Centre for Internet and Society

Millions of Indians Slam Facebook's ‘Free Basics’ App

subha — 2015-12-30T14:37:09Z

It has been less than two months since the nationwide launch of the Free Basics app in India. The smart phone application (formerly known as Internet.org) offers free access to Facebook, Facebook-owned products like WhatsApp, and a select suite of other websites for users who do not pay for mobile data plans.

This was published in Global Voices on December 29, 2015.

But the app has already been suspended, at least temporarily, as the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority considers new rules governing network neutrality. Depending on how they're written, the rules could render Free Basics a violation of the policy.

Free Basics, which has been deployed in 30 developing countries across the globe, gives users free access to websites that meet Facebook's technical standards for the application. The application does not give users access to the Internet at large. For open Internet advocates, this undercuts consumer choice and violates the principle of network neutrality, under which Internet providers are to treat all Internet traffic equally. Net neutrality allows users equal access to any website they want to visit, and gives website operators equal opportunities to attract visitors.

Facebook has responded to the pending regulation with an aggressive ad campaign both online and off. Over the last week, Facebook users across India (and some in the US) upon logging into the site have been greeted with notifications urging them to take action. The Free Basics page on Facebook now leads to a pleading form that asks users to contact the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and voice their support for making Free Basics available in India. The company has also purchased a smattering of billboard advertisements across the country and taken out numerous two-page ads in leading national newspapers, as seen above.

The Indian Internet bites back

Indian netizens and activists have spoken out against the company's actions en masse, protesting heavily on social media, blogs and newspapers.

The grassroots open Internet group, SavetheInternet.in, that has been advocating for net neutrality in India throughout 2015, has launched an email campaign asking users to send letters to TRAI explaining how Free Basics violates net neutrality principles and propagates an inaccurate picture of the Internet for new users by placing it inside the confines of Facebook's application.

Multiple stand-up comedy groups have created videos explaining the regulatory debate and supporting net neutrality, which have gone viral:

Above, the third in a series of videos created by All India Bakchod, in partnership with SavetheInternet.in. Below, a video by East India Comedy.

The issue has also been hotly debated on Twitter, with technology and law experts leading the way.

Internet policy expert and lead staff member of the Center for Internet and Society in Bengaluru Pranesh Prakash tweeted:

New Delhi-based technology lawyer Mishi Choudhary, who leads the legal team at the Software Freedom Law Center, tweeted:

The Free Software Movement of India, a non-profit promoting use of free software and its philosophy in India via their local chapters, also has taken the campaign to the streets where the volunteers raised public awareness about Free Basic's adverse side.

Apart from local experts and activists, companies like Reddit, Truecaller and Indian e-commerce platform Paytm have publicly shared their opposition to Facebook's actions.

Facebook targets open Web activists

Facebook is paying close attention to civil society opposition to its activities in India. Across the globe, the company's Free Basics page now opens to a plea for users to contact TRAI, and includes a statement that directly targets open Internet advocates, suggesting that their motives are somehow driven by financial incentives:

…Free Basics is in danger in India. A small, vocal group of critics are lobbying to have Free Basics banned on the basis of net neutrality. Instead of giving people access to some basic internet services for free, they demand that people pay equally to access all internet services – even if that means 1 billion people can't afford to access any services.

SavetheInternet.in explicitly states in their About page that they are entirely volunteer-run and have no affiliation with any political party in India or elsewhere.

Users also have tweeted screenshots alleging that Facebook is restricting access for individuals sending messages opposing Free Basics. This has not been confirmed, but the tweets have only further stoked public frustration with the company.

Zuckerberg vs. SavetheInternet

On December 28, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg penned a piece in the Times of India arguing that Free Basics will help “achieve digital equality for India,” and claiming that the initiative “isn’t about Facebook’s commercial interests.” India represents the world's largest market of Internet users after the US and China, where Facebook remains blocked.

In response, Nikhil Pawa, founder of online portal MediaNama and a volunteer with Savetheinternet.in, authored a critical opinion piece in the same newspaper:

[…] Why hasn’t Facebook chosen the options that do not violate Net Neutrality? For example, in India, Aircel has begun providing full internet access for free at 64 kbps download speed for the first three months….In Bangladesh, Grameenphone users get free data in exchange for watching an advertisement. In Africa, Orange users get 500 MB of free access on buying a $37 handset…

[…]

Facebook is being disingenuous — as disingenuous as the company’s promotional programmes for Free Basics to its Indian users — when it says that Free Basics is in conformity with Net Neutrality.

Pawa also quoted Naveen Patnaik, Chief Minister of Indian state of Odisha, who wrote to TRAI supporting net neutrality. “If you dictate what the poor should get, you take away their right to choose what they think is best for them,” he wrote.

“If you dictate what the poor should get, you take away their right to choose what they think is best for them.”

Writing for Quartz, technology critic Alice Truong expressed similar sentiment: “Zuckerberg almost portrays net neutrality as a first-world problem that doesn’t apply to India because having some service is better than no service.”

