Centre for Internet and Society

Public Debate on 'Differential Pricing': Series 3

vidushi — 2016-01-28T13:53:12Z

The Centre for Internet and Society, in association with ICRIER and the Department of Civics and Politics, University of Mumbai, is pleased to announce “A Series of Public Debates on Differential Pricing” in the cities of Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi. The third public debate will be held at India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road near Air Force Bal Bharti School, New Delhi on February 5, 2016.

In light of the recent consultation paper released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the objective of these debates will be to deconstruct the issue of differential pricing through a discussion on the variety of views this subject has attracted. Speakers will also discuss possible implications of differential pricing policy on questions of access, diversity, competition and entrepreneurship.

Each debate will comprise three rounds. In the first round, speakers will present the body of their arguments over 10 minutes each. The second round will be a rebuttal round, with each speaker being given 5 minutes. The third and final round will see the floor being opened to the audience who will engage the speakers with comments and questions.

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For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/public-debate-on-differential-pricing-series-3

Public Debate on 'Differential Pricing': Series 2

vidushi — 2016-01-28T13:51:06Z

The Centre for Internet and Society, in association with ICRIER and the Department of Civics and Politics, University of Mumbai, is pleased to announce “A Series of Public Debates on Differential Pricing” in the cities of Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi. The second public debate will be held at Pherozeshah Mehta Bhavan, Vidyanagari, Kalina, Mumbai on February 3, 2016.

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For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/public-debate-on-differential-pricing-series-2

Public Debate on 'Differential Pricing': Series 1

vidushi — 2016-01-27T13:51:06Z

The Centre for Internet and Society, in association with ICRIER and the Department of Civics and Politics, University of Mumbai, is pleased to announce “A Series of Public Debates on Differential Pricing” in the cities of Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi. The first public debate will be held at the Centre for Internet & Society office in Bangalore on February 1, 2016.

Download the Invite

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/a-series-of-public-debates-on-differential-pricing-series-1

Why Indians are turning down Facebook's free internet

praskrishna — 2016-01-17T16:25:10Z

Imagine a billion of the world’s poorest gaining overnight access to health information, education, and professional help — for free. Add to this one rich man who wants to make that dream a reality.

The article by Nimisha Jaiswal was published in the Global Post on January 13, 2016. Sunil Abraham was quoted.

That’s the invitation that Facebook has sent to India. Many there, however, are rejecting such benevolence.

Facebook has introduced its Free Basics project in 36 countries. The company claims that the app acts as a stepping-stone to the internet for those who are otherwise without access, by providing them with a few essential sites — or “basics” — to get started.

“We know that when people have access to the internet they also get access to jobs, education, healthcare, communication… We know that for India to make progress, more than 1 billion people need to be connected to the internet,” wrote Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a recent op-ed for a major Indian newspaper. “Free Basics is a bridge to the full internet and digital equality.”

However, net neutrality researchers and activists in India define it quite differently.

“Free Basics is a zero-rated walled garden that gives users a tiny subset of the world wide web,” Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Bengaluru-based Centre for Internet and Society, told GlobalPost.

The Free Basics app is part of Facebook’s Internet.org, a “zero-rating” internet service that provides limited access for no charge to the consumer. The original Internet.org was heavily criticized in India for violating net neutrality, the principle that all content on the web should be accessible to consumers at the same speed, without discrimination by providers.

Last spring, as part of a homegrown Save The Internet movement, over 1 million people wrote to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to protest services that disrupt net neutrality by providing only a small fraction of the internet to their users.

India’s Department of Telecommunications has already recommended that such platforms be disallowed. Before it makes its own recommendations this month, the TRAI asked concerned citizens for another round of input on zero-rating apps. The criticism has been so loud that, at the end of December, Free Basics’ local telecom partner was ordered to take the service down until a decision is reached.

Though Free Basics does not require payment from the websites it shares, Facebook’s competitors are unlikely to participate and provide user data to their rivals. And while there are currently no advertisements on Free Basics, Facebook reserves the right to introduce them in the future to garner revenue from their “walled-in” clients.

According to Abraham, such a platform harms free speech, privacy, innovation and diversity by adding another layer of surveillance and “censoring” the internet.

Mahesh Murthy, a venture capitalist who is part of India’s Save The Internet movement, puts it more bluntly.

“What Facebook wants is our less fortunate brothers and sisters should be able to poke each other and play Candy Crush, but not be able to look up a fact on Google, or learn something on Khan Academy, or sell their produce on a commodity market, or even search for a job on [Indian recruitment website] Naukri,” said Murthy.

Zuckerberg and Facebook’s India team have vigorously rebutted net neutrality activists in India, including Murthy, challenging their criticism of Free Basics and accusing activists of deliberately trying to prevent the masses from gaining internet access.

“Critics of the program continue to spread false claims — even if that means leaving behind a billion people,” wrote Zuckerberg in his Times of India op-ed.

According to Abraham, this is a misleading assertion. “They are falsely framing the debate, they are making it look like we have only two choices,” he told GlobalPost. “The choice is not between less people on the internet and unregulated [Free Basics].”

Several alternatives are being proposed. Abraham does not advocate a complete ban on Free Basics, instead suggesting a “leaky” walled garden where users would be given 100 MB of full internet access for every 100 MB of Free Basics consumed.

The Save the Internet campaign, however, wants Free Basics barred altogether. It proposes returning to previously implemented schemes like providing data on the purchase of a phone, or letting users access the full internet after watching an ad. The Universal Service Obligation Fund, set up by the Department of Telecommunications to provide affordable communication technology in rural areas, could also be used to finance free data packs.

While Facebook could potentially contribute to such funds to promote its connectivity goals, the millions of dollars it has spent loudly defending Free Basics in India suggest that the company is deeply attached to its own scheme.

Facebook has claimed that “more than four in five Indians support Free Basics,” according to a survey that it paid for. Indian users of the social network have received notifications encouraging them to send a template letter to the regulator in support of Free Basics. Even users in the US were “accidentally” notified to add their backing to the Indian campaign.

Some of the company's critics suggest that it is driven less by philanthropy, more by guaranteeing itself a stream of new users.

Murthy points out that a large number of the world’s population not yet on the internet are in India and China — and Facebook is banned in China. “So who becomes essential to Mark Zuckerberg’s balance sheet? Enter us Indians.”

While Indian activists agree that connectivity is an important goal, they insist that Free Basics in its current form is not the solution or even the only option right now. All it does is whets the appetite of the consumer, according to Abraham.

“You can compare Free Basics to when you go through the mall: You see the people selling cookies, and the aroma fills the whole mall,” he said. “That’s what Free Basics does — it gets you interested in the cookie. But it doesn’t solve the affordability question.”

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/global-post-nimisha-jaiswal-why-indians-are-turning-down-facebook-free-internet

Network Neutrality Regulation across South Asia: A Roundtable on Aspects of Differential Pricing

praskrishna — 2016-01-17T02:41:13Z

The Centre of Internet and Society (CIS) in association with Observer Research Foundation, and IT For Change in collaboration with the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Pennsylvania is pleased to announce a roundtable on ‘Network Neutrality Regulation Across South Asia: Aspects of Differential Pricing” that will take place on January 22, 2016 from 11.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. at TERI in Bangalore.

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The objective of this roundtable will be to look into the issue of differential pricing in light of TRAI’s recent consultation process, with the specific intention of research building. The network neutrality debate has gained significant momentum in India during the past year, with competing interests of internet service providers, OTTs and the public giving rise to important questions of ICT regulation and policy.

With Facebook looking to expand its zero rated walled garden, Free Basics, into nascent markets, differential pricing is an important point of regulatory policy not just in India, but in jurisdictions across South Asia. These countries have limited connectivity, large consumer potential and low internet penetration which bring to the fore questions of access, diversity, competition and innovation. To this end, the roundtable will seek to address the regulatory and market aspects of differential pricing as well as the impact on rights. Broadly, the roundtable will be forward looking and seek to build future research agendas.

Draft Agenda

11:00 – 11:30	Tea and Registration
11:30 – 12:30	Roundtable 1: Framing the issue: The practice of differential pricing Examples of differential pricing Stakeholder perspectives Competition and market effect of differential pricing Larger social consequences of differential pricing
12:30 – 1:00	Lunch
1:00 – 2:30	Roundtable 2: Regulatory response: Discerning governmental actions Locating public interest Moving from research to action
2:30 – 3:00	Tea
3:00 – 4:30	Roundtable 3: Impact on rights: Access Freedom of expression Privacy Equity and Social Justice
4:30 – 5:00	Discussion and research agenda building

Roundtable Questions:

Roundtable 1: FRAMING THE ISSUE:

What is differential pricing and how does it work? What are the technical components and policy components of differential pricing? What are examples of differential pricing?
What has been the response from different stakeholders to differential pricing schemes? What are the arguments for/against differential pricing?
What could be the market effect of differential pricing?
What are possible larger social impacts of differential pricing?

