Abstract
In August 2013, Facebook, in a partnership with a few other companies, launched Internet.org—a new service that aimed to bring low cost and subsidized access to a few selected Internet services to developing countries in Asia and Africa. Ever since its announcement, and subsequent roll-out in India in 2015, activists around the world, and particularly in India, have decried the service on grounds of it violating net neutrality. This article traces the manner in which this contentious issue has unfolded in India, primarily in the Indian social media in 2015, leading up to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India banning the service and upholding net neutrality in February 2016.
“Net neutrality is a concept that the tech industry rallies around, but it is hypocrisy,” Dave Winer, the online publishing pioneer wrote in his column for the Huffington Post in 2010. Five years hence, the same concept has grown to become a contentious issue in many parts around the globe, most notably of late in India, where a large number of predominantly urban activists are decrying the selective subsidizing of the Internet, that the violation of net neutrality entails.
Understanding net neutrality
The term “net neutrality” was coined as an extension of the concept of a “common carrier” by Tim Wu, a professor of Columbia University. Promoting network neutrality, writes Wu, “is no different than the challenge of promoting fair evolutionary competition in any privately owned environment, whether a telephone network, operating system, or even a retail store” (Wu, 2003). Tim Berners-Lee, whom history has accredited with being the “inventor of the Web,” wrote in his blog in 2006 that Net neutrality is this: If I pay to connect to the Net with a certain quality of service, and you pay to connect with that or greater quality of service, then we can communicate at that level. That’s all. It’s up to the ISPs to make sure they interoperate so that that happens. (Berners-Lee, 2006)
The Internet, as experts in this field have pointed out so far, “provides a universal service” (Crowcroft, 2007). That puts the Internet on the same footing as other “universal services,” like electricity, public roads, and so on. The idea behind net neutrality stems from the principle that there should not be any discrimination on the Internet based on the type of data that flow through it. Internet service providers (ISPs) and governments should treat all data as equal and should therefore charge all data equally. Aaron Weiss defines it succinctly: “Network neutrality is a principle that says those who operate networks which provide an overall benefit to the public good and rely on public property should not use their ownership to confer discriminatory treatment among their customers” (Weiss, 2006).
The earliest known case of a violation of net neutrality happened in 2004, in rural North Carolina. Customers of Vonage, the telecom service provider, observed that their Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service had suddenly stopped. Investigation revealed that the regional ISP, Madison River Communication, had imposed a system-wide ban on all VoIP services by blocking the relevant ports. The reason was that Madison River was also in the landline telephone business, and Vonage was a direct threat to its business. The move by Madison River was essentially a means to coerce customers to shift from Vonage and to adopt its services instead. The dispute culminated in the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) intervening and charging Madison River a US$15,000 fine and a prohibition on the company from blocking any protocol ports for the next 3 years.
There are substantive cases both against and for net neutrality violation. While the case against the violation is what is often heard in mainstream media, the fact that the cables that carry data are not public entities does provide a compelling reason for violators to argue their case. In other words, people who oppose net neutrality insist that a corporation that owns the cables through which data flow has the right to charge differential rates for different types of data or block a particular type of data (as Madison River did in North Carolina) that flow through it. Since 2004, in North Carolina, net neutrality has been a hot-button issue in a number of places around the world—not the least in the United States with major telecom players, such as AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast, often involved. Since 2004, the Internet has come a long way as well and has become all the more ubiquitous in our daily activities. One of the giants that has emerged out of this dramatic evolution is Facebook, which was a nascent, and relatively unknown, entity back in 2004.
The growth of Facebook
Facebook’s incredible growth since 2004 has largely been attributed to its timely embracing of the mobile platform. This is because in the past decade, the number of mobile users has grown phenomenally around the world in developing countries, particularly in rural areas. Plummeting mobile phone prices and data charges made large sections of rural populations in India, Brazil, Indonesia, and other developing countries come online, connect with each other, find information, and look for opportunities. In 2013, the Wall Street Journal named Brazil the “social media capital of the universe” (Chao, 2013). Indonesia, which itself provides one of the largest Facebook user bases in the world, is predicted to hit a staggering 92% mobile user base by 2018—the highest mobile platform penetration across Facebook users in the world. In India, the number of Facebook users crossed the 100 million mark in 2014 (Singh, 2014), making it the second largest in the world, behind only the United States, and growing at a rate much higher. Of the 100+ million Indian users on Facebook, around 80% of them use the service from a mobile device. In a 2014 news report, Forbes declared that “Facebook loves India, and for good reason. The country trails only the United States in active users, with around 114 million. The country is young, tech savvy, and slowly becoming upwardly mobile” (Rapoza, 2014). Comparing the 2014 numbers with the paltry 8 million Indian users in 2010 helps put Facebook’s incredible growth in India in perspective.