For Mahesh Murthy, an Indian venture capitalist and self-described net neutrality activist, it all comes down to revenue. On the Wire, Murthy offered untempered criticism of Facebook and Zuckerberg's efforts to appease the country's leaders:

[..] Unlike Facebook, who tried to silently slime this thing through last year when it was called Internet.org, and then are spending about Rs. 100 crores on ads – a third of its India revenue? – to try and con us Indians this year again. This is after we’d worked hard to ban these kind of products, technically called “zero rating apps” last year.[..] This Facebook ad [spread] doesn’t include the full-on Mark Zuckerberg love event put up for our Prime Minister when he visited the US, aimed again at greasing the way for this Free Basics thing through our government.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/millions-of-indians-slam-facebooks-2018free-basics2019-app

Facebook’s Free Basics Shuts Down In Egypt, Continuing Troubled Run

praskrishna — 2016-01-03T06:11:51Z

The report was published by TV Newsroom on January 1, 2016. Pranesh Prakash gave inputs.

“This isn’t about Facebook’s commercial interests – there aren’t even any ads in the version of Facebook in Free Basics”, he said. Initiatives like Internet.org are attempting to change that, but not without backlash. A similar proposal called zero internet was put forward later by Airtel.

Facebook now has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

“The India fight is helping shape debates elsewhere”, said Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society, a Bangalore-based nonprofit advocacy group.

That prompted Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to write an op-ed piece published in the Times of India that asks, “Who could possibly be against this?” There was fulsome praise for Modi from the young internet billionaire. Etisalat Egypt could not be reached for comment at this time. “For example, Facebook can just provide 50 or 100 megabytes for their data connection free every month”.

On Wednesday, Trai extended the last date for submission of comments and counter comment to 7 and 14 January, respectively.

But Zuckerberg is not having a walk in the park with this Free Basics proposition. It sounds a perfectly good idea.

Internet.org is a partnership, led by Facebook and including Samsung, Ericsson, MediaTek, Opera, Nokia and Qualcomm. Through a deal between Facebook and local mobile operators, the data to access those services is free.

The coalition has said that Facebook is misleading users and cautioned that the free service could be replete with advertising if and when it’s implemented. Similarly, signature drives are going on by those staunchly opposed to it. Now the problem for this is that we had asked for response to the specific question of differential pricing… instead we have got responses on supporting Free Basics.

Those campaigning to protect net neutrality in India suggest data providers should not favour some online services over others by offering cheaper or faster access.

The founders and executives mention that the difference in pricing through zero rating “affects the ability of new players to compete” with well-established companies. A situation where the haves can access the Internet and enjoy its tremendous opportunities and the have nots are kept out. Zuckerberg said that India’s progress depends on providing Web access to the 1 billion Indians without it.

Listing three main flaws within the programme, the scientists urged the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India to “completely reject” Facebook’s “free fundamentals” proposal. Such as providing a tiered system of broad band access.

It would make sense for the government to target free Internet services while it clamps down on physical gathering places.

Read the original here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/facebook2019s-free-basics-shuts-down-in-egypt-continuing-troubled-run

Foreign Media on Zuckerberg's India Backlash

praskrishna — 2016-01-03T09:20:41Z

When Facebook's co-founder proposed bringing free Web services to India, his stated aim was to help connect millions of impoverished people to unlimited opportunity. Instead, critics have accused him of making a poorly disguised land grab in India's burgeoning Internet sector. The growing backlash could threaten the very premise of Internet.org, his ambitious, two-year-old effort to connect the planet.

The blog post was published in NDTV on December 30, 2015. Pranesh Prakash was quoted.

Indian authorities are circumspect because the Facebook initiative provides access to only a limited set of websites -- undermining the equal-access precepts of net neutrality. The telecommunications regulator is calling for initial comments by Jan 7, extending the deadline from today, on whether wireless carriers can charge differently for data usage across websites, applications and platforms.

Losing this fight could imperil Facebook's Free Basics, which allows customers to access the social network and select services such as Messenger and Microsoft's Bing without a data plan.

"The India fight is helping shape debates elsewhere," said Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society, a Bangalore-based non-profit advocacy group. "Activists in other countries such as Brazil, Venezuela and Colombia are watching this debate and will seize the momentum created in India."

Zuckerberg's argument for free Web access is based in part on Deloitte research showing that for every 10 people who are connected to the Web, one is lifted out of poverty and one job is created.

Facebook argues that by giving people free access to a small slice of the Internet, they will quickly see the value in paying for the whole thing. Zuckerberg has said his biggest challenge in connecting people to the Web isn't access to cellular networks, but a social hurdle: he needs to prove to people who have never been online that the Internet is useful.

"Who could possibly be against this?" Zuckerberg wrote in an impassioned op-ed in the Times of India this week. "Surprisingly, over the last year there's been a big debate about this in India."

Zuckerberg's pleas underscore what's at stake. Facebook already attracts 1.55 billion people monthly, or about half of the Internet-connected global population. To keep growing, the world's largest social network needs to get more people online. Hence the billions of dollars Facebook is spending on projects to deliver the Web to under-served areas via drones, satellites and lasers. And Internet.org, which now spans 37 nations.