Roundtable 2: REGULATORY RESPONSE:

How have governments responded to differential pricing? What can these responses tell us about the position of governments?
What are the different components for consideration with developing a regulatory response? What are different forms of regulation for differential pricing?
What type of policy research around differential pricing can drive meaningful action?

Roundtable 3: IMPACT ON RIGHTS:

How does differential pricing impact the right to access, freedom of expression, privacy, and equity and social justice?
Are there ways to mitigate this impact through regulation? Market incentives? Company policy?
What are forms of redress that individuals could seek in the context of differential pricing?

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/network-neutrality-regulation-across-south-asia-a-roundtable-on-aspects-of-differential-pricing

What are People's Rights in Digital World

praskrishna — 2016-01-12T01:51:53Z

Vanya Rakesh participated in this workshop organized by IT for Change on December 4, 2015 in Bangalore.


Above: Participants from the workshop

This workshop by IT for Change to build conceptions of rights with regard to the digital realm based on our tacit formative consciousness about them and undertake such an exercise to draw the first outlines of the social contract that must underpin our pervasively digital existence. IT for Change brought together thought leaders engaged in rights frameworks (including rights activists across domains and digital rights activists) to participate in this preliminary inquiry, to build from scratch a conception of what constitutes an equitable and just digital society, and what individual and collective rights would be commensurate to such a conception.

For more info click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/what-are-peoples-rights-in-digital-world

Will India win net neutrality battle?

praskrishna — 2016-01-11T02:28:44Z

There is more than what meets the eye in Facebook’s ‘noble mission’ of providing internet for all.

The article by Pratap Vikram Singh and Taru Bhatia was published by Governance Now on January 5, 2016. Sunil Abraham gave inputs.

India is gearing up for an era of startups and entrepreneurship and the man pushing it as one of his biggest development and self reliance agenda is none other than prime minister Narendra Modi, who launched the ‘Startup India, Standup India’ campaign this year. Few technology giants, led by the likes of Facebook and some telecom service providers, however, have thrown a technology spanner. It is important to note that a significant number of the startups in India are internet-based – next only to the US and China in having maximum number of tech startups, according to industry body NASSCOM.

For these to flourish and for India to have next Facebook or Google it is important to have an open and neutral internet, believe digital rights experts. A network which doesn’t discriminate between the data packets (smallest unit of information sent in binary format over a network) and provides level playing field for all. “It is critical for the Startup India campaign. If we let the principles of net neutrality be compromised, then it makes it very difficult for entrepreneurs and startups to compete against established players, who can close off the market for upstarts by schemes like differentiated pricing and zero rating (toll free access to websites or apps),” said Vishal Misra, associate professor, department of computer science, Columbia University.

A prerequisite for startups

A few months from now, country’s telecom regulator, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), is going to decide whether internet would remain neutral and whether it will continue to foster innovation. A major threat to net neutrality, according to civil society and digital rights experts, comes from zero rating – toll free access to a few selected websites or apps, a strategy adopted by internet service providers or internet platforms to hook users to those select few sites. For telecom and internet service providers zero rating is a new stream of revenue, a way to secure optimal return on investment from their existing subscriber base – without requiring additional investment. The ISPs are arguing that they should be given more flexibility in managing their network – in a way they should be allowed to assume the role of gatekeeper of the internet.

For ISPs, net neutrality is an obsolete and utopian idea. Facebook, which has grown into a mammoth internet platform since its inception in 2004, has recently joined this bandwagon. Under its Free Basics initiative (erstwhile internet.org), the internet giant provides toll free access to a set of websites (including Facebook obviously!) handpicked by itself to the users. In India so far it has partnered with Reliance Communications.

Facebook by far is the most audacious and aggressive proponent of ‘zero rating’ scheme. From lobbying the prime minister to giving back-to-back ads in television channels and two-page ads in national dailies to circulating a vaguely written letter in support of Free Basics on its social media site, Facebook is pitching for ‘digital equality’ by giving access to 'basic internet’ or say a slice of the internet.

Cautioning against zero rating, Prabir Purkayastha, chairperson, Society for Knowledge Commons, said the way zero-rating is being discussed, it seems Indians are only the consumers of internet, which is not true. “Indians are also the innovators on internet,” said Purkayastha. “Internet has given the innovators the right to connect to the users without having a huge amount of money. This is the character that will be destroyed if zero-rating will be implemented,” he says.

That’s true. Be it US-based Facebook or Google or Indian Flipkart or PayTm or SnapDeal, had it not been for open and neutral internet they wouldn’t have become what are today.

Raman Jit Singh Chima, global public policy director, Access Now, a New York-based firm working for digital rights, said the idea is to prevent a telco or an internet platform from assuming a role of a gatekeeper and control access. Misra, too, has written extensively on the counter-productiveness of zero rating: stifling of innovation and service providers loosing incentive to improve service and keep prices low. Both Misra and Chima testified their views on net neutrality to the standing committee on IT in August after the department of telecommunications submitted an expert committee report on the neutrality issue.

Whither public consultation

To formulate a regulation on how internet will shape up, the TRAI has come out with two consultation papers concerning net neutrality in the last nine months. The first consultation paper on ‘regulatory framework for over the top players (OTTs)’, which came in March, was written in favour of telecom and internet service providers. “It was embarrassing,” said Purkayastha. Over 1.2 million people wrote to the regulator. This was result of the savetheinternet.in campaign ran by free internet activists and lawyers, who were later joined by All India Bakchod (AIB) whose video on net neutrality went viral on YouTube (the video has received three million views in last eight months). This was unprecedented in the history of TRAI consultations. However, the fate of those responses is still unclear.

In December the regulator brought another paper. This time it was titled ‘regulation on differential pricing’. Contrary to the initial paper, this paper is far more objective and reasonable, said Nikhil Pahwa, founder, MediaNama portal and a key volunteer behind savetheinternet.in campaign. The regulator has sought comments on its second paper by December 30 and counter-comments by January 7. Till the time a final call is taken, the telecom regulator has instructed Reliance Communications, Facebook’s India telecom partner, to put Free Basics on hold.

The savetheinternet.in campaign has formulated the responses to the new consultation paper and has made it available for everyone favouring net neutrality to send it to the TRAI. The AIB team has released another video titled ‘Save the Internet - 2 – Judgement Day’, which has been viewed close to one million times in just four months.

The neutrality debate started in India in December 2014 when Airtel, country’s largest telco, announced – although it later backtracked – that the company would charge consumers more for using VOIP services, on top of the data charges. Later, it went on to launch Airtel Zero, wherein it struck deal with online services providers for user access at zero rate. Facebook had already introduced internet.org by then. While it was initially led by civil society, the debate was later joined by politicians – Naveen Patnaik, M Chandrashekhar, Jay Panda, Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal – who strongly came out in support of net neutrality.

Facebook has termed its zero rating platform as a philanthropic activity intended to connect billions of unconnected population so that they can access education, health and employment related information. It has urged users to sign a petition, cautioning them against "a small, vocal group of critics" lobbying to prevent 1 billion people from accessing 'affordable internet'. Under Free Basics, Facebook claims, it doesn't charge app developers and includes them if they comply to its 'objective tech specs'.

Free Basics: A camouflage?

Critics, however, call it a walled garden. In providing free access to close to a hundred websites it continues to play the role of a gatekeeper. It is not the poor who decide what to access but Facebook! While it says that it is not making money out of Free Basics as it doesn't display ads in the Free Basics version of Facebook, it keeps the option of monetisation open in the future.

“It [Free Basics] has been camouflaged as charity," said a senior TRAI official, in an off the record conversation. While speaking to the Guardian on Facebook’s zero rating in December, Tim Berners Lee, founder of world wide web (www), said, “In the particular case of somebody who's offering... something which is branded internet, it's not internet, then you just say no. No it isn't free, no it isn't in the public domain, there are other ways of reducing the price of internet connectivity and giving something... [only] giving people data connectivity to part of the network deliberately, I think is a step backwards.”

Speaking in favour of zero rating, Payal Malik, associate professor, economics, Delhi University, said that it is wrong to assume that all consumers will get hooked to zero rated sites. “In a way you are saying that all humans have same preferences and likes and dislikes, which is very unlikely,” said Malik.

