Centre for Internet and Society

A new domain name, but concerns remain the same

praskrishna — 2012-02-06T08:40:47Z

It seemed like an innocuous enough change — from this week, all visitors from India to blogs hosted on Google's Blogger saw the URLs read [blogname].blogspot.in rather than the .blogspot.com they were used to. Karunya Keshav's article was published in the Hindu on 5 February 2012.

Besides, while your mum reading your latest musings would see the post with the URL ending with .in, an aunt in Australia would read the same post with .au. Google now redirects individual blogs to ‘country-code Top Level Domains' (or ccTLD), such as .in for India or .au for Australia.

The move, which means that the same content is seen across multiple domains, has raised concerns about censorship, Internet ownership, as well as questions about the effect on search ranking and search engine optimisation (SEO).

SEO Concerns

According to those who work with SEO here, search engines traditionally penalise sites with extensive “duplicate” content.

In an entry in its help and support FAQs dated January 9, Google addressed SEO concerns. While admitting that the change would have some implications on search ranking, the Internet giant claimed it was “making every effort to minimise any negative consequences of hosting Blogspot content on multiple domains”. Crawlers would index the main .com site only, it said.

However, it is unclear about how analytics, Facebook ‘likes' and other stat counters, some of which are domain specific, will change with the redirects.

The change does not affect custom domains.

Internet Boundaries

According to Google, the move is mainly to enable it to selectively block content in a particular country, in accordance with country-specific laws, while allowing it to be available to other users around the world.

“Migrating to localised domains will allow us to continue promoting free expression and responsible publishing while providing greater flexibility in complying with valid removal requests pursuant to local law,” it said.

This is similar to what Twitter announced on January 26 on its official blog, when it gave itself “the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country, while keeping it available to the rest of the world”.

Media commentators say the decisions strike against one of the earliest notions of the Internet — that it works without the constraints of nationality — and attempt to govern the Web by local laws.

“The rhetoric is that the Internet is global, but we've been seeing [governments say] how this information has to be regulated,” says Nishant Shah, director-research at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS).

He sees the decisions as “symptomatic of a much larger change”, at a time when questions of whether governments or companies should regulate the Internet are raised. “We are examining who creates, controls and disseminates information.”

The offer to enable “country-specific censorship” comes at a time when Internet companies operating in India are locked in a legal battle with the centre over dealing with problematic material online, and the Government's demand that the companies regulate/filter content before it is published.

Accountability

However, while the Internet companies may seem willing to follow the law of the land, questions have been raised about how transparent the process will be, especially in protecting the rights of users, in the face of government pressure.

Twitter insists that it will act only on “what we believe to be a valid and applicable legal request”.

“Filtering is neither desirable nor realistic,” the company has said, and promises to notify users of any requests to censor.

The notices will also be displayed on Chilling Effects (chillingeffects.org), a collaboration among law school clinics and the Electronic Frontier Foundation that helps users understand their rights and deal with legal threats to online activity.

Google already reports legal notices it receives for contentious blogs and content to Chilling Effects.

Significantly, a study by the CIS last year suggested that online intermediaries tended to err on the side of caution when faced with take down requests under the Information Technology (Intermediaries guidelines) Rules, 2011.

Both Twitter and Google have pointed out workarounds for the country-specific censorship.

Google search and Facebook already have technology to selectively prevent people from seeing items deemed illegal in a country.

The original was published in the Hindu, Nishant Shah from CIS was quoted in it.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/a-new-domain-name-but-concerns-remain-the-same-1

A New Age in News

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T11:26:14Z

Citizen journalism and online piracy were key topics during the opening day of the Mekong Information and Communication Technology conference. The 2010 Mekong ICT conference in Chang Mai, Thailand, has brought together an experienced crowd of experts from all over the globe. They have gathered to discuss the status, trends and the current situation of the ICT world.

Participants with expertise from various fields will be sharing ideas and exchanging information until June 12 in Thailand. The intensive session includes participants from Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Thailand, Japan, New Zealand, Argentina, the United States, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Germany.

The way that technology is changing the scope of media and the new wave of citizen journalists are playing a powerful role in the way that the information age is emerging. Citizens are now a powerful force of information and the Internet is their tool. Social networking sites such as facebook and twitter have changed the way information is shared and examples of how to utilize these sources posed both debate and discussion from the panel of experts and participants.

Veteran journalist Tharum Bun shared that, "The flow of information, the quality, the speed, it is all changing. Youtube, blogs, twitter and social networking have greatly changed the game for journalism and are essential to the new age of reporting."

Also addressed was the idea that journalists have as much responsibility as any other public figure and perhaps more because of the audience they can reach. Media was described as a "war of ethics" that citizen journalists are raising the bar in. One major challenge is the abundance of information leaving those who read to question or scrutinize more carefully what is factual because there is, at times, an overflow of information.

The way that average citizens are getting the word out and becoming a new source of information was a topic of great interest to attendees. Citizen journalism is fast-becoming a way for the general population to become reporters. There was also talk of how video is becoming a weapon of choice for citizen journalists and is an essential supplement to the written word as images are important because they are so powerful.

In closing, keynote speaker Sunil Abraham spoke on the topic of piracy and the availability of everything from books to movies online. He pointed out that the war against piracy has become an invasion of privacy. Examples of authors, such as the worldwide sensation Paulo Cohelo, and how they have used online sharing to their advantage were highlighted. The sharing of information is now a fact and people can either find ways to utilize (and still profit) from this new age, or they are fighting something similar to a war on drugs that has no end in sight. Abraham pointed out that bibles are available for free worldwide, yet it is still the most sold book in history. So despite its ready availability, it hasn't stopped it from being sold.

Music has also always been, "Shared, it's remixed, it's borrowed, it's changed..." illustrating that information should be available. The topics, discussions, and meetings at the 2010 Mekong ICT will continue for the next week.

Read the original in dtinews

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/new-age-news

A Network of Chains

praskrishna — 2011-05-23T06:50:28Z

New infotech rules infringe on freedom of expression, make net use near-impossible, writes Arindam Mukherjee. The article was published in the latest issue (May 30, 2011) of Outlook Magazine.

If all goes according to plan, internet users may not be able to put up a strong message or comment about, say, the Congress on the BJP’s website. A simple complaint from a Congress worker or, for that matter, any Indian citizen, can get the comment removed—it could even lead to the website being blocked by the host. Similarly, forceful comments on networking sites like Twitter and Facebook about individuals and on issues of national interest could soon also be history. If anyone wants, a simple complaint can get the comments—or even a user—removed from that network without informing him or her about it.

The new set of rules gives any citizen the right to complain against any content on any website that they consider objectionable. The new guidelines redefine the rules of the game for online intermediaries—Internet Service Providers, a website, a blog or a blog host, or the online edition of a media company with space for letters to the editor. These intermediaries, who are protected by the government against harmful content generated by third parties, stand to lose their protection if they do not comply and take off the objectionable comments within 36 hours.

As expected, there is a huge outcry in the online community and in civil society on the implications. Pranesh Prakash, programme manager, Centre for Internet and Society, says, "We are concerned about the overreach of the IT Act. These rules are unconstitutional and violative of Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution. It is harmful to freedom of speech and does not go by the basic principles of natural justice because only the complainant is heard and not the user."