India, as the world's second most populous nation, is arguably the most important piece of Zuckerberg's Free Basics strategy. But the opposition is fierce. Critics note that the Facebook service doesn't offer Web favorites such as Google's search. Facebook has said it would be open to adding more features from competitors, but critics are skeptical of giving the social-networking giant such influence on the Internet.

Critics also say that by offering a limited swath of the Internet at comparatively slow speeds, the company is creating a diluted version of the Web. That could stifle innovation by causing disadvantages for Indian startups building rival apps, or allow Facebook and its telecommunications carrier-partners to act as Internet gatekeepers.

In a sign of the importance he attaches to the issue, Zuckerberg on Tuesday called one of India's most prominent entrepreneurs to make his case.

One97 Communications, the mobile payments startup backed by Alibaba Group Holding, is one of several tech companies that have come out against Facebook's plans.

"We are totally against telcos preferring one developer over another," One97 founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma said in a phone interview before that call. "We are asking for access neutrality. We are hoping that all startups will be treated equally."

Sonia Dhawan, a spokeswoman for One97's payment website Paytm, said the call took place but didn't describe the conversation further. Sharma wasn't available for further comment.

Facebook is now scrambling to drum up support. It's started a "Save Free Basics In India" campaign, asking Indian users to support "digital equality" by filling out a form that shoots an e-mail to regulators. That also has the effect of sending notifications to user's friends unless they opt out.
Facebook has also taken out full-page advertisements, including one featuring a smiling Indian farmer and his family who the ads say used new techniques to double his crop yield.

While countries such as the Philippines have embraced Free Basics, India has been "the outlier and more challenging," Chris Daniels, vice president of Internet.org, said in a Dec. 26 chat on Reddit.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/ndtv-bhuma-shrivastava-december-30-2015-foreign-media-on-zukerberg-india-backlash

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

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

WhatsApp and Transnational Lower-End Trading Networks

Maitrayee Deka — 2015-09-13T10:44:15Z

This post by Maitrayee Deka is part of the 'Studying Internets in India' series. Maitrayee is a postdoctoral research fellow with the EU FP7 project, P2P value in the Department of Sociology, University of Milan, Italy. Her broader research interests are New Media, Economic Sociology and Gender and Sexuality. This is the first of Maitrayee's two posts on WhatsApp and networks of commerce and sociality among lower-end traders in Delhi.

One of the first things that stood out in the Delhi traders’ anonymous bearings was their love for smartphones. In the two mass electronic markets in the city, Lajpat Rai Market and Palika Bazaar, the traders of video games carried varieties of smartphones of different sizes and colours. From iPhones to Samsung Galaxies, the traders vied for the latest gadget available in the market. As a researcher, within a year, I moved from getting an accidental peek into their smartphone screens to a phase when the traders felt comfortable sharing their personal messages with me.

I spend considerable time in Lajpat Rai Market and Palika Bazaar in Delhi between September 2012 and September 2013. I interviewed different traders and had day-to-day conversations with the people coming to their shops. Tracking several events in the shops, I knew the relative time that the traders spent on various activities. I saw on most days the traders divided their time between interacting with consumers and browsing through their smartphones. The traders spent maximum time of their virtual existence by being on WhatsApp. A large part of the goods to local electronic markets in Delhi were coming from China. And increasingly, WhatsApp was becoming an important communication channel managing transnational trade related exchanges.

Entry into the WhatsApp World

When I started visiting Lajpat Rai Market and Palika Bazaar at the end of 2012, I had not installed WhatsApp on my phone. The traders in the different markets were curious to know what was keeping me away from it. They came to a point when they could not anymore see me outside of WhatsApp. I, on the other hand had reservations of being part of a medium that meant continuous contact with the world. When finally I got past my initial doubts, there arose another problem. I could not download WhatsApp on my phone without the server asking for a rental fee of 250 Indian Rupees. After a few days, on being asked the same question again in Palika Bazaar, I told the traders about my problem. Lalit, a trader in Palika Bazaar retorted, ‘That is not possible! We did not pay to install WhatsApp on our phones’. He asked me to pass him my phone. Lalit cracked the security code by getting on to the Palika Bazaar Wi-Fi network and installed WhatsApp on my phone.

It was interesting to see that the traders did not always use legal channels to buy their smartphones and get an Internet connection. Many of the conversations about their smartphones were about where the traders bought their stolen iPhone. There were discussions about how much money different traders paid to get their hands on a used iPhone. They compared the feature and quality of each other’s smartphone. Sometimes even I was asked if I wanted a new cell phone for a good price and if I wanted to sell my old phone. The fascination for smartphones that in the first instance seemed like a fad for a shiny branded product, showed its own complex side. The importance of keeping an expensive phone had its conspicuous side and that explained the fascination of traders for iPhones. However, that was not all. The conspicuous side of the trader was not visible in other dimensions of their being, for instance the clothes they wore. The traders on most days were happy to buy second-hand and knock off goods from the street vendors outside Lajpat Rai Market and Palika Bazaar. The inclination of the traders to carry expensive phones and willingness to try different measure to possess them showed that smartphones were important to the traders.