Experts representing telecom industry argue that the net neutrality regulation should be geography specific and the telecom players should be given more flexibility in dealing with the network. Mahesh Uppal, a senior telecom consultant and director, ComFirst India, while speaking at a round table discussion in Delhi, said that a majority of population in the West including countries opting for strict net neutrality – including Netherlands, Slovenia and the US – are already connected. "The data connectivity is primarily through fixed lines - copper, co-ax cable or optical fibre wired — wherein it is easier to add capacity to meet traffic growth. However this is difficult to do so for wireless networks," said Uppal. In developing countries, including India, mobile telephony and internet majorly runs on wireless. Hence, he argued, telecom and internet service providers should be given flexibility to zero rate. For Uppal, if zero rating or sponsored content is implemented properly “it can be one of the ways to scale up internet access” to the unconnected regions.

Neutrality proponents, however, differ. “It is basic economic theory, and zero rated sites get a price advantage. There are studies that show customers stay within the world of zero rated sites and never venture outside or are aware of the full internet,” professor Misra said.

Zero or equal rating?

So is there a middle ground? Are there ways to increase access without tampering with open and neutral character of the internet? Experts believe there are. Some of the solutions are not completely black and white, but in between. While there is a fierce opposition to zero rating, it might work, according to Sunil Abraham, executive director, centre for internet and society (CIS), if provided with an amount of equal rating (giving free data pack to users so that they can access any site or app they want).

Mozilla Foundation advocates equal rating. The foundation has sought to create such an alternative in Bangladesh and countries in Africa within the Firefox OS ecosystem. The foundation has tied up with telecom operator Grameenphone in Bangladesh to provide 20 Mb data per day for free to users, in exchange for viewing an advertisement. The model could be easily replicated in India, said Pahwa of MediaNama.

For African countries, the foundation has partnered with Orange. Both allow Africans to purchase $40 Firefox OS smartphones that come packaged with free three to six months of voice calling, text, and up to 500 Mb of monthly data. Purkayastha of Knowledge Commons said that zero-rating plan by telecom operators only makes sense when government services are provided for free through it. “That is the form of zero-rating I would support.”

There are a few platforms which are reimbursing data in megabytes to users accessing partnering apps. The user can then use the free data pack to access any other site or app. Some of them include: mCent, Gigato and DataMi. mCent, owned by Boston-based firm Jana, is a pioneer in this area. It is being used by 30 million users cross 98 countries. In India, according to Jana, one out of every 10 internet users has subscribed to mCent.

Yes, it does violate neutrality as it puts those app providers not having enough money at a disadvantageous position vis-à-vis to those having deep pocket to reimburse data to users. “I think it’s a grey area,” said professor Misra. On the surface it seems to be just like Free Basics, however, Gigato (or mCent) is making no pretense that what they are doing is philanthropy of increasing access, said professor Misra, adding that it is still acceptable as user will have the data to venture out of the walled garden. The senior TRAI official too finds it acceptable. “In my opinion, Facebook should become like Gigato,” he said.

If the regulator is going to protect consumers’ right and also not stifle startups and entrepreneurism, it will have to ensure some broad, core principles of the internet. It will have to prevent both the ISPs and the internet platforms from becoming gatekeepers. It must not allow any throttling, blocking, fast and slow lanes, discrimination based on price or quality of service and distortion of level playing field. How and whether TRAI is going to do these would be clear in a few months.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/governance-now-pratap-vikram-singh-and-taru-bhatia-january-6-2015-will-india-win-net-neutrality-battle

Facebook Free Basics: Gatekeeping Powers Extend to Manipulating Public Discourse

vidushi — 2016-01-09T13:43:56Z

15 million people have come online through Free Basics, Facebook's zero rated walled garden, in the past year. "If we accept that everyone deserves access to the internet, then we must surely support free basic internet services. Who could possibly be against this?" asks Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, in a recent op-ed defending Free Basics.

The article was published in Catchnews on January 6, 2015. For more info click here.

This rhetorical question however, has elicited a plethora of answers. The network neutrality debate has accelerated over the past few weeks with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) releasing a consultation paper on differential pricing.

While notifications to "Save Free Basics in India" prompt you on Facebook, an enormous backlash against this zero rated service has erupted in India.

The policy objectives that must guide regulating net neutrality are consumer choice, competition, access and openness. Facebook claims that Free Basics is a transition to the full internet and digital equality. However, by acting as a gatekeeper, Facebook gives itself the distinct advantage of deciding what services people can access for free by virtue of them being "basic", thereby violating net neutrality.

Amidst this debate, it's important to think of the impact Facebook can have on manipulating public discourse. In the past, Facebook has used it's powerful News Feed algorithm to significantly shape our consumption of information online.

In July 2014, Facebook researchers revealed that for a week in January 2012, it had altered the news feeds of 689,003 randomly selected Facebook users to control how many positive and negative posts they saw. This was done without their consent as part of a study to test how social media could be used to spread emotions online.

Their research showed that emotions were in fact easily manipulated. Users tended to write posts that were aligned with the mood of their timeline.

Another worrying indication of Facebook's ability to alter discourse was during the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge in July and August, 2014. Users' News Feeds were flooded with videos of individuals pouring a bucket of ice over their head to raise awareness for charitable cause, but not entirely on its merit.

The challenge was Facebook's method of boosting its native video feature which was launched at around the same time. Its News Feed was mostly devoid of any news surrounding riots in Ferguson, Missouri at the same time, which happened to be a trending topic on Twitter.

Each day, the news feed algorithm has to choose roughly 300 posts out of a possible 1500 for each user, which involves much more than just a random selection. The posts you view when you log into Facebook are carefully curated keeping thousands of factors in mind. Each like and comment is a signal to the algorithm about your preferences and interests.

The amount of time you spend on each post is logged and then used to determine which post you are most likely to stop to read. Facebook even keeps into account text that is typed but not posted and makes algorithmic decisions based on them.

It also differentiates between likes - if you like a post before reading it, the news feed automatically assumes that your interest is much fainter as compared to liking a post after spending 10 minutes reading it.

Facebook believes that this is in the best interest of the user, and these factors help users see what he/she will most likely want to engage with. However, this keeps us at the mercy of a gatekeeper who impacts the diversity of information we consume, more often than not without explicit consent. Transparency is key.

(Vidushi Marda is a programme officer at the Centre for Internet and Society)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/catchnews-january-6-2016-vidushi-marda-facebook-free-basics-gatekeeping-powers-extend-to-manipulating-public-discourse

Facebook Free Basics vs Net Neutrality: The top arguments in the debate

praskrishna — 2016-01-07T02:26:16Z

On Twitter, there's a whole conversation around Facebook Free Basics and whether zero-rating platforms should be allowed in India. Here's a look at the debate.

The article was published in the Indian Express on December 31, 2015. Sunil Abraham and Pranesh Prakash were quoted.

Facebook’s Free Basics app, which aims to provide ‘free Internet access’ to users who can’t afford data packs, has run into trouble in India over the last two weeks. After regulator TRAI issued a paper questioning the fairness of zero-rating platforms, it also asked Reliance Communications (the official telecom partner for Free Basics) to put the service on hold.

Facebook on its part has gone for an aggressive campaign, both online and offline, to promote Free Basics and ensure that its platform is not banned permanently. For Net Neutrality activists, zero-rating platforms are in violation of the principle as it restricts access to free, full Internet for users.

On Twitter too, there’s a serious debate unfolding around Free Basics and whether zero-rating platforms should be allowed in India. Here’s a look at some of the prominent voices around this Net Neutrality vs Free Basics debate.

Watch our video

Nikhil Pahwa, founder of news website MediaNama, has been campaigning for quite some time against zero-rating platforms in general and Net Neutrality. On Twitter, Pahwa points out that the problem with the zero-rating apps is that it gives telecos right to play kingmaker, and get into a direct relationship between a website and a user.

Pahwa also wrote a counter-blog to Mark Zuckerberg’s column in The Times of India questioning why Facebook is going with this restricted version of the web on Free Basics, rather than giving access to all websites.

He posted recently on Twitter, “Why hasn’t Facebook tried any model other than on which gives it a competitive advantage?”

Pahwa adds, “With zero rating, telcos insert themselves into a previously direct relationship between a site and user. Some sites made cheaper versus others. Said it earlier, saying it again. Problem with zero rating is that it gives telcos the right to play kingmaker through pricing. So Net Neutrality battle isn’t just about Facebook. It’s about telcos lobbying for differential pricing+revenue share from Internet companies.”