"These rules violate the Constitution, harm freedom of speech, go against the principles of natural justice."
Pranesh Prakash
Manager, CIS

The new rules provide that anyone can complain against any online content if he thinks it is objectionable and breaches any of the keywords provided under the rules (see graphic). Chakshu Roy of prs Legislative Research, an independent group, says, "The keywords provided under the rules are rather too open to interpretation. This might lead to potential legal complications for internet companies who derive value by allowing people to interact online."

The tricky part is that the government has said that all disputes over interpretation of the keywords can only be adjudicated by a court of law and that the government or its agencies cannot interpret it. So if your website or content is blocked, the only recourse before you is to knock at the court’s doors. In sum, under the new rules, it would be absolutely impossible for any online entity to carry any comment without getting into some infringement under the new rules. "If internet platforms are held liable for third-party content, it would lead to self-censorship and reduce the free flow of information," says a spokesperson for Google.

Despite the government arguing otherwise, this is being construed as an indirect way to control the internet and online activity. The new laws will suppress public opinion at a time when the internet is developing into a primary medium to mould as well as express public opinion. Nikhil Pahwa, an avid blogger and editor of Medianama, says, "National security is one thing, but what about civil liberty? Isn’t that being violated here? This is a veiled move to block all public opinion."

In recent times, 11 websites and search results have been blocked on the government’s order, apart from over 1,400 requests to Google for removal or blocking of content. Soon, many more websites and portals could be in the firing line and face a block, censure or even closure under the new set of rules.

Online protagonists also feel that enough thinking has not gone into the framing of the rules. Subho Ray, president, Internet and Mobile Association of India (iamai), says, "The new rules are arbitrary as it is protecting the interest of one set of citizens while compromising upon that of others." Also, there is ambiguity in the rules on bulk sms carriers and telecom-based content, which should technically fall under user-generated content reaching the masses.

Perhaps the most bizarre are the rules regarding cyber cafes, which seek to define not just how the cafes conduct their business but also how a cyber cafe should look and even arrange its furniture. The new guidelines mandate that cyber cafes keep a photo ID record of all users apart from maintaining usage data of individuals—including logs of all websites surfed by them—for one year. The rules even go on to define the physical layout of the cyber cafes.

"Today a third of India’s internet usage comes from cyber cafes. If you are putting requirements of photo ID and maintenance of logs of usage of every user, the crowd going to these cafes will move away," says Ray. He also feels that cyber cafes, which are already subject to harassment by local authorities, may find it even more difficult to survive under the new rules. Also, there are serious online security concerns over the functioning of cyber cafes under the new rules. "If you require all cyber cafes to maintain history of all websites visited by a user, including bank accounts and credit card transactions, it will be naive to think that such information will not be misused," says Prakash.

Significantly, the new rules also allow the government to access personal data and intercept any conversation or communication without judicial intervention. This, at a time when telephone intercepts by government agencies are being questioned, could lead to further complications. The government asserts that the new rules have been put in place looking at the “best practices" from across the world. But looking at the discontent—and the real danger of misuse—it needs to rethink these strategies.

Read the original published in the Outlook here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/network-of-chains

A Net of Hatred

praskrishna — 2012-07-20T06:09:19Z

Citizens worlwide have been resisiting the threat of internet censorship that governments seek to impose — and justifiably so. But while we have seen democratic revolutions such as the Arab Spring emerge from the power of the net, it is increasingly becoming clear to even the most ardent defender

This article by Samar Khurshid was published in the Hindustan Times on July 14, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted in it.

The Problem

On the internet, anyone can say anything and largely get away with it, making it a near-perfect means for fanatics. India, in particular, with its religious diversity and history of communal tension, constantly struggles with this issue. Earlier this week, the phrase ‘Internet Hindus’ was trending on popular social media website, Twitter, brought to the fore by a discussion about online religious fundamentalism on Al Jazeera, a news network based in Qatar. The panelists sought to put in context the largely vocal community of internet users who support right-wing Hindu ideology. These ‘Internet Hindus’ have become synonymous with an "abusive, vocal, uncouth group of people who subscribe to Hindu nationalism," said one panellist. The tribe of ‘Twitter jihadis’ is now responding with equal fervour with mostly anonymous fundamentalists who are vocal with their message.

"The problem," says Pranesh Prakash, programme manager at the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), "is that internet conversations become extreme. Liberals don’t get embroiled in heated arguments while fundamentalists, dedicated to extreme ideologies, tend to win out." Web censorship, he adds, is in vain as the net is too vast to control.

Online fanaticism is not limited to Hindus. For long, extremist Islamic groups have taken their jihad on to the world wide web. Of late, jihadist groups have mushroomed on social media to expand their base of support. The trend was observed by BBC Islamic Groups Analyst, Murad Batal al-Shishani, on Twitter. Even the recent arrest of Lashkar-e-Toiba’s handler of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, Syed Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal, was possible after he was tracked on Facebook trying to recruit young Muslims for 'the cause'. The Afghanistani Taliban, in fact, has its own news website with a running Twitter feed. The site offers the ‘voice of jihad’ with events propagandised from the Taliban perspective – American and Afghan soldiers are referred to as puppets, minions, cowards and even terrorists.

Islamic groups, however, are not a major cause of concern for India, according to Prasanto K Roy, a tech analyst and social media commentator. "Jihadist groups are a relatively small minority in India. But right wing Hindu groups have majority support."

The greatest issue, says CIS’s Prakash, is that these fundamentalists are increasingly well-organised and make great efforts to build a stronger extremist position. They are encouraged, he says, by the likes of Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy, who believes that minorities in India should only be given political rights after they acknowledge their Hindu ancestry; Francois Gautier, a French-Indian writer and journalist who supports the cause of Hindutva; and Zakir Naik, a Mumbai-born Islamic televangelist whose controversial opinions often attracts criticism. Prakash also says that on the net, "Many people are not only manufacturing opinion but also manufacturing facts as the basis of that opinion. These falsities are fuelling Right-wing anger."

The Solution

Governments are hard pressed to effectively censor and discourage otherwise reprehensible dialogue. The UPA attempted to tackle what they see as ‘objectionable content’. In December 2011, based on a petition, the government prosecuted internet giants like Yahoo, Google, Twitter and Facebook for hosting offensive material.

Legally, various sections of the Indian penal code, notably 153A – promoting enmity between communities – can be applied in cases of hate speech. But online speech falls short of being prosecutable, says sociologist Dipankar Gupta. "Something can only be (considered) hate speech if it directly incites people or results in violence, like statements made by Varun Gandhi in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. Online fundamentalist speech does not cross the boundaries of the law. And we cannot prosecute someone for their opinion."

When a Twitter post asked the question whether certain people could be violating section 153A, the response was far from reasonable, or even civil. One person wrote, "We p*ss on you and your secular section." Another urged others to report the user to Twitter as spam and have him blocked. And of course all this comes with the barrage of by now infamous Twitter terms like 'sickular', 'pseudo secular' or 'Congress Dirty Tricks Department'. They have thousands of followers, even their own websites and are extremely organised.