I tried to understand the inclination of the traders towards their smartphones. One way by which I thought their smartphone usage could become intelligible to me was by locating it in their everyday world. What the traders did on most days and exploring where and how smartphones configured amongst other activities could make its usages noticeable. I observed one of the things that the traders hated in both the markets was to have free time in their hands. The time for chatter meant that they were not doing business. And the possibility of not making enough money made them anxious. The traders were trying to curtail the amount of time they spent on insignificant activities including the need to talk to me. Most of the times, they only entertained me when they did not have consumers in their shops. It was then interesting for me to see the traders’ fascination for their smartphones. The usage of the Internet also ideally carried levels of non-productivity that on other instances made the traders very anxious. It meant that they were not making direct monetary transactions with consumers. Having seen the traders obsessed about making sales, I was unable to place their choice of being on their smartphones in their free time. Soon, this dilemma was cleared. Being on the smartphone did not mean the traders were making social calls. Most of the times when the traders were on their smartphones, they were texting each other on WhatsApp. Eventually, I found out that most of the exchanges on WhatsApp were trade related. The traders not using WhatsApp for pleasure indicated that their activity on the Internet reflected how they are offline. The traders were preoccupied with the prospect of making profit and they did not want to waste any opportunity coming their way. This was the driving force and the source of innovation in the markets. The traders’ smartphone usage also followed the instinct of minimising wastage and find business opportunities in everything they did. The result was to make dominant in the markets another usage of WhatsApp other than its use for social communication: transnational real time trade exchanges.

WhatsApp and Trading

Especially in the year’s post 2010, the mass markets of video games in Delhi were in a strange predicament. The heyday of these markets as the sole channels of distribution and acquisition of video games was over. Increasingly, these markets that sold paraphernalia of gaming devices were challenged by the onslaught of online gaming market and gaming franchises in Delhi. In such a situation, many of the traders were trying to find alternative ways to boost up their sales. One of the ways in which these markets were trying to sustain themselves in the face of immense competition was to find niche market of electronic products. The traders in Lajpat Rai Market and Palika Bazaar extended their trading links to China in an effort to get diverse as well as cheap electronic products. The Chinese lower end markets particularly in the Guangdong province became an important supply node of different qualities of video games to the mass markets in Delhi. For each PlayStation Portables in Lajpat Rai Market and Palika Bazaar, there were a number of cheap varieties of ‘Made in China’ handheld games.

All the multiple links with the Chinese lower-end economy that sustained the day-to-day functioning of the Delhi markets depended on continuous communication between the Indian and Chinese traders. This was where WhatsApp took control of the trading scene. Traders used it regularly to communicate with the Chinese traders. In the absence of face-to-face interaction, WhatsApp messages were the only way to initiate business transactions with the Chinese traders. The lack of face-to-face interaction presupposed that trading details were resolved on WhatsApp. There were a large number of to and fro exchanges of messages. As the traders felt comfortable showing me glimpses of their WhatsApp messages, I saw that on a single day hundreds of messages were exchanged even before the real transaction of placing an order and payment details were discussed. Many of the messages were exchanges of images of different varieties of a game that the Indian traders might be interested in. Image after image arrived of video games with their prospective prices. Most of these exchanges were in English. However, at times there were also messages in Cantonese that the traders translated online.

WhatsApp therefore, developed as a space where the traders got past their geographical and linguistic gap to successfully communicate and complete business transactions. WhatsApp facilitated messages enabled the markets to get new innovative products into the local market as well as track the complete transaction process.

For individual traders, WhatsApp was the lifeline of their present trade networks. Before the arrival of ‘instant messaging app for smartphone’, most of the links that the traders had with the transnational markets were through individual importers that travelled to Hong Kong, Bangkok and other places in Asia to get games manufactured in Japan and the West. During those days, a trader had to depend on the importers to bring him exclusive products that could be profitable in the local markets. The traders pointed out that the problem with this arrangement was that traders were almost entirely dependent on the importer not only to smuggle new products into the country but also for information. Often the traders knew of new products only with the information they acquired from the importers.

Things changed drastically with the advent of instant messaging especially WhatsApp. Now the traders were only a message away from connecting to their collaborators in China. An individual trader had the possibility to bring new innovative products without relying on others for information and trade negotiations. This increased the possibility for him to have a period of privileged profit before the product got widely popularised in the market. The constant exchanges of samples of video games and accessories were a step towards that. Often the traders kept up with continuous communication with the Chinese traders, as they did not want to miss an opportunity to be the first one to track the next big trend in the market. If the traders felt that they had picked up a product that had the potential of becoming a popular product, they were not hesitant to place huge orders. The traders said that they trusted the work ethics of the Chinese people. However, what also helped the traders to appreciate the Chinese work ethics was their constant tracking of transaction on Whatsapp. Bharat, a trader in Lajpat Rai Market had placed a large order for adaptors of gaming consoles in July 2013. Once when I was visiting his shop, he was messaging with a trader in China to sort out the delay that was occurring in the delivery process. Bharat said to me still texting on WhatsApp, ‘I don’t worry about the Chinese; they are very sincere and trustworthy’.