Facebook and net neutrality in India
While Facebook’s battle with net neutrality activists has become part of mainstream news media coverage only in recent years, the company has been an offender on this front for a fairly long period of time. In fact, when Facebook Zero was launched back in 2010, it sowed the seeds of the outrage that would result later. Facebook Zero allowed users to access a text-only version of Facebook on their mobile phones for free but only on certain carriers, similar to Free Basics or Internet.org today. That has been contentious across countries, but the opposition wasn’t as widespread as it is now probably owing to the fact that, in 2010, mobile Internet was new. However, the Subsecretaria de Telecomunicaciones of Chile, in 2014, did put an end to Facebook Zero (along with other “zero-rated” services like Wikipedia Zero and Google Free Zone) in a blanket ruling. The law stated that ISPs must “not arbitrarily distinguish content, applications or services, based on the source or ownership thereof” (Mirani, 2014).
It was, however, with the launch of Internet.org in August 2013 that Facebook took its first true bold step into this realm. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg asserted in a whitepaper, during its launch, that “connectivity is a human right” (Zuckerberg, 2013). In September, Zuckerberg released a video explaining Internet.org’s goal of making the Internet a hundred times more affordable. Internet.org claimed to break the digital divide that existed in developing countries by giving free access to essential online services to everyone in those countries. Facebook invested heavily in promoting Internet.org. It saw, in developing countries in general and in India in particular, a massive market to capitalize upon and grow its user base many times. In October 2014, Zuckerberg announced at the first Internet.org summit in New Delhi that Facebook was launching a contest with a US$1 million prize in order to try and make the people of India want the web.
In March 2015, Zuckerberg emphasized at the Mobile World Congress that in order to achieve the widest outreach, Internet.org should partner with existing telecommunications networks. He estimated 80% of the population in developing countries to be within these networks and said that such partnerships would go a long way in bridging the digital divide. However, because users could get the benefits of “free Internet” on only a few carriers, the same issues were raised yet again. Unlike in developed countries, however, where the case against net neutrality hinged solely upon the fact that cables that carry data are not public entities, the scenario in developing countries is starkly different. The “need to connect the poor” adds a compelling, and somewhat humanitarian, dimension to the conundrum. Proponents of Internet.org argued that although this service might violate net neutrality, so long as it meant that a substantial portion of rural populations could now get online, it shouldn’t be stopped.
The “need to connect the poor,” interestingly, raised yet another glaring concern in the minds of net neutrality activists. Since Internet.org was run by Facebook, Facebook had the last word in deciding what services were made available on it and what were not. Facebook claimed that the services are those that address the essential needs of a person on the Internet, but it remains up to Facebook to be the “gatekeeper”—and decide what qualifies to be an “essential” and what doesn’t. Fears and speculation grew that Facebook, which was essentially a company that runs on revenues from advertisements, would invariably be allowing only those services to participate that maximize its profits. The unknowing poor of the developing countries would therefore be led into an Internet which was governed solely by Facebook. The Internet, as they would see it, would not be the true Internet but only a part of the Internet that was regulated by Facebook. It would, in other words, be akin to a walled garden that they would be trapped inside. As Tim Berners-Lee said, “it’s not Internet. It isn’t free, and it isn’t in the public domain. Giving people data connectivity to only a part of the network deliberately, I think is a step backwards” (Gadgets 360 Staff, 2015).
While the Internet.org saga was unraveling on the Indian web in the first half of 2015, a similar issue had already begun to attract criticism over net neutrality concerns. The Indian telecommunication giant Airtel had launched a new service called Airtel Zero. Airtel Zero allowed partnering companies to let users access their online content for free. When faced with censure, Airtel put forward an official pledge, the #airtelpledge, stating that its service was no different from a 1-800 toll free number that customers could use to connect with businesses at zero cost. Moreover, it assured customers that it was committed to protecting net neutrality by all means (Vittal, 2015).
In response to this pledge, a group of 50 volunteers from all over India calling themselves the Save The Internet Coalition reacted with a web blog that tried to expose Airtel’s apparent hypocrisy in a scathing opening blog post (Save the Internet Coalition, 2015a). This was when the SaveTheInternet.in blog was born. The Coalition achieved a considerable milestone in India’s history of online social movements, when it succeeded in convincing the public that net neutrality was of utmost concern. The SaveTheInternet.in website pulled off a staggering achievement in the area of online public participation when it managed to garner 1 million email submissions to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in 12 days, pleading the case for net neutrality. This unprecedented public participation was chronicled by the Twitter handle @bulletinbabu. Meanwhile, Airtel Zero lay dormant, failing to attract even a small number of users by the end of 2015. The SaveTheInternet.in website continued to focus on net neutrality issues in the country and now aimed squarely for Facebook’s Internet.org.