"The larger question is whether we should tackle this legally or develop other methods," says Siddharth Narayan, a lawyer with the Alternative Law Forum. "Hate-speech laws have been misused in the past. We don’t need a clampdown on internet freedom. We just need a more nuanced application of existing legislation," he says.

When looking at net-speak, it is tough to distinguish between generic statements of hate and a genuine call to violence. The internet has no intermediaries; no editors to censure your posts. Then perhaps it bodes ill for India’s secular democracy, and for secularism in the world at large, that uncurbed dialogue, which seeks to crystallise hate between communities, is spreading like an epidemic. CIS’s Prakash says the government cannot cope with this. “But we as society should be strong enough to respond, even if we disagree."

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/a-net-of-hatred

A multistakeholder discussion on India’s Position in the UN for Internet Governance UN Committee for Internet Related Policies (UN-CIRP)

praskrishna — 2012-09-17T09:49:26Z

The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) is hosting this event in New Delhi on September 19, 2012 from 10.30 a.m. to 1.00 p.m. Sunil Abraham has been invited as a panelist.

Discussions and debate on the issue of internet governance has increased over the past few years. The entire issue of internet governance has become strikingly important for the internet users, government, Indian industry, mobile and internet service providers, internet companies, social media, civil society, academia as well as youth and women on account of the fact that internet subscriber base has already reached the 125 million mark, and is expected to increase dramatically under the targets established in NTP 2012. Unlike in telecommunications, issues related to internet and data penetration requires not just discussion between government and service providers but cooperation and dialogue amongst a host of other stakeholders – commonly known as Multistakeholder Groups.

International discourse

At a global level, after the declaration of the 2005 Tunis Agenda, there is a general agreement that internet governance structure should be dispersed, multistakeholder and bottom up rather than top down, and not controlled by a single entity. There are a number of proposals pending which seek to address internet governance issues through a multistakeholder process including at the UN, IGF and Council of Europe.

Our role as stakeholders in internet development will ideally involve a domestic perspective as well as a need for global engagement to shape the international dialogue. The decisions that are being made over the next few months at international fora, will have a deep and lasting impact on our businesses, operations, architecture, revenue streams at one level and access, diversity, cyber security, content regulation, multilingualism and management of critical internet resources at another. Government, in close collaboration with other stakeholders, has a critical role, especially relating to policy making, cyber security, spam, crisis management, digital piracy, and dispute resolution to name a few.

India’s proposal in UN for internet governance

In October 2011 the Government of India submitted a proposal for establishment of a new institutional mechanism for global internet governance by way of the United Nations Committee on Internet Related Policy (UN-CIRP). The UN-CIRP’s mandate will include inter alia tasks such as developing and establishing international public policies relating to global issues of internet; coordinating and overseeing bodies responsible for the technical and operational functioning of the internet; facilitating negotiation of treaties, conventions and agreements on internet related public policy; address developmental issues, promote and protect human rights, including the right to development; undertake arbitrations and dispute resolution where necessary and crisis management (detailed statement attached for your ready reference.)

The CIRP which finds its mandate in the Tunis Agenda 2005 (copy attached) under the process of Enhanced Cooperation will comprise of 50 member states chosen on basis of equitable geographic representations, supported by the regular budget of the United Nations, serviced by UNCTAD secretariat, reporting directly to the UN General assembly. It will ensure participation of all relevant stakeholders by establishing four advisory groups - one each for civil society, private sector, intergovernmental / international organizations, and the technical/academic community. It will also have its own research wing and keep close links with the IGF – for policy consultations and inputs.

Other countries have taken views keeping in mind their own best interest, including some who wish to continue with the existing governance process, others who seek an improvement in the existing process and those who seek a greater involvement of UN ITU in issues related to internet governance.

Multistakeholder Consultation

To have a detailed multistakeholder discussion FICCI has invited some of the most influential and informed voices for a panel discussion and interactive session with experts from 10:30 AM. to 01:00 PM. on Wednesday, 19^th September 2012, at FICCI, Federation House, Tansen Marg, New Delhi.

The panel and audience, apart from being experts will represent a multistakeholder group across various functions of the government, private sector, telecom and internet eco-system related companies, civil society, academia, legal experts, media organisations, technical community, and students and women. An equal number of experts will also intervene from the audience. The session is aimed at discussing in detail India’s proposal of UN-CIRP and provide multistakeholder inputs which will help inform and guide further dialogue at the upcoming international fora such as the 67^th UN General Assembly from September 26^th to 6^th October 2012, in New York, IGF from 6^th to 9^th November 2012 in Baku, and WCIT from 3^rd to 14^th December 2012, in Dubai.

Agenda

10.30 11.00	Registration and Networking
11.00 11.15	Introduction and Agenda Setting - by Mr. Virat Bhatia, Chairman, FICCI Communication & Digital Economy Committee
11.15 12.00	Panel Discussion
12.00 12.45	Taking stock, next steps and wrap-up by Mr. Virat Bhatia, Chairman, FICCI Communication & Digital Economy Committee

Proposed Panelists

Sl. No.	Name / Title	Representing
1.	Mr. Nitin Desai, Special Advisor to UN Secretary General on Internet Governance and Chairman of Multistakeholder Advisory Group for Internet Governance Forum (Formerly)	Internet Governance specialist
2.	Ambassador A Gopinathan, India’s Permanent Representative to UN in Geneva (Formerly)	Leading Diplomat Internet Governance
3.	Senior official from Department of Electronics & IT, Government of India *	Government
4.	Mr. Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, President, Foundation for Media Professionals, India	Media
5.	Mr. Parminder Jeet Singh, Executive Director, IT for Change	Civil Society
6.	Mr. Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Center for Internet and Society	Civil Society
7.	Mr. Rajesh Chharia, President, Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI)	ISP
8.	Mr. Naresh Ajwani, Member, NRO NC-Asia Pacific Network Information Center (APNIC)	Industry
9.	Member of Parliament*	Politics
10.	Mr. Rajan Mathews, Director General, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI)	Mobile Operators

* Invited. Confirmation awaited.

See India's Statement Proposing UN Committee for Internet-Related Policy
See the Tunis Agenda

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/multi-stakeholder-discussion-on-indias-position-in-the-un-for-un-cirp

A Megacorp’s Basic Instinct

praskrishna — 2016-02-04T13:53:05Z

Bolstered by academia and civil society, TRAI stands its ground against FB’s Free Basics publicity blitz.

The article by Arindam Mukherjee was published in Outlook on February 8, 2016. Sunil Abraham was quoted.

Hours before the January 31 deadline for telecom regulator TRAI to give its opinion on Facebook’s controversial and expensive Free Basics pitch—which seeks to give India’s poor “free” access to certain partner websites—the consensus seems to be building up against the social media giant. “If there is cannibalising of the internet through services like Free Basics, the internet will be split; it will parcel out and slice the internet. Its future is at stake,” says a senior government official on condition of anonymity.