WhatsApp is synonymous with transnational trading alliances in the lower-end markets in Delhi. It has seamlessly merged into the trading environment to the extent that the traders do not consciously reflect on the role it plays in pushing their individual trade forward. It seemed traders lived two parallel lives: one with the local market goers in Delhi and another with the Chinese traders on their smart phones. The individual trader-to-trader exchanges between two countries are unprecedented in history. And with time, the trade networks are becoming denser and wider.

The post is published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, and copyright is retained by the author.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/blog_whatsapp-and-transnational-lower-end-trading-networks

WhatsApp and the Creation of a Transnational Sociality

Maitrayee Deka — 2015-07-10T04:22:38Z

This post by Maitrayee Deka is part of the 'Studying Internets in India' series. Maitrayee is a postdoctoral research fellow with the EU FP7 project, P2P value in the Department of Sociology, University of Milan, Italy. Her broader research interests are New Media, Economic Sociology and Gender and Sexuality. This is the second of Maitrayee's two posts on WhatsApp and networks of commerce and sociality among lower-end traders in Delhi.

The beginnings of WhatsApp messages in Lajpat Rai Market and Palika Bazaar with lower-end traders in China were mostly trade related. However, with time, the messages were not just confined to the domain of products and prices. The traders in India started sharing personal messages and images with their counterparts in China. Some of the social exchanges could be interpreted within the gambit of the economy. In other words, these social exchanges in the form of photographs of anime and food developed trust and familiarity that further led to the strengthening of trade ties. However, other social exchanges on WhatsApp could be related to a more personal space whereby traders were binding themselves with Chinese traders in romantic relationships. In 2012 and 2013, the transnational sociality through WhatsApp was at its embryonic stage and showed signs of becoming much more layered in the future.

Friendship and Trust

The traders in Lajpat Rai Market and Palika Bazaar elaborated on how the electronic shops in China were usually managed by polite and pretty women. Women managing the business transactions in China made the Indian traders come in touch with them via WhatsApp. One day at Rakesh’s shop at Palika Bazaar, he was browsing through his WhatsApp messages. He invited me to see some of the messages that he thought were interesting. As I went closer to the screen, I saw images of food, a bowl of soup and salad. Rakesh told me how he had become friends with this particular trader. She was a married woman and had a shop that sold accessories of games in China. Rakesh said over time that they had developed a special relationship. He regarded her as a warm person. He was familiar with her domestic life, her children and how old they were. Their interactions were governed by the exchange of information on everyday activities going on in their lives.

I observed that the trading exchanges were mitigated by various social and personal messages. It appeared that the personal messages were a way to maintain continuity of ties, business and otherwise. Whereas the traders between the two countries might not be doing business with the same set of people everyday, an image of a teddy bear and food acted as an assurance of a lasting relationship. It indicated that even though trade between two persons was temporarily suspended, they were going to revive it in the near future. The exchange of personal messages in between trade activities developed trust and mutual respect. In a physical market place, traders developed special relationship with different people, for instance, with the customers who came to the same shop regularly. These relationships were born out of investment of time and energy on part of the both parties, the traders as well as the customers. In both Palika Bazaar and Lajpat Rai Market, often a trader had a customer who had been visiting his shops since he was a child. The trader knew what his customer did for a living as an adult, how many members his family had and their whereabouts. The same case was true for a customer. He quickly noticed what were the changes that had been made to the physical layout of the shop. The long-term ties were advantageous to both the parties. Usually the customer got a good discount for a product and he also knew that in case of a defect he could easily ask for a replacement. For the trader, a customer was a constant source of income, as he knew that the customer would not choose another trader over him. Rarely, a permanent customer approached another trader in the market.

In the absence of physical proximity between the Chinese and Indian traders, there were few occasions in which the ties of trust based on familiarity could be developed. Simple exchange of trade messages did not build social solidarity. In order for the traders to substitute the strength of physical proximity and face-to-face interaction online, the cute anime were seen to intervene. The exchange of photographs and cartoons indicated that individual traders invested in each other and developed a circle of familiar objects and symbols that generated trust.