Check out some of this tweets on the issue of Net Neutrality:

Pranesh Prakash, the director for policy at Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) in Bangalore, has said that a total ban might not be the ideal solution and one should look at the platforms on a case by case basis.

He writes on Twitter, “My position: We should ban some zero-rating, allow some zero-rating, and deal w/ middle category either w/ +ve obligation or case-by-case. I’m all for banning Free Basics if it harms people more than it benefits them. I’ve even proposed tests for determining this. The regulator needs more data on a) conversion rates to full-Internet; b) cost of subsidy & c) QoE (speed, etc.) of Free Basics.”

Check out Pranesh's tweets below

Sunil Abraham, executive director at Centre for Internet and Society, has however questioned Free Basics on Twitter. He also posted counter-points to Pranesh’s tweets about data on conversion being used to create regulations around zero-ratings. He’s also called for a ban on Free Basics.

Check out his tweets below

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/indian-express-december-31-2015-facebook-free-basics-vs-net-neutrality-the-top-arguments-in-the-debate

Nasscom against differential pricing for data services

praskrishna — 2016-01-06T15:12:17Z

The National Association of Software and Services Companies says it should be the regulator that decides on such content, not firms.

The article by Moulishree Srivastava was published in Livemint on January 5, 2016. Pranesh Prakash gave inputs.

India’s top software lobby on Monday said if select web content needs to be provided cheaper for some Indians, it must be the regulator that decides on such content, not companies.

In its response to a consultation paper by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on differential pricing for data usage, the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) objected to plans such as Free Basics and Airtel Zero where companies choose content to be provided at different speeds and prices, but backed powers for the regulator to allow such a model if the regulator deems they are in “public interest”, while adhering to principles of net neutrality.

“We strongly oppose any model where telecom service providers (TSPs) or their partners have a say or discretion in choosing content that is made available at favourable rates, speed... any differential pricing by TSP either directly such as Airtel Zero or indirectly as in the case of Free Basics through a platform provider which limits access to the internet services or websites (selected by the TSP or by the partners) violate the idea of net neutrality,” said R. Chandrashekhar, president, Nasscom.

“But when we recognize the reality of India as a country which has low internet penetration and even lower broadband penetration, apart from low levels of digital literacy and limited local language content... there may be a need to provide certain services in public interest at differential or lower prices which the regulator feels are necessary,” he said.

“Therefore, it is important that the regulator should have the power to allow differential pricing for certain types or classes of services that are deemed to be in public interest and based on mandatory prior approvals,” he said. “Any such programmes should abide by the principles of net neutrality and not constrain innovation in any way and not constrain innovation in any way.”

Differential pricing for data usage means offering services at different price points to different users. However, analysts say it could lead to an anti-competitive environment, hurting small companies and start-ups, while giving the TSPs and their partner platforms near-monopolistic access to the vast amount of user data that has potential commercial value in a country such as India where privacy laws are not strong.

Differential pricing is a significant aspect of the net neutrality debate that erupted in India in 2015, when Trai released a consultation paper in April. Soon, telecom operator Bharti Airtel Ltd launched Zero, a marketing platform that allows customers to access mobile applications for free but charges the application providers.

Facebook’s Free Basics service (the new name for Internet.org) aims to offer people without the Internet free access to a handful of websites and a range of services through mobile phones, which net neutrality activists say will violate the core principle that everyone should have unrestricted access to Internet and it should not be regulated by a company.

Following the outrage, Trai put Free Basics on hold, asking Reliance Communications Ltd to furnish the detailed terms and conditions of its Free Basics service. The next step will be announced later this month.

In an op-ed in the Times of India last week, Nandan Nilekani, co-founder of Infosys Ltd. and former chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India, publicly criticized Facebook’s Free Basics, calling it a walled garden.

“The walled garden of Free Basics goes against the spirit of openness on the internet, and in the guise of being pro-poor, balkanises it. Only Free Basics-approved websites will be accessible for free,” he said in the article which he co-authored with Viral Shah who led the design of government’s subsidy platforms using Aadhaar. “In theory, anyone meeting the technical guidelines today can participate. However, services that may potentially compete with telco offerings may not join Free Basics. Since Facebook does not currently subsidise free usage, telcos will have to foot the bill by raising prices.”

He said schemes such as direct benefit transfer for Internet data packs would be better compared to programmes such as Free Basics.

Nasscom, in its response, recommended “mandatory prior approval of such services by the regulator and sharing of periodic information on tariff plans seek to lower the price as well as zero rating services,” adding that these programmes should abide by the principle of net neutrality, meaning it should not limit consumers access to pre-defined set of services or websites.

“Any such differential pricing programs should have explicit approval of the regulator—and should be deemed to be in the public interest and the onus of proving it to be in the public interest in the first instance would be on service provider and before Trai arrives at a final decision a public consultation is also advised because of the dangers involved,” Nasscom said. “Even after the approval, suitable oversight mechanism should be maintained by the regulator in all such case.”

Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), said Nasscom’s approach to make differential pricing plans and options as an exception rather than the rule was quite reasonable. “It says that if differential pricing services adhere to the guidelines of being non-discriminatory, non-anti-competitive, non-predatory, non-ambiguous and transparent, they can be allowed under the supervision of the regulator, which is similar to the position adopted by CIS,” he said.

“Though some of their positions are ambiguous—for instance what they mean by non-discriminatory, and whether they are okay with differential pricing between classes of applications, are unclear—and some of their recommendations increase regulatory complexity, such as their proposal for independent not-for-profit entities with independent boards to own and manage such differential pricing programs, by and large it is a useful submission,” Prakash added.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/livemint-moulishree-srivastava-january-5-2016-nasscom-against-differential-pricing-for-data-services

Consultation on "Understanding the Freedom of Expression Online and Offline"

praskrishna — 2016-01-03T10:27:08Z

The event organized by Digital Empowerment Foundation and Association for Progressive Communications was held at YMCA, New Delhi on December 10, 2015. Jyoti Panday attended the event as a speaker. She covered imposition of legitimate expression specifically in the context of intermediary liability practices in India.

The sessions were divided as under:

Welcome & Overview of the consultation by Digital Empowerment Foundation
Launch of the Country Research Report & Keynote Address
Introducing the Country Research Report titled “Limited Access and Restricting Expression by Osama Manzar, Founder and Director, Digital Empowerment Foundation
Working Session I: Understanding the “Freedom of Expression Online and Offline” in conversation with experts
Working Session II: “Unboxing the Freedom of Expression Online & Offline”
Sub-Group Presentations
Concluding Remarks

Download the Agenda here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/consultation-on-understanding-the-freedom-of-expression-online-and-offline

The Humpty-Dumpty Censorship of Television in India

bhairav — 2015-11-29T08:37:53Z

The Modi government’s attack on Sathiyam TV is another manifestation of the Indian state’s paranoia of the medium of film and television, and consequently, the irrational controlling impulse of the law.

The article originally published in the Wire on September 8, 2015 was also mirrored on the website Free Speech/Privacy/Technology.

It is tempting to think of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting’s (MIB) attack on Sathiyam TV solely as another authoritarian exhibition of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government’s intolerance of criticism and dissent. It certainly is. But it is also another manifestation of the Indian state’s paranoia of the medium of film and television, and consequently, the irrational controlling impulse of the law.

Sathiyam TV’s transgressions

Sathiyam’s transgressions began more than a year ago, on May 9, 2014, when it broadcast a preacher saying of an unnamed person: “Oh Lord! Remove this satanic person from the world!” The preacher also allegedly claimed this “dreadful person” was threatening Christianity. This, the MIB reticently claims, “appeared to be targeting a political leader”, referring presumably to Prime Minister Modi, to “potentially give rise to a communally sensitive situation and incite the public to violent tendencies.”

The MIB was also offended by a “senior journalist” who, on the same day, participated in a non-religious news discussion to allegedly claim Modi “engineered crowds at his rallies” and used “his oratorical skills to make people believe his false statements”. According to the MIB, this was defamatory and “appeared to malign and slander the Prime Minister which was repugnant to (his) esteemed office”.

For these two incidents, Sathiyam was served a show-cause notice on 16 December 2014 which it responded to the next day, denying the MIB’s claims. Sathiyam was heard in-person by a committee of bureaucrats on 6 February 2015. On 12 May 2015, the MIB handed Sathiyam an official an official “Warning” which appears to be unsupported by law. Sathiyam moved the Delhi High Court to challenge this.