In a climate where the tech-savvy Modi government is seen to be close to the online trinity of Facebook, Google and Twitter, TRAI’s defiant stance in favour of net neutrality stands out. There’s a lot at stake. India’s position becomes crucial as few countries in the world have clearly defined laws on net neutrality or have taken a stand on it. For Facebook, there’s a lot more at stake. India is its second-largest user base after the US (it is banned in China), so it is leaving no stone unturned. The massive Rs 300-crore electronic and print media campaign is an indication of that.

TRAI sources say they are ready for any adverse onslaught and they are under no pressure from the PMO. The view gaining ground in government is that FB is trying to create a walled garden where it controls what people see and surf and what they can access online. While this will be offered to consumers for free—the technical term is differential pricing—the websites part of Free Basics will have to pay for being on the platform. Outlook’s queries to FB remained unanswered at the time of going to press.

At an ‘open house’ meeting to discuss TRAI’s consultation paper on differential pricing last week, regulator Ram Sevak Sharma stood firm against the barrage of pro-Free Basics opinions that flowed from FB, telecom operators and some members of the public. TRAI’s message was clear: FB’s tactics of moulding public opinion by stealth will not be acceptable in India. In the past few weeks, there have been bitter exchanges between TRAI and FB over the latter’s responses to a consultation paper on differential pricing.

TRAI’s defiant stand draws from an unprecedented show of strength by civil society against Free Basics and FB’s intentions. Says former Aadhar man Nandan Nilekani, “Free Basics is certainly against net neutrality. How can a solution be neutral, if it disproportionately benefits a particular website or business on the internet? Today, 400 million Indians are online. They came online because of the inherent value the internet offers. How can a walled garden of 100-odd websites provide the same value?”

What does Free Basics mean for PM Modi’s Digital India campaign? Being a walled garden, thousands of start-ups without adequate budgets to pay for such dedicated service will be forced to stay out of it. Similar questions are being raised about government services that are increasingly coming online. The concern is that all government traffic will have to pass through FB servers. The senior government official quoted above agrees, “In such a scenario, the government will have to approach FB to make its websites accessible on the free service which is neither desirable nor safe.”

The other fear is what happens to public data if it goes through a service like Free Basics. There is fear that a lot of government and public data will be put through Free Basics once government services start coming online. If Free Basics is for the poor who are also beneficiaries of government services, FB too can access this data. Says Prabir Purkayastha, chairman, Knowledge Commons, “FB says public service will be available through Free Basics but can public service be given through a private initiative? Public data is valuable and can’t be handed over to a private company.”

Few again are convinced by FB’s claim that Free Basics aims to make the internet accessible to the poor, with the many services offered through it. “The claim that the poor will get access to the internet is false,” warns Sunil Abraham, executive director, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. “Free Basics gives access to less than 100 of the one billion plus websites on the world wide web. Those in the walled garden will be treated quite differently.”

What gives TRAI a shot in the arm is that, for the first time, academia has put its weight behind Free Basics opponents. In a signed statement, several IIT and IISc Bangalore professors have said that Free Basics won’t serve the purpose FB is proposing and is not good for the country. “The problem is the internet being provided (via Free Basics) is a shrunken and sanitised version of the real thing. Free Basics is not a good proposal for the long-term development of a healthy and democratic internet setup in India,” says Amitabha Bagchi, IIT Delhi professor and one of the signatories to the memo.

Of course, many of the experts Outlook spoke to say that the government, and not FB, should be responsible for providing free internet to the people. Says Parminder Jeet Singh, executive director, IT for Change, “The government is sitting on Rs 40,000 crore of USO funds. It can surely utilise that to provide a free basic data package to people in India. Basic government services and emergency services should essentially be free.” Nilekani is also in favour of the government providing free internet to people. “The internet is a powerful poverty alleviation tool.... Government can do a direct benefit transfer for data, a more market-neutral way of achieving the goal of getting everyone on the internet,” he told Outlook.

Legally, though, there may be issues in stopping FB from introducing its Free Basics platform in India. Says Singh, “Technically, the Indian government may not be able to stop FB from introducing Free Basics in India as it is just a platform. What the government has to do is to stop telcos from collaborating with it for free internet because Indian telcos, not FB, mediate access to the internet.”

The demand for the government and TRAI to come clean on net neutrality has reached fever pitch. Experts like Nilekani feel that net neutrality, which does not allow zero rating and differential pricing based on telcos looking at the contents of the subscriber’s data packets, should be enshrined in law through an act of Parliament, the way countries like the US have done. TRAI has also proposed two models where the internet is provided free initially and charged at a later stage and another where content providers and websites reimburse the cost of browsing directly to consumers. Both these proposals have not found favour with experts who say that these are unworkable and only the government should disburse free internet.

In any case, all this is a matter of detail—important, no doubt. The key question is, what happens to Free Basics if TRAI rules in favour of net neutrality and goes against FB? “This is going to be a long-drawn-out battle as FB will certainly challenge this in court,” says the government official. After spending Rs 300 crore on publicity, there is no way it will roll over and die.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/outlook-february-8-2016-arindam-mukherjee-a-megacorps-basic-instinct

A lifetime of five years on the internet

praskrishna — 2013-05-20T09:04:28Z

Centre for Internet and Society observes its fifth anniversary on Sunday.

The article by Subir Ghosh was published in DNA on May 19, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted in this.

Five years is a long time in the internet space. The past five years, certainly, has been. And so has it been for the Centre for Internet and Society that completes five years here.

When a group of citizens got together to come under a platform called CIS five years ago, they had wanted to work on policy issues about the internet that had a bearing on society. They, in fact, still do; except that the new media space itself has undergone a metamorphosis. Five years ago social media was just starting off, few people had smart phones, and online speech was not a burning issue.

Sunil Abraham, executive director of city-based CIS, affirms this, and goes on to assert: “Five years ago, privacy was not a mainstream concern. Today, many different actors and stakeholders are interested in the configuration of the draft Privacy Bill. We first warned the public about the draconian measures in the IT Act during the 2008 amendment. Four years later, many more people are familiar with problematic sections and are adopting various strategies to amend the Act and it’s associated rules.”

Likewise, five years ago, people dismissed “shared spectrum” as a pipe dream; today “shared spectrum” is mentioned in the National Telecom Policy. CIS usually thinks ahead, and works on a range of issues.

“For internet adoption in India to grow dramatically from the dismal statistics today, we need to ensure continued access to cheap devices and affordable and ubiquitous broadband,” says Abraham.

“With Ericsson suing Micromax for Rs100 crore, the mobile wars have come to India. If we have to protect innovation in sub-100 dollar devices, we need to configure our patent and copyright policy carefully.”

But since CIS works primarily on policy issues, shouldn’t it have been based in Delhi rather than in Bangalore? “We do have a small office in Delhi. But we are headquartered in Bangalore because we need to keep learning from technologists and the technical community,” explains Abraham.

When an organisation calling itself the Centre for Internet and Society (www.cis-india.org) observes its fifth anniversary, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that many of the activities related to the anniversary celebrations (May 20-23) have precious little to do with the internet, and is more about society itself. And yes, an entire evening is devoted to Kannada. There’s a talk by Chandrashekhara Kambara on ‘Kannada in the modern era,’ and another by UB Pavanaja titled ‘From Palm Leaf to Tablet – Journey of Kannada’.