WhatsApp and Movement

Bubo is a fascinating figure in Palika Bazaar. In Govind’s shop, several people had different things to say about Bubo. Some claimed that he was a genius; other told me he was a techno nerd. Some even thought of him as an eccentric person who lacked social skills and etiquettes. Everyone however, unanimously agreed that I should not miss an opportunity to talk to him. Bubo handled the online sales of video games for Govind’s shop. He was responsible for putting up new/ second hand video games and accessories on diverse e-commerce sites in India such as OLX and Flipkart. He had a rented apartment in Pitampura area in New Delhi. Bubo and his brother usually spend days in their apartment in front of their computer screens. The traders in Govind’s shop were of the opinion that Bubo was more comfortable being online than meet people physically. This proved to be true. I on different occasions tried to talk to Bubo. I called him on his phone and he evaded the prospect of meeting me face to face. In the end, I gave up on him, as I did not know how to convince him to have a chat with me. While I personally never met Bubo, I collected information about him from different sources. As the traders at Govind’s shop found him peculiar, they had many things to say about him. They were all impressed by the fact that Bubo self taught himself to be a hacker and got past through many of the website requirements. The online trading networks entailed certain rules. For instance, with relation to the matters of quality of goods, many of the online marketing websites such as Flipkart in India wanted the trader to put up guaranteed products. According to the traders, Bubo was able to find solution to get past the different barriers put up by the big companies. Bubo with his hacking skills was an assent to Govind’s shop. Therefore, it was not surprising to see that throughout the course of my fieldwork, his name kept reappearing. In January 2015, when I went to Govind’s shop, the mythical figure of Bubo came up again. This time I saw his face for the first time on WhatsApp through Govind’s iPhone 5. I learnt that Bubo was in China. He had a new Chinese girlfriend whom he had met through online trading exchanges. As I flipped through the images on Govind’s phone, I saw Bubo dining with his girl friend, meeting her wide circle of friends and family in China.

Bubo’s story is an interesting illustration of how the lower-end trading alliances initiated by WhatsApp start to have a life of its own. Bubo was ambitious and wanted to make the most of the opportunities available to him. However, as Govind maintained his relocation to China could not be simply put as a business strategy. Govind recollected that Bubo held a fascination for Chinese women. His move to China therefore was both an attempt to better his economic prospects as well as an attempt at finding romantic love. Bubo was trying hard to teach himself Chinese and if everything worked in his favour, he might end up making a permanent move to China, Govind added.

Conclusion

For many of the users of WhatsApp all over the world, it is difficult to imagine it as a tool for business. We are accustomed to sharing personal messages and images with friends and families living in different parts of the world. Only in recent times, we hear varied usages of WhatsApp: to spread xenophobic messages in closed groups, and organize events and community tasks. Even then, the impersonal usage of WhatsApp is marginal.

In early May 2015, I was part of a meeting of peer-to-peer value creation in Europe. One of the participants spoke about how a Fablab in Madrid was beginning to use WhatsApp to assign community related tasks and operations. It made me realise how the traders in Delhi were one step ahead of all of us. Already in 2013, traders were co-opting WhatsApp to their work sphere. At a time in which high-skilled knowledge workers in Europe are devising community platforms akin to WhatsApp, traders in Delhi saw the potential of it as a social and economic tool much earlier. I was amazed at the pace at which traders submerged themselves in different endeavours. The traders never had a half-hearted relationship with anything, their consumers and the search for profit. The similar merging into the environment was visible through their use of smartphones as well. The traders in Lajpat Rai Market and Palika Bazaar learnt to stay alert surviving in the margins of an urban economy. It had become their second nature to see an opportunity in everything. And this attitude meant that they pushed every situation to its limits. Flirting with laws, selling of contraband and pirated media goods showed that the traders were ready to test the limits of any situation.

WhatsApp and trade related texts are an example of thinking out of the box. Even in its early days, WhatsApp facilitated trading links show a lot of potential. The traders from China and India have established profitable business links. Some of them have developed friendship and romantic relationships. Only time will tell to what extent and in which direction trade related ties would evolve. One could only imagine the prospect of long-term dense trading networks with China. With the official players in India and China having strong visions about where the futures of both countries should head, the experimental and out of the box thinking of many of the traders with technology per se gives hope for a more hybrid regime in Asia.

The post is published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, and copyright is retained by the author.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/blog_whatsapp-and-the-creation-of-a-transnational-sociality

FB & Google have already monopolised Indian cyberspace

praskrishna — 2016-07-08T15:59:46Z

In an interview with Catch, Sunil Abraham, executive director of Center for Internet & Society, puts the recent US-India cyber relationship framework into perspective. Abraham also talks about how Indian surveillance policies are outdated and why the country has failed to check the hegemonic tendencies of companies like Facebook and Google.

The interview was published by Catch News on July 3, 2016.

US-India signed a cyber relationship framework earlier this month. Could you explain some of the takeouts that may have important implications in the near future?

In the framework, both sides have made a "commitment to the multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance" - in immediate practical terms that means India will accept the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition proposed for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Unfortunately, as my colleague Pranesh Prakash points out "U.S. state control over the core of the internet's domain name system is not being removed by the transition that is currently underway."

India along with Brazil and other emerging powers should have insisted that the question of jurisdiction be addressed before the transition. We must remember, that the multi-stakeholder model is just a fancy name for open and participatory self-regulation by the private sector. While the multi-stakeholder model is useful as a complement to traditional state-led regulation, it cannot be used to protect human rights or ensure the security of a nation state.