As Sathiyam sought judicial protection, the MIB issued the channel a second warning August 26, 2016 citing three more objectionable news broadcasts of: a child being subjected to cruelty by a traditional healer in Assam; a gun murder inside a government hospital in Madhya Pradesh; and, a self-immolating man rushing the dais at a BJP rally in Telangana. All three news items were carried by other news channels and websites.

Governing communications

Most news providers use multiple media to transmit their content and suffer from complex and confusing regulation. Cable television is one such medium, so is the Internet; both media swiftly evolve to follow technological change. As the law struggles to keep up, governmental anxiety at the inability to perfectly control this vast field of speech and expression frequently expresses itself through acts of overreach and censorship.

In the newly-liberalised media landscape of the early 1990s, cable television sprang up in a legal vacuum. Doordarshan, the sole broadcaster, flourished in the Centre’s constitutionally-sanctioned monopoly of broadcasting which was only broken by the Supreme Court in 1995. The same year, Parliament enacted the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 (“Cable TV Act”) to create a licence regime to control cable television channels. The Cable TV Act is supplemented by the Cable Television Network Rules, 1994 (“Cable Rules”).

The state’s disquiet with communications technology is a recurring motif in modern Indian history. When the first telegraph line was laid in India, the colonial state was quick to recognize its potential for transmitting subversive speech and responded with strict controls. The fourth iteration of the telegraph law represents the colonial government’s perfection of the architecture of control. This law is the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, which continues to dominate communications governance in India today including, following a directive in 2004, broadcasting.

Vague and arbitrary law

The Cable TV Act requires cable news channels such as Sathiyam to obey a list of restrictions on content that is contained in the Cable Rules (“Programme Code“). Failure to conform to the Programme Code can result in seizure of equipment and imprisonment; but, more importantly, creates the momentum necessary to invoke the broad powers of censorship to ban a programme, channel, or even the cable operator. But the Programme Code is littered with vague phrases and undefined terms that can mean anything the government wants them to mean.

By its first warning of May 12, 2015, the MIB claimed Sathiyam violated four rules in the Programme Code. These include rule 6(1)(c) which bans visuals or words “which promote communal attitudes”; rule 6(1)(d) which bans “deliberate, false and suggestive innuendos and half-truths”; rule 6(1)(e) which bans anything “which promotes anti-national attitudes”; and, rule 6(1)(i) which bans anything that “criticises, maligns or slanders any…person or…groups, segments of social, public and moral life of the country” (sic).

The rest of the Programme Code is no less imprecise. It proscribes content that “offends against good taste” and “reflects a slandering, ironical and snobbish attitude” against communities. On the face of it, several provisions of the Programme Code travel beyond the permissible restrictions on free speech listed in Article 19(2) of the Constitution to question their validity. The fiasco of implementing the vague provisions of the erstwhile section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 is a recent reminder of the dangers presented by poorly-drafted censorship law – which is why it was struck down by the Supreme Court for infringing the right to free speech. The Programme Code is an older creation, it has simply evaded scrutiny for two decades.

The arbitrariness of the Programme Code is amplified manifold by the authorities responsible for interpreting and implementing it. An Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) of bureaucrats, supposedly a recommendatory body, interprets the Programme Code before the MIB takes action against channels. This is an executive power of censorship that must survive legal and constitutional scrutiny, but has never been subjected to it. Curiously, the courts have shied away from a proper analysis of the Programme Code and the IMC.

Judicial challenges

In 2011, a single judge of the Delhi High Court in the Star India case (2011) was asked to examine the legitimacy of the IMC as well as four separate clauses of the Programme Code including rule 6(1)(i), which has been invoked against Sathiyam. But the judge neatly sidestepped the issues. This feat of judicial adroitness was made possible by the crass indecency of the content in question, which could be reasonably restricted. Since the show clearly attracted at least one ground of legitimate censorship, the judge saw no cause to examine the other provisions of the Programme Code or even the composition of the IMC.

This judicial restraint has proved detrimental. In May 2013, another single judge of the Delhi High Court, who was asked by Comedy Central to adjudge the validity of the IMC’s decision-making process, relied on Star India (2011) to uphold the MIB’s action against the channel. The channel’s appeal to the Supreme Court is currently pending. If the Supreme Court decides to examine the validity of the IMC, the Delhi High Court may put aside Sathiyam’s petition to wait for legal clarity.

As it happens, in the Shreya Singhal case (2015) that struck down section 66A of the IT Act, the Supreme Court has an excellent precedent to follow to demand clarity and precision from the Programme Code, perhaps even strike it down, as well as due process from the MIB. On the accusation of defaming the Prime Minister, probably the only clearly stated objection by the MIB, the Supreme Court’s past law is clear: public servants cannot, for non-personal acts, claim defamation.

Censorship by blunt force

Beyond the IMC’s advisories and warnings, the Cable TV Act contains two broad powers of censorship. The first empowerment in section 19 enables a government official to ban any programme or channel if it fails to comply with the Programme Code or, “if it is likely to promote, on grounds of religion, race, language, caste or community or any other ground whatsoever, disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will between different religious, racial, linguistic or regional groups or castes or communities or which is likely to disturb the public tranquility.”

The second empowerment is much wider. Section 20 of the Cable TV Act permits the Central Government to ban an entire cable television operator, as opposed to a single channel or programmes within channels, if it “thinks it necessary or expedient so to do in public interest”. No reasons need be given and no grounds need be considered. Such a blunt use of force creates an overwhelming power of censorship. It is not a coincidence that section 20 resembles some provisions of nineteenth-century telegraph laws, which were designed to enable the colonial state to control the flow of information to its native subjects.

A manual for television bans

Film and television have always attracted political attention and state censorship. In 1970, Justice Hidayatullah of the Supreme Court explained why: “It has been almost universally recognised that the treatment of motion pictures must be different from that of other forms of art and expression. This arises from the instant appeal of the motion picture… The motion picture is able to stir up emotions more deeply than any other product of art.”

Within this historical narrative of censorship, television regulation is relatively new. Past governments have also been quick to threaten censorship for attacking an incumbent Prime Minister. There seems to be a pan-governmental consensus that senior political leaders ought to be beyond reproach, irrespective of their words and deeds.

But on what grounds could the state justify these bans? Lord Atkins’ celebrated war-time dissent in Liversidge (1941) offers an unlikely answer:

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’”

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-wire-bhairav-acharya-humpty-dumpty-censorship-of-tv-in-india

Summary Report Internet Governance Forum 2015

jyoti — 2015-11-30T10:47:13Z

Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), India participated in the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) held at Poeta Ronaldo Cunha Lima Conference Center, Joao Pessoa in Brazil from 10 November 2015 to 13 November 2015. The theme of IGF 2015 was ‘Evolution of Internet Governance: Empowering Sustainable Development’. Sunil Abraham, Pranesh Prakash & Jyoti Panday from CIS actively engaged and made substantive contributions to several key issues affecting internet governance at the IGF 2015. The issue-wise detail of their engagement is set out below.

INTERNET GOVERNANCE

I. The Multi-stakeholder Advisory Group to the IGF organised a discussion on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Internet Economy at the Main Meeting Hall from 9:00 am to 12:30 pm on 11 November, 2015. The discussions at this session focused on the importance of Internet Economy enabling policies and eco-system for the fulfilment of different SDGs. Several concerns relating to internet entrepreneurship, effective ICT capacity building, protection of intellectual property within and across borders were availability of local applications and content were addressed. The panel also discussed the need to identify SDGs where internet based technologies could make the most effective contribution. Sunil Abraham contributed to the panel discussions by addressing the issue of development and promotion of local content and applications. List of speakers included:

Lenni Montiel, Assistant-Secretary-General for Development, United Nations
Helani Galpaya, CEO LIRNEasia
Sergio Quiroga da Cunha, Head of Latin America, Ericsson
Raúl L. Katz, Adjunct Professor, Division of Finance and Economics, Columbia Institute of Tele-information
Jimson Olufuye, Chairman, Africa ICT Alliance (AfICTA)
Lydia Brito, Director of the Office in Montevideo, UNESCO
H.E. Rudiantara, Minister of Communication & Information Technology, Indonesia
Daniel Sepulveda, Deputy Assistant Secretary, U.S. Coordinator for International and Communications Policy at the U.S. Department of State
Deputy Minister Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services for the republic of South Africa
Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Centre for Internet and Society, India
H.E. Junaid Ahmed Palak, Information and Communication Technology Minister of Bangladesh
Jari Arkko, Chairman, IETF
Silvia Rabello, President, Rio Film Trade Association
Gary Fowlie, Head of Member State Relations & Intergovernmental Organizations, ITU

Detailed description of the workshop is available here http ://www .intgovforum .org /cms /igf 2015-main -sessions

Transcript of the workshop is available here http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/187-igf-2015/transcripts-igf-2015/2327-2015-11-11-internet-economy-and-sustainable-development-main-meeting-room

Video link Internet economy and Sustainable Development here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6obkLehVE8

II. Public Knowledge organised a workshop on The Benefits and Challenges of the Free Flow of Data at Workshop Room 5 from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm on 12 November, 2015. The discussions in the workshop focused on the benefits and challenges of the free flow of data and also the concerns relating to data flow restrictions including ways to address them. Sunil Abraham contributed to the panel discussions by addressing the issue of jurisdiction of data on the internet. The panel for the workshop included the following.