“We are looking at the complete eco-system. For instance, during the digitalisation of TV in India, what will happen to the internet? Do TV promoting policies undermine the growth of broadband? On the second day we look at the connection between another older technology - cinema and the Internet.”

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/dna-india-may-19-2013-subir-ghosh-a-lifetime-of-five-years-on-the-internet

A Kannada Wikipedia Workshop in Udupi

praskrishna — 2013-04-26T06:29:15Z

The Access to Knowledge team at the Centre for Internet and Society is organizing a Kannada wikipedia workshop at the MGM college in Udupi. Govinda Pai Research Centre, MGM College Udupi is sponsoring the event.The workshop will begin at 10.00 a.m. and end by 5.00 p.m. Dr. U.B.Pavanaja will give a talk on Kannada wikipedia.

The workshop will cover the following topics:

What is Wikipedia?
Who edits Wikipedia?
How does Wikipedia work?
HOW TO EDIT?
What can I edit?
Why to contribute to Wikipedia
Kannada specific topics
Brief on Creative Commons
Hands-on

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/kannada-wikipedia-workshop-udupi-april-29-2013

A History of Transparency, Politics and Information Technologies in India

praskrishna — 2011-08-03T09:59:15Z

In this blog post, Zainab Bawa reviews the different spectrums of information, transparency and politics.

Politics has always been fashioned by information, a friend1 pointed out when I mentioned to her about this blog post I was writing to summarize my research on the CIS-RAW monograph about the history of Transparency, Politics and Information Technologies in India.

The question that then arises is what kinds of information and subsequently, what kinds of politics (and vice-versa) are we referring to? I want to begin this blog post by reviewing the different spectrums of information and the contexts within which these different kinds of information become important/unimportant/valuable/invaluable for which groups in our polity? Consequently, how are our own notions of politics informed and how does politics, in terms of ideals such as democracy, equity, access, rights and justice, evolve/perpetuate in practice?

We, as individuals and as part of various groups in society, thrive on information for sustaining and enhancing different aspects of our lives, be they social, political, economic, cultural or historical. The criticality of information, especially information networks, has been revealed to us starkly in recent times by the 3G licensing scam where major corporations were vying for ‘insider’ information that would make it easier for them to obtain the requisite telecom licenses. Clearly, the 3G scam is not the first (and neither will it be the last) instance of the politics of lobbying, aligning with individuals and networks which provide ‘the’ ‘insider’ information and the capitalization of this information. We have known about the politics of ‘insider information’ in the context of stock markets and through Hamish McDonald’s explication of the way corporate giants such as Reliance and then Bombay Dyeing (aka the Wadia clan) have been ‘cultivating’ their ‘insider’ sources in the central government cabinets and ministries. The secrecy and more importantly the exclusiveness that underlies this kind of ‘insider’ information angers a certain strand of public and deepens the cynicism that pervades across a large section of the citizenry. The nature of this secrecy and exclusiveness gets compounded by the fact that there are phenomenally vast sums of money that are involved in this form of ‘insider’ information and the ensuing scams, thereby agitating different people because had there been ‘fair play’ and ‘true competition’, the monies could have benefitted the targeted beneficiaries in a ‘proper’ manner.

There is another kind of ‘insider’ information which exists on this spectrum of ‘insider’ information in particular and information in general, which I want to bring to your attention here. In 2008, I was researching the practices and reach of microfinance in Mumbai 2My research led me, for the first time, to the resettlement and rehabilitation (R&R) housing colonies of Mumbai.

These R & R colonies had been built to rehabilitate slum dwellers and squatters (occupying lands owned by different government agencies and private individuals/parties) whose possessions (claims over land and built structures were coming in the way of widening roads and railway tracks and building flyovers and rail over bridges under two mega infrastructure projects in Mumbai city then. Policies were formulated to compensate and rehabilitate persons and households who would be affected by these mega projects (PAPs and PAHs). I interviewed some of the PAPs and PAHs in an effort to understand the R&R process and the impact that the process had had on their lives and their relationship with the city and its governance.
During many of these interviews, the issue of ‘insider information’ repeatedly came up. PAPs and PAHs explained to me that as part of the R&R policies, surveys had been conducted to identify persons and households who would be eligible for compensation and resettlement. During the surveys, surveyors tried to determine since when the individuals and households had been residing in their houses/on the land, whether they owned the lands/built structures, and whether the structure was to be enumerated as a single unit or more and accordingly what should be the corresponding compensation awarded to the affected person/household. One form of ‘insider information’ in this context pertained to the knowledge of when the surveys would be carried out in the different settlements/squatted spaces so that people would make arrangements accordingly to claim entitlements under the R&R policies. For instance, in many cases, more than one family resided in the same built structure and consequently, only one house would be allotted in lieu of that structure irrespective of the number of families residing in it. Prior knowledge of the surveys, which was usually just a day or two before, would enable these families/households to determine how they would articulate their claim for more than one housing unit, either through appeal to the surveyor’s moral rationalities, or through graft and subversive strategies such as putting up makeshift structures, etc.

A second aspect of ‘insider’ information pertained to the number of units that would be allotted to different households/individuals i.e., those groups, leaders, NGOs (non-government organizations), CBOs (community based organizations), individuals and actors who were directly responsible for the allotment of housing and shops units under the R&R policies allotted more than the ‘fair’ share of entitlements to their favoured constituencies/households. Such actors even traded i.e., sold, the housing unit allotments to persons who were eager to buy these ‘low-income’ units, thus, giving rise to a form of property market around R&R policies and this kind of state intervention. Also, those who had direct/indirect access to actors making such allotments used their influence to obtain at least the compensation that should have accrued to them or more and, as mentioned above, persons interested in purchasing housing units despite not being from the settlement or even the same economic and social milieu influenced the ‘decision-makers’ in this case. An interesting outcome of this kind of ‘insider information’ was that those who had struggled to receive their due R&R compensations perceived these ‘extra legal’ (in this context) allotments as kabza (capture) of the resources (and space which is a premium in Mumbai city) offered under government policies. This notion of ‘kabza’ has now become part of the vocabulary of parties aggrieved by the allotment process and is being mobilized for fulfilling certain kinds of claims advanced before planning agencies in Mumbai, municipalities and the Maharashtra state government.

A third highly interesting form of ‘insider information’ in this R&R process was the prior knowledge that R&R would take place in due course of time, surveys would be conducted and there would be compensations awarded in the form of housing units and commercial spaces. This prior knowledge fuelled an atmosphere of intense speculation in some settlements where many individuals and households began to sell their possessions, built structures, shop spaces, etc., to newcomers (who would then be entitled to compensation under R&R) and the sellers moved out of the settlement to other areas, probably those that would not be marked for R&R or to neighbouring areas. Property values rose in such cases because newcomers were eager to be enumerated for a ‘secure’ entitlement, in this case a house/shop. Apart from the speculation which ensued from this form of ‘insider information’, ambiguity was also created, mainly related to determining who were the ‘original’ inhabitants and who were the ‘fake/newcomers’. There were no easy answers to resolving this ambiguity and interestingly, this ambiguity now resides (and may be legitimated in due course of time) in the survey records of the NGOs which were responsible for conducting the surveys, in the government’s entitlements’ records and now, in the property registries of the planning department and municipality that are being created as part of legalization of ownership of the R&R housing and commercial units.