[That is precisely why - the very next sentence in the announcement for the the framework for the US-India Cyber Relationship says "a recognition of the leading role for governments in cyber security matters relating to national security". This is because ICANN-style multistakeholderism requires all stakeholders to be on "equal footing" without "distinct roles and responsibilities". In other words, the governments are saying that the multistakeholder model is fine for all Internet Governance areas with the exception of Cyber Security. Given the limits of the multistakeholder model this is indeed the wise thing to do. Since American corporations dominate the Internet, US foreign policy has historically pushed for the multistakeholder model as fig leaf for forbearance and reduced foreign regulatory burden American corporations operating in other jurisdictions. Therefore India must not drink the multistakeholder cool-aid whole sale. It cannot afford a laissez-faire approach where it waits for corporations to self-regulate - it must regulate whenever public interest or human rights are harmed. In other words, it must go beyond the multistakeholder model and produce appropriate regulation where necessary. Needless to add - it must also deregulate in areas where harms don't exist. Apart from this many of the details of the announcement are positive steps that will increase security in India and the USA, and indeed the also across the world.]

What are some aspects of Intellectual Property Rights that should be looked at, in the context of the framework?

There is some language around Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) that should be examined carefully too. The US corporations benefit from a maximalist IP regime. But Make in India, Digital India and Startup India all depend on flexibilities to the IP regime and therefore India should refuse signing. Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) obligations like the "Digital 2 Dozen" which the US is actively proselytizing across the Pacific. If we make that mistake, we will make zero progress in indigenous security research and product development and also many other areas of our economy, health sector and education sector will be severely compromised. Therefore it would be best to keep IP rights expansion and enforcement out of the framework for the US-India Cyber Relationship.

The PIL seeking a ban on WhatsApp was refused by the SC recently. Encrypted messaging services like Telegram however, have been used in the past by terror groups. What's your take on such end-to-end encryption services?

Privacy and security are two sides of the same coin. You cannot have one without the other. End-to-end encryption is the basis for online privacy. End-to-end encryption is a pre-requisite for many legitimate actions of law abiding citizens online such as commerce, banking, tele-medicine, protection of intellectual property, witness/source protection, client confidentiality etc. Therefore, banning end-to-end encryption would mean the death of individual privacy and national security.

If the government wants to promote cyber security it should promote the use of end-to-end encryption amongst law abiding citizens.

Terrorist have to be stopped through targeted profiling, surveillance and interception. Big data analytics may be useful to watch for patterns in the meta data but there is no replacement for good old fashioned police work.

Once suspects have been identified the encrypted channels can be compromised by:

Placing trojans on the end-user devices
Performing man-in-the-middle attacks and
Using brute force attacks with super computers.

Snowden's revelations have made it very clear that blanket and mass surveillance does not help foil terror attacks or stop organised crime. So far, research and government reports from across the world indicate that only a minority of terrorists use encryption. However, this situation may change.

We don't have any proper encryption policy under the IT Act yet. What's taking so long and what are the key points that any policy in this matter must include in future?

We need many different types of encryption policies. We need a policy that mandates encryption and digital signature for all government personnel and also for all government transactions. We need policies that promote research and development in cryptography and mathematics. We need to update our criminal procedure code so that encrypted communications and data can be targeted by law enforcement and used effectively in the criminal justice process.

However, we should not have any broad encryption policy that tries to regulate encryption as a technology. That would be a highly regressive move and will be impossible to enforce. That would breed contempt for rule of law.

Surveillance and the tech around it has been contentious for various governments. Where do we stand vis-a-vis regulating surveillance measures by the state?

Our surveillance and interception laws are outdated. They need to be modernized to deal with advancements in technology and also global developments when it comes to data protection and privacy law.

In fact, our organisation was part of a global effort called Necessary and Proportionate which identified 13 principles to modernise surveillance which are connected to various aspects such as Legality, Legitimate aim, Competent judicial authority, Integrity of communications and systems and more. Some of these principles may have to be customised for the Indian context. [For example, given the load on courts perhaps India should stay with executive authorization of interceptions and data access requests. However, getting the law correct is only half the job. For the law cannot fix what the technology has broken. Some surveillance projects are well designed. For ex. the NATGRID - from what I understand it is a standard and platform that which will allow 12 security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies to temporarily make unions of sub-sets of 21 data sources. These automated temporary databases will be created under existing data access provisions of the law. I also hope the NATGRID is also using cryptography to ensure the maintenance of a non-repudiable log that will identify all officers involved in authorizing the each request and accessing the resultant data. Unfortunately, other surveillance projects are unmitigated disasters. For example, UID or Aadhaar. Many Indians don't realize that Aadhaar is a surveillance project. Biometrics is just a fancy name for remote, covert and non-consensual identification technology. Using the UID database the government can identify every single Indian without their consent. The so called "consent layer" in the India Stack is being developed by volunteers outside the UIDAI to avoid transparency under the Right to Information Act. Nothing in the current layer of the "consent layer" allows citizens to revoke consent. There is no facility in the UID Act to delete yourself from the database. Identity information aka the UID number and authentication information aka your biometrics for about a billion Indians have been collected and stored in a centralized location. It is as if our parliamentarians have written an open letter to criminals and foreign governments says "here is the information you need to wreck whole sale damage - come and get it". Hopefully the Supreme Court will save us from this impending disaster.]