Vint Cerf, Google
Lawrence Strickling, U.S. Department of Commerce, NTIA
Richard Leaning, European Cyber Crime Centre (EC3), Europol
Marietje Schaake, European Parliament
Nasser Kettani, Microsoft
Sunil Abraham, CIS India

Detailed description of the workshop is available here http ://www .intgovforum .org /cms /workshops /list -of -published -workshop -proposals

Transcript of the workshop is available here http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/187-igf-2015/transcripts-igf-2015/2467-2015-11-12-ws65-the-benefits-and-challenges-of-the-free-flow-of-data-workshop-room-5

Video link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtjnHkOn7EQ

III. Article 19 and Privacy International organised a workshop on Encryption and Anonymity: Rights and Risks at Workshop Room 1 from 11:00 am to 12:30 pm on 12 November, 2015. The workshop fostered a discussion about the latest challenges to protection of anonymity and encryption and ways in which law enforcement demands could be met while ensuring that individuals still enjoyed strong encryption and unfettered access to anonymity tools. Pranesh Prakash contributed to the panel discussions by addressing concerns about existing south Asian regulatory framework on encryption and anonymity and emphasizing the need for pervasive encryption. The panel for this workshop included the following.

David Kaye, UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression
Juan Diego Castañeda, Fundación Karisma, Colombia
Edison Lanza, Organisation of American States Special Rapporteur
Pranesh Prakash, CIS India
Ted Hardie, Google
Elvana Thaci, Council of Europe
Professor Chris Marsden, Oxford Internet Institute
Alexandrine Pirlot de Corbion, Privacy International

Detailed description of the workshop is available here http ://www .intgovforum .org /cms /worksh o ps /list -of -published -workshop -proposals

Transcript of the workshop is available here http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/187-igf-2015/transcripts-igf-2015/2407-2015-11-12-ws-155-encryption-and-anonymity-rights-and-risks-workshop-room-1

Video link available here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUrBP4PsfJo

IV. Chalmers & Associates organised a session on A Dialogue on Zero Rating and Network Neutrality at the Main Meeting Hall from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm on 12 November, 2015. The Dialogue provided access to expert insight on zero-rating and a full spectrum of diverse views on this issue. The Dialogue also explored alternative approaches to zero rating such as use of community networks. Pranesh Prakash provided a detailed explanation of harms and benefits related to different approaches to zero-rating. The panellists for this session were the following.

Jochai Ben-Avie, Senior Global Policy Manager, Mozilla, USA
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
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, CIS 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

Detailed description of the workshop is available here http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/igf2015-main-sessions

Transcript of the workshop is available here http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/187-igf-2015/transcripts-igf-2015/2457-2015-11-12-a-dialogue-on-zero-rating-and-network-neutrality-main-meeting-hall-2

V. The Internet & Jurisdiction Project organised a workshop on Transnational Due Process: A Case Study in MS Cooperation at Workshop Room 4 from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm on 13 November, 2015. The workshop discussion focused on the challenges in developing an enforcement framework for the internet that guarantees transnational due process and legal interoperability. The discussion also focused on innovative approaches to multi-stakeholder cooperation such as issue-based networks, inter-sessional work methods and transnational policy standards. The panellists for this discussion were the following.

Anne Carblanc Head of Division, Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry, OECD
Eileen Donahoe Director Global Affairs, Human Rights Watch
Byron Holland President and CEO, CIRA (Canadian ccTLD)
Christopher Painter Coordinator for Cyber Issues, US Department of State
Sunil Abraham Executive Director, CIS India
Alice Munyua Lead dotAfrica Initiative and GAC representative, African Union Commission
Will Hudsen Senior Advisor for International Policy, Google
Dunja Mijatovic Representative on Freedom of the Media, OSCE
Thomas Fitschen Director for the United Nations, for International Cooperation against Terrorism and for Cyber Foreign Policy, German Federal Foreign Office
Hartmut Glaser Executive Secretary, Brazilian Internet Steering Committee
Matt Perault, Head of Policy Development Facebook

Detailed description of the workshop is available here http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/workshops/list-of-published-workshop-proposals

Transcript of the workshop is available here http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/187-igf-2015/transcripts-igf-2015/2475-2015-11-13-ws-132-transnational-due-process-a-case-study-in-ms-cooperation-workshop-room-4

Video link Transnational Due Process: A Case Study in MS Cooperation available here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9jVovhQhd0

VI. The Internet Governance Project organised a meeting of the Dynamic Coalition on Accountability of Internet Governance Venues at Workshop Room 2 from 14:00 – 15:30 on 12 November, 2015. The coalition brought together panelists to highlight the challenges in developing an accountability framework for internet governance venues that include setting up standards and developing a set of concrete criteria. Jyoti Panday provided the perspective of civil society on why acountability is necessary in internet governance processes and organizations. The panelists for this workshop included the following.

Robin Gross, IP Justice
Jeanette Hofmann, Director Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society
Farzaneh Badiei, Internet Governance Project
Erika Mann, Managing Director Public PolicyPolicy Facebook and Board of Directors ICANN
Paul Wilson, APNIC
Izumi Okutani, Japan Network Information Center (JPNIC)
Keith Drazek , Verisign
Jyoti Panday, CIS
Jorge Cancio, GAC representative

Detailed description of the workshop is available here http://igf2015.sched.org/event/4c23/dynamic-coalition-on-accountability-of-internet-governance-venues?iframe=no&w=&sidebar=yes&bg=no

Video link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIxyGhnch7w

VII. Digital Infrastructure Netherlands Foundation organized an open forum at Workshop Room 3 from 11:00 – 12:00 on 10 November, 2015. The open forum discussed the increase in government engagement with “the internet” to protect their citizens against crime and abuse and to protect economic interests and critical infrastructures. It brought together panelists topresent ideas about an agenda for the international protection of ‘the public core of the internet’ and to collect and discuss ideas for the formulation of norms and principles and for the identification of practical steps towards that goal. Pranesh Prakash participated in the e open forum. Other speakers included

Bastiaan Goslings AMS-IX, NL
Pranesh Prakash CIS, India
Marilia Maciel (FGV, Brasil
Dennis Broeders (NL Scientific Council for Government Policy)

Detailed description of the open forum is available here http://schd.ws/hosted_files/igf2015/3d/DINL_IGF_Open%20Forum_The_public_core_of_the_internet.pdf

Video link available here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joPQaMQasDQ

VIII. UNESCO, Council of Europe, Oxford University, Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, Google, Internet Society organised a workshop on hate speech and youth radicalisation at Room 9 on Thursday, November 12. UNESCO shared the initial outcome from its commissioned research on online hate speech including practical recommendations on combating against online hate speech through understanding the challenges, mobilizing civil society, lobbying private sectors and intermediaries and educating individuals with media and information literacy. The workshop also discussed how to help empower youth to address online radicalization and extremism, and realize their aspirations to contribute to a more peaceful and sustainable world. Sunil Abraham provided his inputs. Other speakers include

1. Chaired by Ms Lidia Brito, Director for UNESCO Office in Montevideo

2.Frank La Rue, Former Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression

3. Lillian Nalwoga, President ISOC Uganda and rep CIPESA, Technical community

4. Bridget O’Loughlin, CoE, IGO

5. Gabrielle Guillemin, Article 19

6. Iyad Kallas, Radio Souriali

7. Sunil Abraham executive director of Center for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India

8. Eve Salomon, global Chairman of the Regulatory Board of RICS

9. Javier Lesaca Esquiroz, University of Navarra

10. Representative GNI

11. Remote Moderator: Xianhong Hu, UNESCO

12. Rapporteur: Guilherme Canela De Souza Godoi, UNESCO

Detailed description of the workshop is available here http://igf2015.sched.org/event/4c1X/ws-128-mitigate-online-hate-speech-and-youth-radicalisation?iframe=no&w=&sidebar=yes&bg=no

Video link to the panel is available here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIO1z4EjRG0

INTERMEDIARY LIABILITY

IX. Electronic Frontier Foundation, Centre for Internet Society India, Open Net Korea and Article 19 collaborated to organize a workshop on the Manila Principles on Intermediary Liability at Workshop Room 9 from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm on 13 November 2015. The workshop elaborated on the Manila Principles, a high level principle framework of best practices and safeguards for content restriction practices and addressing liability for intermediaries for third party content. The workshop saw particpants engaged in over lapping projects considering restriction practices coming togetehr to give feedback and highlight recent developments across liability regimes. Jyoti Panday laid down the key details of the Manila Principles framework in this session. The panelists for this workshop included the following.