What I have tried to explain through the examples of the 3G scam and the R&R process in Mumbai is that there is a spectrum of contexts and situations across which information gets created, circulated/percolated and transmitted in particular forms and through exclusive networks and circuits. The spectrum of information gets created through this variety of contexts and the spectrum gets defined and redefined, time and again, in terms of the value and the criticality attributed to different kinds of information and therefore, the implications that are perceived to stem from hiding such information(s) and excluding different groups of people from accessing it. Assessing the implications of transparency, opacity and secrecy of information in different contexts becomes more complex when we understand how and why different actors and institutions within the state, in between the state-civil society complex, and a variety of other actors advocate for transparency and the vocabulary and manner in which they articulate claims and projects for transparency.

There is also the issue of scale of exposure of a particular scam or some other act of secrecy/‘insider’ information which leads us to assess transparency or the lack of it in highly normative and morally laden ways. For instance, the 3G scam acquired the issue of national importance because of the involvement of the national government in Delhi and a handful of corporations who gained vast sums of money in direct and indirect ways; the fact that the scam appeared as an act of cheating to several cell phone users in India and especially to the tax-paying publics who have already been articulating complaints about their entitlements with respect to poor quality or complete lack of government and municipal resources; the manner in which this scam was interpreted, analyzed and then communicated to the public through different media (newspapers, television, blogs, protests, etc). Whereas, the lack of transparency in the housing allotment process under the R&R policies’ implementation does not get the same kind of reactions and outcry by the same set of tax payers and citizenry base because of the scale of the issue and therefore, the exposure (something to think about), the disdain that exists among tax payers and citizens against slum dwellers, squatters and such ‘illegal’ groups and the widespread cynicism that resettled or rehabilitated squatters and slum dwellers will eventually go back to squatting and occupying public lands because this is their ‘inherent’ nature. The other, more important question, is whether the different kinds of ‘insider’ information(s) involved in the R&R implementation process should be made public because if these were made public, would the unfairness and ‘corruption’ in the process and the ambiguities that have emerged from the implementation be reversed? Even more importantly, do government agencies have the resources and the grasp to deal with reversing the survey and allotment process given that information concerning land is not only fuzzy but by nature is both incomplete and contested? And, following from the question of correcting wrongs and setting right the rights, does it imply that my analyses of the lack of transparency and the forms of ‘insider’ information in the R&R process actually legitimizes the corruption and inequities involved in allotments? (I deal with this question in a more detailed manner in the monograph.)

The other question that is connected with both the 3G scam and the problems with the R&R policy implementation process (and also the recent WikiLeaks and cablegate controversy surrounding the buying of elected representatives for the vote of confidence) is who are the people controlling information and what resources do they have at their disposal to hide or reveal some things to which publics? This question is not simply a matter of the BJP (Bhartiya Janata Party) having the financial and other resources at its disposal to engineer a plot for destabilizing the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government. It is also a matter of say a licensing department in a municipality or a land and estates department in an urban governance set-up which is mired, by both default and design[3], in histories and presents of information inadequacies, information controls, claims (made by claimants from among citizens and state) and the corresponding access and/or lack of it to government resources and land/space. How do we evaluate/assess these departments’ acts of transparency and the lack of it as well as their strategies of information percolation, control and dissemination given their institutional and political context as well as the histories and the very kinds and nature of information that define and redefine their functioning?

Clearly then, we are talking about power – power relations and equations – here, and in this respect one would wonder what more does this monograph do other than discuss these power dynamics. But the monograph really does more than this. It tries to read these power dynamics in the context of how they inform and shape our understandings of information per se i.e., what constitutes information and how certain forms of information are made legitimate or illegitimate. The monograph also tries to analyze the notions and practices of authentication and certification of information that have come into being either directly or indirectly through mobilizations around access to information, use of information and rights of citizens, and how these efforts of authentication and certification shape the very nature of information and the politics around its production and transmission in different contexts. I must add here, therefore, that the monograph uses the term information technologies in a very broad sense even when it is covering a history of information technologies, mainly digital ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) such as databases, websites and e-governance. The monograph also looks at how these digital technologies get embedded within the existing and emerging technologies and institutions of governance and information production, circulation and percolation. Such an approach, I argue in the monograph, broadens the manner in which we view and evaluate digital technologies and their power as well as its appropriations (a term and practice discussed in much greater detail in the monograph) by different actors within the state and among the public.

There are two questions that I have to address before I close down this blog post. The first question is how I understand and define transparency and second is how I conceive politics. Transparency resides within the domain of information – the way in which information is produced (materially and symbolically), accessed, used, circulated, reproduced, appropriated, subverted and transmitted through various channels and mediums. I do not work with a single definition of transparency because as much as transparency is a desired norm, it is also a double-edged sword where the act of making something transparent has various kinds of repercussions, direct and indirect, on different strands of society. What I bring through this monograph is an urge to review transparency in more critical and thicker ways. This does not mean that we have to abandon the project of transparency altogether. Rather, we need to critically examine the emerging relationship between transparency, information and data and the increasing emphasis on ‘rational’ and ‘scientific data sets’ (such as budgetary analyses, certified information under the Right to Information (RTI) act, etc.) as the means of enforcing transparency and therefore, accountability – would not such transparency come with certain political costs for our society and who bears these costs and at what expense? This monograph therefore, examines transparency as a practice that has to be abstracted from the different contexts in which it is being applied, advocated and the manner in which claims for transparency are being advocated.

Politics – phew! Shall we get started on this? Of course! I will try and keep this brief. I started with explaining how there is a spectrum across which information exists. Politics also exists on a spectrum, and that spectrum is beyond one of ‘from petty corruption to high corruption’, from extortion of bribes by cops to 2G and 3G scams. At the moment, not only states within India and its central government, all parts of the globe are mired in various kinds of scandals and scams that are increasingly moving our thinking and even our faith into revolutions and radical overthrow of governments. At another end of the spectrum of our thinking and conception of politics is a strand of thinkers who have forced us to think about “quiet” (Bayat, 1997) and “insurgent” (Holston, 2008) politics, one that is articulated through very complex claims that arise and diminish in different contexts (Chatterjee, 2004; Benjamin, 1996, 2005, 2008). My task in this monograph is to explain this spectrum of politics, especially how it plays out in the context of transparency and information technologies. I will discuss the complexities of claims, autonomy, institutional politics and norms/ideals. The challenge of this monograph is to convince different stakeholders and the public to interrogate our notions of politics, and to instill a sense of optimism in a time which is an one interesting one for all of our lives and aspirations.

Notes

1Mythri Prasad, Ph.D. Scholar, Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Trivandrum.

2Research conducted under the aegis of Delphi Research Services, Bangalore, and for the purposes of my doctoral dissertation.