With a sluggish US market, India has the biggest potential for companies like FB & Google, next only to China. Do you feel that in the quest to take over the Indian market, FB & Google are going to monopolise cyberspace in India?

I have news for you - they have already monopolised Indian cyberspace. They have completely wiped out competition in certain domains.

One of the many reasons they have done this is because we don't have laws and regulations to temper their hegemonic tendencies. For example, we could use data portability and interoperability mandates for social media to spark competition in markets where there are entrenched monopolies.

Competition law can be used to protect other firms from abuse of market power. Consumer protection law and privacy law could be used to ensure that user's rights are not compromised in the race for market share. In addition, a modern privacy law compliant with the best practices in the European Data Protection Regulation 2016, would allow emerging Indian companies to compete with giants like Facebook and Google on a level playing field. [Speaking of level playing field - only recently has the government introduced the "equalization levy". This was long overdue. Imagine the amount of tax that could have been collected so far and damage that has been done to competition. Regardless the current NDA government deserves our kudos for ensuring that Facebook and Google contribute their fair share of taxes. The new IPR Policy was also an opportunity to address the monopoly of Google and Facebook. There should have been a concerted attempt to use free/open source software, open standard and open content to bolster Indic language technologies. A billion dollars from every spectrum auction should be used to create incentives for Indian private sector, research and academic organisation who can contribute openly to the Indic cyberspace. This is the market where we can still build a highly competitive market. Today, given government inaction - millions of Indians are training Google's language platforms every time they use machine translation or speech to text technologies. This corpus of information will not be available for public interest research. Ideally we should also have Indians contributing to commons-based peer production projects like Wikipedia for their Indic language needs. Unfortunately the government totally missed this opportunity.]

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/catch-news-asad-ali-july-3-2016-fb-and-google-have-already-monopolised-indian-cyberspace

Tamil Nadu likely to hold Facebook accountable for suicide case

praskrishna — 2016-07-13T13:44:58Z

The recent suicide of a 21-year-old woman from Salem district in Tamil Nadu over her morphed pictures being uploaded on Facebook could turn into a flash-point between the state police and the world's most-popular social networking site.

The article by V. Prem Shanker was published in the Economic Times on July 13, 2016.

"We are exploring the possibility of holding Facebook accountable for the delay in responding to our requests since that was one of the factors which led to the young lady committing suicide," Salem superintendent of police Amit Kumar Singh told ET in an exclusive interaction. On June 23, the Salem police had received a complaint from the father of the 21-year-old stating that someone had uploaded her morphed nude pictures on Facebook. The father had requested the police to get the photographs removed from the site and also find and warn the perpetrator.

The police recorded the complaint the same evening and later sent what is called a 'Law Enforcement Online Request' to Facebook asking for details of the IP address from which the morphed photographs were uploaded on the website. Officials also requested Facebook to take down the objectionable photographs of the young woman.

Five days after the request was sent, Facebook responded with the IP address on June 28 and within 12 hours after that the police cracked the case and nabbed the suspect.

However, all this was a bit too late because the previous day, on June 27, the young woman had ended her life. Her morphed nude photographs were taken down only on the day of her death, according to the police.

"Apart from addressing Facebook, we also investigated the case from other angles but couldn't make headway. Thus, there was nothing we could do about the pictures still being online apart from waiting for Facebook to act," Singh said, adding "enforcement of compliance is a matter of grave concern."

Officials are considering charging Facebook with abetment to suicide and including Facebook in the chargesheet if the site is found culpable after investigations. However, the state police is said to be discussing with legal experts on how this can be done as there is no precedent for a website having been charged in a crime.

Facebook did not reply to an email seeking comment. Earlier in a communique, responding to criticisms of police inaction in this case, Singh had pointed out that "Only Facebook can block a page and it exercises this discretion as per its Facebook Community Standards and not the law of the land it is being viewed in. Facebook does not provide the police with any special powers to take down a page even if the police receive a cognizable complaint of identity theft and uploading of obscene content. There is no tool available, at least as of now, with the police to coerce or goad Facebook to act expeditiously even if the matter is very urgent and there is a flagrant violation of Indian law."

Experts point out that the disparity with which Facebook treats child abuse laws and copyright infringements as opposed to violation of women's rights is stark.

"Look at the war against child pornography. In the United Kingdom there is an independent foundation that has immunity under UK child pornography law. They generate a database and circulate it across all platforms and ensure that it is kept absolutely squeaky clean," points out Sunil Abraham, executive director of Bengaluru based research organisation, Centre for Internet and Society.

"There definitely needs to be a law to ensure that such platforms do not violate the law of the land, especially when it comes to women's rights. But in interim, the government can create an information escrow or a platform where the victims can place on record their problems and it is there for these sites to see and take action," Abraham added.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-v-prem-shanker-july-13-2016-tamil-nadu-likely-to-hold-facebook-accountable-for-suicide-case