Facebook had responded to the early criticisms of Internet.org by launching the Internet.org Platform in May 2015 (“Announcing the Internet.org Platform,” 2015). The platform invited developers to create services that could be integrated with Internet.org. It stressed upon the fact that the applications should access the entire Internet, were lightweight (used less data), and should work across different devices. In September 2015, Facebook rebranded Internet.org as “Free Basics.”
In India, where the outrage against Internet.org and Free Basics was by far the most glaring, this sparked off another uproar. Activists perceived this rebranding to be Facebook’s attempt at trying to pander to a perceived inherent Indian weakness—that of being lured by freebies (Doctorow, 2016; Skillings, 2015). Moreover, the Save The Internet Coalition continued its relentless efforts in trying to expose Facebook’s true business motives to the Indian public (Save the Internet Coalition, 2015b). In the meantime, Facebook explored a second avenue to achieve its goal. It attempted to convince the TRAI that the people of India were pro-Free Basics, by letting users send a pre-drafted email where they endorsed and supported the service (Shu, 2015). Needless to say, it led to even greater outrage. Other activist groups sprung up in the country. The Indian satire group All India Bakchod launched a string of videos on YouTube denouncing Free Basics. #SaveTheInternet became a top trending hashtag on the Indian Twitter (“AIB: Save the Internet,” 2015). The Save The Internet Coalition drafted another email that people could sign and send to the TRAI appealing the case for a free and neutral Internet.
In November 2015, the TRAI suspended Free Basics temporarily, by asking Reliance Communication, the telecom company that Facebook had partnered with, to block the service in the country. This was the TRAI’s attempt to buy more time before issuing a final ruling on the matter. The Save The Internet Coalition welcomed this move in its blog (Save the Web Coalition, 2015). Facebook, however, reacted by launching an aggressive country-wide “India supports Free Basics” advertising campaign toward the end of 2015. In January 2016, the TRAI rebuked the company for its misleading commercials and for astroturfing Free Basics (Times News Network, 2016). At the same time, over 500 Indian startups signed a letter that was released by the Save The Internet Coalition, addressed to the Prime Minister of India, Mr Narendra Modi, requesting him to uphold net neutrality in the country (Save the Internet Coalition, 2016a).
On 8 February 2016, the TRAI issued its final verdict in ruling against the differential pricing of Internet services in the country. “No service provider shall offer or charge discriminatory tariffs for data services on the basis of content,” the ruling stated (“Prohibition of Discriminatory Tariffs,” 2016). Mark Zuckerberg responded with a post on Facebook that he will continue to strive to make Free Basics legal. “While we’re disappointed with today’s decision,” he wrote. “I want to personally communicate that we are committed to keep working to break down barriers to connectivity in India and around the world. Connecting India is an important goal we won’t give up on.”
The Save The Internet Coalition welcomed the TRAI ruling, hailing India’s Fight For Net Neutrality as a truly democratic process with millions of Indians participating, including Internet users, members of Parliament, civil society organizations, entrepreneurs, industry, academics, media entities, content creators, artists, telecom operators, internet service providers and many others. Despite attempts by a few stakeholders to undermine this process, TRAI has stood firm, which is a testament to India’s maturing regulatory framework. (Save the Internet Coalition, 2016b)
For good or bad, this movement showed the effectiveness of online campaigns. The Save The Internet Coalition was essentially a group of volunteers who did not begin the campaign looking for profits or monetary gains. It wasn’t like usual campaigns in that it did not reflect a single view of the agitators. The Indian people were themselves divided on this issue and either opposed Free Basics or supported it with comparable vigor. Ramesh Srivats, a popular Indian entrepreneur and Twitter celebrity, even poked fun at the TRAI ruling and tweeted, “Excellent that people who have access to the internet have successfully decided what’s good for the people who don’t have it. #NetNeutrality.” While a large number of the activists opposing the violation of net neutrality rallied around the Save The Internet Coalition, an equally large number of pro-Free Basics voices wrote polemics against them, criticizing their efforts inhibiting an effort that could potentially increase Internet penetration in rural areas. Emails were sent by both parties to the TRAI.
But in the end, as the Save The Internet Coalition observed in its blog, it was a win for democracy and quasi-democratic processes. It established that the Internet model could be effectively used as an arena, not only to voice opposing viewpoints but also to ensure that the voices reached authorities and governing bodies. It marked an important milestone in demonstrating the effectiveness of a democratic model of Internet activism in shaping public policy and government regulations in the world’s largest democracy.