3 I am grateful to Narayana Gatty, faculty at Azim Premji University, for raising this issue of ‘default and design’ in the context of his research on e-governance and its impact on citizens and state agents.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/transparency-and-politics/transparency-politics-it-in-india

A FLASH of Change

praskrishna — 2012-01-03T10:22:18Z

A fortnightly column on ‘Digital Natives’ authored by Nishant Shah is featured in the Sunday Eye, the national edition of Indian Express, Delhi, from September 2010 onwards. In this article published on February 6, 2011, Nishant Shah writes that citizens are organising, congregating, acting and thereby creating revolutions.

Imagine you are in your favourite mall, walking around, looking at familiar shops, staring at the latest fashions in the windows, chatting with your friends and scouting for food. And suddenly, a bunch of people, who were just there, as a part of the larger scene, start dancing. They churn out well orchestrated but easy-to-replicate moves and for the length of a song, they convert the mall into an impromptu dance floor and then disperse. Or how about when walking through a park, you suddenly see a crowd of young and old, coming together to have a vigorous pillow fight and then after a few minutes of riotous laughter, they disappear into the blue? What would you do if you were faced with something like this in the expected and safe environments that you are used to?

The next time you see something like this, remember that you have just seen a flash mob. Organise, congregate, act, disperse — that is the anatomy of a flash mob. It is a form of mobilisation where anonymous strangers, who are connected via mobile and Web-based communication structures, come together in public spaces to perform a series of pre-determined actions for a brief period of time. They are generally fun, create a lot of confusion for those not in the know, and infuse everybody with a sense of wonder. They fuel conversations by transforming regular places with something that is new and unexpected.

I was recently at the Godrej India Culture Lab in Mumbai, to speak about digital natives, flash mobs and how they have the potential to change the world. Flash mobs are often seen to be frivolous and seen to achieve “mere fun” more than anything else. While I do want to make a case for how “mere fun” is actually the strongest means of political subversion and protest, something else erupted that made us all spectators of History (with the capital H) in the last two weeks.

In Egypt, tens of thousands of protesters came out into the streets of Cairo, Alexandria, Suez, and other cities, to demand the overthrow of an authoritarian government that has been unable to meet the needs of its citizens. In a dramatic unfolding of events, starting on January 25, young people in Egypt used Facebook, Twitter, SMS, emails and other forms of digital communication to come together in an unprecedented show of protest on the streets.

What has happened in the last few days is now the stuff of legend. There were digital blackouts and information blockages. The internet was blocked in the country so that protesters would be left in the dark. Mobile phone companies and internet service providers were ordered to debilitate the entire communication infrastructure so that word would not spread — within or outside Egypt. But such is the strength of the digital medium that the signal was lost, but the voice survived. It found echoes and resonances around the world. In a matter of hours, “Egypt” and “Jan 25” emerged as the most tagged messages on Twitter, with more than 2,500 tweets per second. The civic hackers in Egypt found supporters around the world, who not only spread their message but also provided them with legal and political infrastructure to make sure that their voice was heard.

This revolution, in the first month of the second decade of the 21st century, is not only about the present but also about what the future will hold. The young — digital natives who are integrated with the circuits of technology mobilisation and networking — were able to use these platforms to fight for their rights for freedom, dignity and expression. And all this was orchestrated using viral networking technologies and digital communication assemblages. I do not want to go into analysing Egypt’s politics, but I do want to highlight that the democratic citizen-driven future is already here.

The ways in which digital natives are able to harvest the technologies of mass communication and outreach are an indication of how the contours of global governance are going to be shaped. Citizen journalism, citizen action and civic collaboration are the new weapons of social change and transformation that the young are able to use effectively. Across the world, flash mobs like these bring together virtual strangers in spaces of physical solidarity. True, a lot of them are fun and games. But in participating in these playful structures, digital natives also develop new cultures of trust, belonging, participation, collaboration and mobilisation that remind us that we do not inherit the world from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. And they now have the power to ask us questions for which we might not always have the answers.

Original article was published by Indian Express

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/flash-of-change

A Feature on Wikipedia and Telugu Wikipedians on HMTV

praskrishna — 2013-08-21T04:46:47Z

Based on the Telugu Wiki Mahotsavam, HMTV (one of the leading Telugu News channels in Andhra Pradesh) has produced a half an hour feature on Wikipedia and Telugu Wikipedians.

This feature gives a concise history of the growth of Wikipedia and the efforts being put in developing Indian Language Wikipedias. Done in collaboration with Telugu Wikipeidans, this feature also showcases some of the key Telugu Wikipedians who have attended Telugu Wiki Mahotsavam — a community event supported by CIS-A2K and WMI Chapter. This feature was broadcast on May 30 and was repeated on May 31.

Video

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/hmtv-may-30-2013-wikipedia-and-telugu-wikipedians

A Feature on Telugu Wikipedia

praskrishna — 2013-12-30T06:01:59Z

Namaste Telangana newspaper has done a Sunday magazine feature on Telugu Wikipedia on the occasion of the 10th anniversary.

Click to download the file.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/feature-on-telugu-wikipedia

A Dialogue on "Zero Rating" and Network Neutrality

praskrishna — 2015-11-08T04:21:26Z

Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2015 will be held at Jao Pessoa in Brazil from November 10 to 13, 2015. The theme of IGF 2015 is Evolution of Internet Governance: Empowering Sustainable Development. The workshop on Zero Rating and Network Neutrality will be held on November 12, 2015 at IGF 2015. Pranesh Prakash will be speaking at this event.

This was published on the IGF website. Read here the details.

Overview:
The objective of this session is to provide the global Internet community, and policymakers in particular, with an informed and balanced dialogue on the complex Internet policy issue of “zero-rating.”

The purpose of the session is to help others, in their respective countries and locales, in their own analyses of Zero-Rating (ZR). The session will promote access to expert insight and multistakeholder community discussion. We encourage remote and in-person participation and aim for complete diversity across stakeholder groups and perspectives. As a main session, translation will be available in the official UN languages.

There are many different viewpoints on ZR, with some stakeholders being completely against the practice to others being fully supportive. In the open discussion leading up to this session, it has become apparent that some stakeholder approaches to ZR are more nuanced and varied than “for or against.” The session will consider the full spectrum of views.

In the case where ZR is advanced as a means to drive Internet access and narrow the digital divide, this session will also explore alternative approaches, such as the use of community networks.

Agenda:

The agenda is currently being developed between organizers and moderators. Based upon list discussion to date, the session will involve the following elements:

Introduction and Opening - After a brief introduction by the session organizers, the lead moderator will ask expert speakers to provide a brief description of how they view ZR.

Multistakeholder, expert dialogue - A moderated discussion on zero-rating amongst experts holding different positions and perspectives. The discussion will be based upon policy questions contributed from the community.

Community questions and discussion - Remote and in-person participants will be invited to pose questions to the experts, as well as to engage in guided discussion on topics raised.

Alternatives - Alternatives to zero-rating as a means to advance access, such as community networks, will be explained and illustrated.