Kelly Kim Open Net Korea,
Jyoti Panday, CIS India,
Gabrielle Guillemin, Article 19,
Rebecca McKinnon on behalf of UNESCO
Giancarlo Frosio, Center for Internet and Society, Stanford Law School
Nicolo Zingales, Tilburg University
Will Hudson, Google

Detailed description of the workshop is available here http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/workshops/list-of-published-workshop-proposals

Transcript of the workshop is available here http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/187-igf-2015/transcripts-igf-2015/2423-2015-11-13-ws-242-the-manila-principles-on-intermediary-liability-workshop-room-9

Video link available here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFLmzxXodjs

ACCESSIBILITY

X. Dynamic Coalition on Accessibility and Disability and Global Initiative for Inclusive ICTs organised a workshop on Empowering the Next Billion by Improving Accessibility at Workshop Room 6 from 9:00 am to 10:30 am on 13 November, 2015. The discussion focused on the need and ways to remove accessibility barriers which prevent over one billion potential users to benefit from the Internet, including for essential services. Sunil Abraham specifically spoke about the lack of compliance of existing ICT infrastructure with well established accessibility standards specifically relating to accessibility barriers in the disaster management process. He discussed the barriers faced by persons with physical or psychosocial disabilities. The panelists for this discussion were the following.

Francesca Cesa Bianchi, G3ICT
Cid Torquato, Government of Brazil
Carlos Lauria, Microsoft Brazil
Sunil Abraham, CIS India
Derrick L. Cogburn, Institute on Disability and Public Policy (IDPP) for the ASEAN(Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Region
Fernando H. F. Botelho, F123 Consulting
Gunela Astbrink, GSA InfoComm

Detailed description of the workshop is available here http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/workshops/list-of-published-workshop-proposals

Transcript of the workshop is available here http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/187-igf-2015/transcripts-igf-2015/2438-2015-11-13-ws-253-empowering-the-next-billion-by-improving-accessibility-workshop-room-3

Video Link Empowering the next billion by improving accessibility https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RZlWvJAXxs

OPENNESS

XI. A workshop on FOSS & a Free, Open Internet: Synergies for Development was organized at Workshop Room 7 from 2:00 pm to 3:30 pm on 13 November, 2015. The discussion was focused on the increasing risk to openness of the internet and the ability of present & future generations to use technology to improve their lives. The panel shred different perspectives about the future co-development of FOSS and a free, open Internet; the threats that are emerging; and ways for communities to surmount these. Sunil Abraham emphasised the importance of free software, open standards, open access and access to knowledge and the lack of this mandate in the draft outcome document for upcoming WSIS+10 review and called for inclusion of the same. Pranesh Prakash further contributed to the discussion by emphasizing the need for free open source software with end‑to‑end encryption and traffic level encryption based on open standards which are decentralized and work through federated networks. The panellists for this discussion were the following.

Satish Babu, Technical Community, Chair, ISOC-TRV, Kerala, India
Judy Okite, Civil Society, FOSS Foundation for Africa
Mishi Choudhary, Private Sector, Software Freedom Law Centre, New York
Fernando Botelho, Private Sector, heads F123 Systems, Brazil
Sunil Abraham, CIS India
Pranesh Prakash, CIS India
Nnenna Nwakanma- WWW.Foundation
Yves MIEZAN EZO, Open Source strategy consultant
Corinto Meffe, Advisor to the President and Directors, SERPRO, Brazil
Frank Coelho de Alcantara, Professor, Universidade Positivo, Brazil
Caroline Burle, Institutional and International Relations, W3C Brazil Office and Center of Studies on Web Technologies

Detailed description of the workshop is available here http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/workshops/list-of-published-workshop-proposals

Transcript of the workshop is available here http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/187-igf-2015/transcripts-igf-2015/2468-2015-11-13-ws10-foss-and-a-free-open-internet-synergies-for-development-workshop-room-7

Video link available here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwUq0LTLnDs

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/summary-report-internet-governance-forum-2015

Dadri reopens debate on online hate speech

praskrishna — 2015-10-11T05:42:02Z

The friction between free speech and hate speech has become newly intense because of social media. Twitter reflected the turmoil after the lynching of Mohammed Akhlaq in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, when some tweets justified the murder as a legitimate reaction against cow-slaughter, trending the hashtag #cowmurderers.

The article by Amulya Gopalakrishnan was published in the Times of India on October 9, 2015. Pranesh Prakash gave inputs.

"Jo bhi gau ka mans khaye, use aur uske parivar ko turant maar do (those who eat beef should be killed along with their families)" is just one example of the kind of tweets that got an FIR filed against the handle. The UP police also booked a person for spreading inflammatory rumours about cow-smugglers killing a police officer.

Their comrades immediately alleged censorship, and various profiles with pictures of weapon-brandishing deities rallied under hashtags of support. Taslima Nasreen summed up their grievance, claiming that "free speech allows hate tweets".

There are, of course reasonable restrictions to free speech when it looks likely to spiral into violence, what a 1989 Supreme Court judgment called a "spark in a powder keg" situation. The IPC has Section 153A, 153B, 295 and 505 and more, which curb speech that promotes enmity between groups on the basis of religion, race, place, birth or language, defiles places of worship, insults religious sentiments, creates public mischief and so on. But social media presents an almost daily dilemma, and makes it clear that it is time for more discriminating decisions on what kinds of extreme speech can be gagged. As the SC judgment knocking down the over-broad Section 66A of the IT Act noted, discussion and advocacy , however, hateful or prejudiced, are not incitement.

All hate speech seeks to sharpen tensions, but not all such speech is equally damaging. As Pranesh Prakash, policy director of the Centre for Internet and Society , Bangalore, puts it, "freedom of speech operates within fields of power".Hate speech either aims to taunt and diminish a minority, or tell others in an in-group that their feelings are shared.Different countries make their own judgment calls as they balance these two values, both fundamental to a democracy: free expression and the defence of human dignity and inclusion.

Internet intermediaries, ISPs or powerful private corporations like Twitter and Facebook, have to comply with court orders and official government requests, but they are not always on the same page about unacceptable content. For a company like Twitter, for instance, the need to preserve individual voices, however discordant, is more valuable than the need to create a more perfect public sphere. It advised offended users to simply block controversial content, though recently , it has begun to consider "direct, repeated attacks on an individual" a potential violation too.

Susan Benesch, of Harvard University's Berkman Center, has suggested a framework to identify a dangerous speech act, which factors in the profile of the speaker, the emotional state of the audience, the content of the speech itself as a call to action, the social context in which it occurs, and the means used to spread it.

The UP police has a social media lab to track and scotch rumours. "That's how we recently busted a false story about a khap panchayat ordering gangrapes," says a UP police official who did not wish to be named. Rather than appealing to the social media company for takedowns -an onerous process, and one where provocations are often difficult to explain -it is easier to find and deal with the source of the content, he says. One can identify problematic material either by location or keywords, says Ponnurangam K, assistant professor at IIIT, Delhi, who has developed the social network analytics tool used by UP police. Given the speed and scale of the internet and the volume of user-generated content, legal curbs cannot be invoked for every instance of hate speech. "It is far more feasible to monitor these rumours and take preventive action on the ground, where the harm is likely to be felt, and to use the same medium to counter the rumours with truth," says Prakash. Social media was assumed to have responsible for spreading the 2011 riots in the UK, but it turned out to be even more effective in stemming the contagion, righting rumours and helping law enforcers.

During the 2013 general election in Kenya, the Umati project trawled social media for trending hate content and tried to counter its effects by exposing and shunning those advocating violence. A repository called Hatebase tries to identify local words and phrases that indicate brewing trouble, to make it easier to find the active signals of threat from the low-level hum -repeated references to cow meat in India, or "sakkiliya", a Sinhala word to disparage Tamils in Sri Lanka.

