India’s protest against Facebook’s Internet.org goes global

When Mark Zuckerberg launched Internet.org in India in February, it was presented as an act of altruism. “Imagine a world where everyone had access to education and healthcare information. A world where farmers could look up information to improve their crop yields, and students could consult Wikipedia to help out with their homework,” declared the Facebook honcho to cheers.

This soon turned to jeers as activists began to show internet users how they were being suckered. Internet.org promised to bridge the digital divide by providing free access to a selection of education, health, and media apps, including Facebook. But this in effect would make Facebook and the telco it partnered with in each country into gatekeepers of what people could access for free and put all other websites and apps at a disadvantage. Eventually, some people argued, the telco and Facebook could demand payment or favors from apps and services that wanted to be on Internet.org. Forums like Save The Internet and IT for Change got busy spreading awareness of what many termed a backdoor violation of net neutrality.

Now the campaign has gone global. Yesterday, 67 digital rights groups from around the world wrote an open letter to Zuckerberg, pointing out how Internet.org violates net neutrality, freedom of expression, equality of opportunity, privacy, and security. “The economic boom and revolution in connectivity that the Internet created in developed countries needs to be shared equally with the next three billion people,” says the letter. Groups that signed the letter include Save The Internet, IT for Change, India’s Medianama, Digital Rights Foundation, Internet Policy Observatory, Pakistan’s Media Matters for Democracy, and Southeast Asia’s Safenet.

A million nays

Last month in India, a tsunami of protest mail flooded the telecom regulatory authority against a move by Airtel to launch a platform for “zero rated” apps that users can access for free. One of the first to hop on to the Airtel Zero bandwagon was India’s ecommerce leader Flipkart, but it pulled out when netizens began to down-vote the Flipkart app on Google Play in protest. The campaign also made a wider section of people aware of the catch in zero-rating – that only major sites like Flipkart with billions in funding could afford to pay Airtel for the privilege of being free to access and that it would sound the death knell for smaller startups and innovation.

In Indonesia, too, Facebook’s Internet.org has raised misgivings. Leading telco Axiata, which partnered with Facebook during the research phase of Internet.org, decided to end it. Facebook later partnered with another carrier Indosat.

“First, this program is still controversial, one example is what is happening in India,” said Yessy D Yosetya, chief digital services officer of XL Axiata, explaining why it pulled out. “Our second concern is about the business model.”

The digital rights groups echoed this concern in the letter. “Zero rating is currently Internet.org’s basic model: Facebook is partnering with ISPs around the world to offer access to certain Internet applications to users at no cost. These agreements endanger freedom of expression and equality of opportunity by letting service providers decide which internet services will be privileged over others, thus interfering with the free flow of information and people’s rights vis-a-vis networks,” the letter stated. It’s the discriminatory nature of zero-rating that has led to it being banned or restricted in several countries, including Canada, Chile, and the Netherlands.

Josh Levy, advocacy director for US-based Access, says free and unrestricted access to the internet are not an either/or proposition. “We can find a way to provide everyone with access to the full internet while still upholding their basic rights.” For example, telcos could set a cap on data usage for free access, while charging those with higher levels of usage.

Internet.org will let Facebook collect user data