Contributions from relevant IGF workshops - A handful of workshops at this year’s IGF will consider zero-rating. Organisers or participants from these workshops will be invited to contribute a readout to the session.

Policy Questions:

Based upon submissions from the community, below are examples of the policy questions that will be addressed during the session:

Please describe ZR as you see it in 90 seconds.
Under what circumstances are there benefits of ZR? What are the benefits? Under what circumstances are there detriments from ZR? What are the detriments?
Is all zero-rating bad? Or are there business models of ZR that are good? Should the bad models be regulated? should the good models be regulated? How?
Is ZR an anti-competitive business practice, or does ZR enhance competition?
Does a focus on Zero-Rated Internet access in developing countries divert government attention and investment away from other efforts to enhance access?
In those countries which have banned zero rating, what has been the impact?
Does ZR limit or skew end-user behavior? If so, how? Is this effect different from that of other free offerings over the Internet?
1. What are your thoughts,, for example, the following hypothetical: Imagine that Developer says to Consumer, "Send me your Internet bill at the end of the month. If you are being charged $Y/MB, and you consume Z MB of our service, we will send you a check for $Y*Z or simply reduce your bill with us by that amount.
How should regulators / governments address the potential tension between expanding Internet connectivity and the desire for “pure net neutrality?”

Host Country Chair: Mr. Nivaldo Cleto, Owner at Classico Consultoria, Advisor to the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee of Brazil (CGI.br) and Board member of the Board of Trade of Sao Paulo (JUCESP), as a Representative of the Union.

Moderators:

The role of the moderators is to keep the discussion focused, self-referencing, fluid, friendly, and on time.

Lead/expert moderator: Robert Pepper, VP, Global Technology Policy, Cisco
Remote moderator: Ginger Paque, Director, Internet Governance Programmes, Diplo
Floor and Readout moderator: Carolina Rossini, VP, International Policy, Public Knowledge
Floor and Readout moderator: Vladimir Radunovic, Director, E-diplomacy and Cybersecurity Programmes, Diplo

Expert speakers: (confirmed as of 29 October 2015)

Jochai Ben-Avie, Senior Global Policy Manager, Mozilla, USA
Eduardo Bertoni, Professor, Universidad de Palermo, Argentina
Igor Vilas Boas de Freitas, Commissioner, ANATEL, Brazil
Dušan Caf, Chairman, Electronic Communications Council, Republic of Slovenia
Silvia Elaluf-Calderwood, Research Fellow, London School of Economics, UK/Peru
Belinda Exelby, Director, Institutional Relations, GSMA, UK
Bob Frankston, Computer Scientist, USA
Helani Galpaya, CEO, LIRNEasia, Sri Lanka
Anka Kovacs, Director, Internet Democracy Project, India
Kevin Martin, VP, Mobile and Global Access Policy, Facebook, USA
Pranesh Prakash, Policy Director, Center for Internet and Society, India
Steve Song, Founder, Village Telco, South Africa/Canada
Dhanaraj Thakur, Research Manager, Alliance for Affordable Internet, USA/West Indies
Christopher Yoo, Professor of Law, Communication, and Computer & Information Science, University of Pennsylvania, USA

Plan for online interaction:

This session will include a remote panelist who will be prepared to speak from a remote hub.

Both in situ and remote interventions are being carefully coordinated to maximise a diversity of views in the available time.

This session will treat online participants on equal footing with in situ attendees, and will monitor remote attendees specifically to ensure that their requests to ask questions will be noted. Participant interventions in the session will consist of questions, at two structured points in the session. Floor moderators will collect the questions, and will consult with the panel remote moderator to ensure that remote questions are considered, as the moderators select for stakeholder balance and remote representation. Remote participant questions will be read into the session in English or Spanish by the remote moderator, to avoid 'transaction cost' (time and possible connection difficulties).

‘Feeder’ workshops and/or connections with other sessions:

We have identified the following workshops and other sessions as relevant. Each shall provide a 1-2 minute readout or preview from their session.

Workshop No. 156: Zero-rating and neutrality policies in developing countries
Workshop No. 79: Zero-rating, Open Internet, and Freedom of Expression
Workshop No. 21: SIDS Roundtable: “Free Internet” - Bane or Boon?
Dynamic Coalition Session: Dynamic Coalition on Net Neutrality
Access/PROTESTE event on Zero-Rating

Desired results/output:

As explained above, our desired result is to provide the global Internet community with a well-rounded and insightful dialogue on the Internet policy issue of zero-rating. The discussion is an output in and of itself, from which policymakers around the world should benefit. In accordance with the IGF reporting requirement, a rapporteur shall produce a neutral report of the session, which will not draw conclusions on the topic, but rather will summarise the main points discussed.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/a-dialogue-on-zero-rating-and-network-neutrality

A Day in Life

praskrishna — 2018-12-11T13:45:37Z

A Day in Life

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/ADayinLife.jpg

A dangerous trend: social media adds fire to Muzaffarnagar clashes

praskrishna — 2013-09-12T10:50:26Z

As access to the Internet grows, especially in small Indian towns and cities, social media has revealed a darker side as a hatred-mongering tool capable of setting off serious violence.

This article by Zia Haq was published in the Hindustan Times on September 9, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Malicious content, such as fake YouTube videos and morphed photographs, are usually spread rapidly to trigger rioting.

In UP’s Muzzafarnagar, a video clip purportedly showing a Muslim mob lynching two boys, which police now suspect is from neighboring Pakistan or Afghanistan, was used to stir unease, deepening hatred between Muslims and Hindus.

A series of rioting in western UP district has left at least 41 dead. The circulation of the video had led to violence spreading to new areas. The fake video that escalated clashes portends a new trend in India’s discordant politics.

“From word of mouth, communal polarization, especially by Hindutva organisations, is now moving online. This is a dangerous trend since the Internet is very potent,” said Prof Badri Narayan of the GB Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad.

Research shows social media sites, including sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, are more persuasive than television ads. Nearly 100 million Indians use the Internet each day, more than Germany’s population. Of this, 40 million have assured broadband, the ones who mostly subscribe to social-media accounts.

The country also has about 87 million mobile-Internet users, according to Internet and Mobile Association of India.

UP’s police have blocked the video, invoking sections under 420 (forgery), 153-A (promoting enmity on religious grounds) and 120-B (conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code, along with section 66 of the Information Technology Act.

Section 66, however, is the heart of a free-speech debate. Activists say section 66 has been used at the drop of a hat.

Last November, two Mumbai girls faced arrests for questioning the city’s shutdown for Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray’s funeral. The arrests were declared illegal after being roundly criticised, including by the Supreme Court.

“In this case, the government has a legitimate reason to censor speech. However, this requires the authorities to very focused and action should be targeted, rather than sweeping,” said Sunil Abraham of the Bangalore-based The Centre for Internet and Society.

The government’s action, Abraham said, tended to be broad-based. He said in such situations, the government could use public-service messaging to present the alternate view.

“Legal provisions could be made whereby Twitter users from India, for example, (compulsorily) see the public service message by default when they log in,” Abraham said.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/hindustan-times-september-9-2013-zia-haq-a-dangerous-trend