"The government should work with platforms to find the nodes of dangerous speech, to counter them, and support campaigns for those victimised," says Chinmayi Arun, research director of the Centre for Communication Governance at the National Law University, Delhi, who is leading a three-year project on online hate speech, in collaboration with the Berkman Center.

It is far more effective to boost media literacy, help people sniff out bias and propaganda, understand how photos can be morphed and fake videos passed off as real. "Law enforcers need the imagination and patience to develop these strategies, rather than try to censor controversial speech wherever possible," she says.

Of course, when IT cells of political parties are the fount of the most of these excitable handles, that's easier said than done.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-times-of-india-amulya-gopalakrishnan-october-9-2015-dadri-reopens-debate-on-online-hate-speech

The Legal Validity of Internet Bans: Part II

Geetha Hariharan and Padmini Baruah — 2015-10-08T11:17:24Z

In recent months, there has been a spree of bans on access to Internet services in Indian states, for different reasons. The State governments have relied on Section 144, Code of Criminal Procedure 1973 to institute such bans. Despite a legal challenge, the Gujarat High Court found no infirmity in this exercise of power in a recent order. We argue that it is Section 69A of the Information Technology Act 2000, and the Website Blocking Rules, which set out the legal provision and procedure empowering the State to block access to the Internet (if at all it is necessary), and not Section 144, CrPC.

As we saw earlier, the Gujarat High Court held that Section 144, CrPC empowers the State apparatus to order blocking of access to data services. According to the Court, Section 69A, IT Act can be used to block certain websites, while under Section 144, CrPC, the District Magistrate can direct telecom companies like Vodafone and Airtel, who extend the facility of Internet access. In effect, the High Court agreed with the State government’s argument that the scope of Section 69A, IT Act covers only blocking of certain websites, while Section 144, CrPC grants a wider power.

This is what the Court said (para 9 of the order):

“If the comparison of both the sections in the field of operations is made, barring certain minor overlapping more particularly for public order [sic], one can say that the area of operation of Section 69A is not the same as that of Section 144 of the Code. Section 69A may in a given case also be exercised for blocking certain websites, whereas under Section 144 of the Code, directions may be issued to certain persons who may be the source for extending the facility of internet access. Under the circumstances, we do not find that the contention raised on behalf of the petitioner that the resort to only Section 69A was available and exercise of power under Section 144 of the Code was unavailable, can be accepted.” (emphases ours)

We submit that the High Court’s reasoning failed to examine the scope of Section 69A, IT Act thoroughly. Section 69A does, in fact, empower the government to order blocking of access to data services, and it is a special law. Importantly, it sets forth a procedure that State governments, union territories and the Central Governments must follow to order blocks on websites or data services.

I. Special Law Prevails Over General Law

The IT Act, 2000 is a special law dealing with matters relating to the Internet, including offences and security measures. The CrPC is a general law of criminal procedure.

When a special law and a general law cover the same subject, then the special law supersedes the general law. This is a settled legal principle. Several decisions of the Supreme Court attest to this fact. To take an example, in Maya Mathew v. State of Kerala, (2010) 3 SCR 16 (18 February 2010), when there was a contention between the Special Rules for Kerala State Homoeopathy Services and the general Rules governing state and subordinate services. The Supreme Court held that when a special law and a general law both govern a matter, the Court should try to interpret them harmoniously as far as possible. But if the intention of the legislature is that one law should prevail over another, and this intention is made clear expressly or impliedly, then the Court should give effect to this intention.

On the basis of this principle, let’s take a look at the IT Act, 2000. Section 81, IT Act expressly states that the provisions of the IT Act shall have overriding effect, notwithstanding anything inconsistent with any other law in force. Moreover, in the Statement of Objects and Reasons of the IT (Amendment) Bill, 2006, the legislature clearly notes that amendments inserting offences and security measures into the IT Act are necessary given the proliferation of the Internet and e-transactions, and the rising number of offences. These indicate expressly the legislature’s intention for the IT Act to prevail over general laws like the CrPC in matters relating to the Internet.

Now, we will examine whether the IT Act empowers the Central and State governments to carry out complete blocks on access to the Internet or data services, in the event of emergencies. If the IT Act does cover such a situation, then the CrPC should not be used to block data services. Instead, the IT Act and its Rules should be invoked.

II. Section 69A, IT Act Allows Blocks on Internet Access

Section 69A(1), IT Act says:

“Where the Central Government or any of its officer specially authorised by it in this behalf is satisfied that it is necessary or expedient so to do, in the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States or public order or for preventing incitement to the commission of any cognizable offence relating to above, it may subject to the provisions of sub-section (2) for reasons to be recorded in writing, by order, direct any agency of the Government or intermediary to block for access by the public or cause to be blocked for access by the public any information generated, transmitted, received, stored or hosted in any computer resource.” (emphasis ours)

Essentially, Section 69A says that the government can block (or cause to be blocked) for access by the public, any information generated, transmitted, etc. in any computer resource, if the government is satisfied that such a measure is in the interests of public order.

Does this section allow the government to institute bans on Internet access in Gujarat? To determine this, we will examine each underlined term from above.

Access: Section 2(1)(a), IT Act defines access as “...gaining entry into, instructing or communicating with… resources of a computer, computer system or computer network”.

Computer resource: Section 2(1)(k), IT Act defines computer resource as “computer, computer system, computer network...”

Information: Section 2(1)(v), IT Act defines information as “includes… data, message, text, images, sound, voice...”

So ‘blocking for access’ under Section 69A includes preventing gaining entry or communicating with the resources of a computer, computer system or computer network, and it includes blocking communication of data, message, text, images, sound, etc. Now two questions arise:

(1) Do 2G and 3G services, broadband and Wifi fall within the definition of ‘computer network’?

Computer network: Section 2(1)(j), IT Act defines computer network as “inter-connection of one or more computers or computer systems or communication device…” by “...use of satellite, microwave, terrestrial line, wire, wireless or other communication media”.

(2) Do mobile phones that can connect to the Internet (we say smartphones for simplicity) qualify as fall within the definition of ‘computer resource’?

Communication device: Section 2(1)(ha), IT Act defines communication device as “cell phones, personal digital assistance or combination of both or any other device used to communicate, send or transmit any text, video, audio or image”.

So a cell phone is a communication device. A computer network is an inter-connection of communication devices by wire or wireless connections. A computer network is a computer resource also. Blocking of access under Section 69A, IT Act includes, therefore, gaining entry into or communicating with the resources of a computer network, which is an interconnection of communication devices, including smartphones. Add to this, the fact that any information (data, message, text, images, sound, voice) can be blocked, and the conclusion seems clear.

The power to block access to Internet services (including data services) can be found within Section 69A, IT Act itself, the special law enacted to cover matters relating to the Internet. Not only this, the IT Act envisages emergency situations when blocking powers may need to be invoked.

III. Section 69A Permits Blocking in Emergency Situations

Section 69A, IT Act doesn’t act in isolation. The Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009 (“Blocking Rules”) operate together with Section 69A(1).

Rule 9 of the Blocking Rules deals with blocking of information in cases of emergency. It says that in cases of emergency, when “no delay is acceptable”, the Designated Officer (DO) shall examine the request for blocking. If it is within the scope of Section 69A(1) (i.e., within the grounds of public order, etc.), then the DO can submit the request to the Secretary, Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY). If the Secretary is satisfied of the need to block during the emergency, then he may issue a reasoned order for blocking, in writing as an interim measure. The intermediaries do not need to be heard in such a situation.

After a blocking order is issued during an urgent situation, the DO must bring the blocking request to the Committee for Examination of Request constituted under Rule 7, Blocking Rules. There is also a review process, by a Review Committee that meets every two months to evaluate whether blocking directions are in compliance with Section 69A(1) [Rule 14].

We submit, therefore, that the Gujarat High Court erred in holding that Section 144, CrPC is the correct legal provision to enable Internet bans. Not only does Section 69A, IT Act cover blocking of access to Internet services, but it also envisages blocking in emergency situations. As a special law for matters surrounding the Internet, Section 69A should prevail over the general law provision of Section 144, CrPC.

Acknowledgements: We would like to thank Pranesh Prakash, Japreet Grewal, Sahana Manjesh and Sindhu Manjesh for their invaluable inputs in clarifying arguments and niggling details for these two posts.

Geetha Hariharan is a Programme Officer with Centre for Internet & Society. Padmini Baruah is in her final year of law at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore (NLSIU) and is an intern at CIS.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-legal-validity-of-internet-bans-part-ii