case above, it’s clearly a violation of NN and it’s clearly good for consumers. It’s a very progressive policy, I support it – and it’s not neutral. The justification Wikimedia offers here is that they are serving the community and are not exchanging $$ with the ISP. Is this part of the definition now? And if so, do we want to start defining which sites we feel serve the community?

nitrogen 12y ago
Since I started paying attention, the definition has changed from “QoS on the last mile” to “slowing certain protocols” to “blocking competitive services” to “blocking any services” to “not building enough capacity” to “fast lanes that aren’t CDNs” to “throttling any user” to “paying for interconnect”. Effective net neutrality regulation has to address all of those things. If it seems like the goalposts have shifted, it's because ISPs have kept pushing the boundaries of what they can get away with in their quest to gouge their customers and extort Internet companies. A neutral ISP only has to provide two things at minimum: 1. Guaranteed minimum throughput at peak times, with customer-controlled QoS determining which packets get dropped, and no discrimination on source, destination, protocol, or content that cannot be disabled by the user for free. 2. Sufficient upstream bandwidth, to those third-party services and networks customers are paying to use, to satisfy all minimum guaranteed demands under #1.
A_COMPUTER 12y ago
The argument that QoS would violate net neutrality is FUD from net neutrality opponents. The only time I've seen proponents call it that was because ISPs would block bittorrent for "quality of service" reasons, which of course isn't QoS at all.
- PeterisP 12y ago

higherpurpose 12y ago

Just because it's Wikimedia doing it, doesn't mean that all of the sudden I'm all for it. I believe it's still discriminatory against small organization/websites and against net neutrality principles.

fsniper 12y ago

This is absolutely non NetNeutral. There are billions of websites out there and each one of them is some kind of information. Giving wikipedia free access but charging others may seem to be innocent. But I believe on the contrary, it is opening one door that should not be used. There are thousands (millions?) of wikipedia articles and all have some kind of linked citation. How will you draw the line? Wikipedia is open information but these citations are not? In my country we have operator giving twitter and facebook free access. And I always thought that was another nail on net neutralities coffin. Wikipedia is nailing one more too.

Ys5ixcu 12y ago
+1 If it becomes the norm in these countries for wikipedia articles to not have citations, it becomes that much easier for those in power to control/manipulate information.
asadotzler 12y ago
Public benefit organizations like Wikipedia already operate by a somewhat different set of tax laws than traditional for profit corporations. This is precisely because governments around the world believe there is high value in organizations other than governments that serve the people with a public good or service. Why can you not imagine similar carve-outs for non-profits when it comes to communications regulations on the Internet.
- fsniper 12y ago
  This is not regulation. Also I'm not against free wikipedia access. I'm against using connection provider power to limit access to any where. If an ISP starts with free wikipedia where would it land then? I believe "You can freely connect wikipedia but you can't use whatsapp or you must reimburse us for the lost sms revenue" is only one step ahead.

habosa 12y ago

Maybe we can make an exception for non-profit organizations that don't pay the ISPs or get paid? Although since the NFL is a non-profit, maybe not...

skybrian 12y ago
I think these rules have it covered: "No exchange of payment." "Wikipedia Zero cannot be sold as part of a bundle" If the NFL wants to provide free football games to all cable subscribers, I think we should let them.

sparkzilla 12y ago

>Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That’s our commitment. Wikipedia can never be the sum of all human knowledge and anyone who thinks so is seriously deluded. The web in its entirety still doesn't include even a fraction of all knowledge. To think that one website -- a poorly designed one, with terrible software, design, media handling, policies and leadership -- is claiming this is simply laughable. That goes for Wikipedia "protecting the internet". Protecting it from who exactly? Wikipedia's leadership and its acolytes constantly use false utopian goals to justify their expansion into areas that they are ill-equipped to deal with (see: dangerous and incorrect medical data). It seems they are trying to use the same lofty ideals to carve out market protection in Africa.

dictum 12y ago
> Wikipedia can never be the sum of all human knowledge and anyone who thinks so is seriously deluded. Especially when any article that is not about something widely and globally known is deleted for lack of notability.
adityab 12y ago
Ok. Instead of simply spouting vitriol, suggest an alternative service, solving the same problems, that you think genuinely cares about a fair internet. Or do you dismiss anyone who strives to make things better as "false utopian" and "acolytes"?
- sparkzilla 12y ago
  That depends what you call a "fair" internet. There is a large body of people who don't believe Wikipedia embodies any kind of fairness. There are also many people who are trying to provide better information than Wikipedia. I have my own claim in that area and am happy to support others who see Wikipedia's failures for what they are -- right here, right now -- rather than some imaginary future ideal. Whatever the case, I don't think it is right for Wikipedia to claim special privileges and considerations based on utopian goals that will never happen -- that's politics not progress.
12y ago

wodenokoto 12y ago

>Wikipedia Zero cannot be sold as part of a bundle. Access > to the Wikimedia sites through Wikipedia Zero cannot be >sold through limited service bundles. Sounds to me like it is ONLY available in some sort of bundles. This is a brilliant display of the good that non-NN can bring to the world while showing the potential sliding slope. Interesting stuff.