John Oliver Explain Net Neutrality – And Why We Should Care?

One of the reasons why an important debate like Net Neutrality was ignored was the portrayal of the problem which was always promoted as highly technical. John Oliver explains the issue of Net Neutrality that explains why general public should care about Net Neutrality… in a funny, simple way!

Net Neutrality and Impact on Education and Information Literacy

What has an Open Internet achieved so far in field of education?

Battushig, a 16 year old boy ‘boy genius’ from Ulan Bator, Mongolia, was highly inclined towards pursuing a career in electrical engineering. He convinced his parents to upgrade the speed of internet connection in their tiny home so that he could follow the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) from M.I.T, a college he aspired to apply for. Studying in the tiny basement garage of his house, Battushig was one of the 340 (out of 150,000) students to manage a perfect score on the Circuits and Electronics online course by M.I.T MOOC. How did a student from a country where 2/3^rd population still lives a nomadic life, manage to ace an M.I.T course, contents of which are neither available nor taught in Mongolian schools? The answer lay not just in Battushig’s extraordinary thirst and ability for learning, but also with the school principal Zurgaanjin (first Mongolian graduate from M.I.T) who introduced his students to MOOC lectures (Pappano, 2013).

This case study is a demonstration of how Internet has made quality education accessible all over the world. On the surface, education, which is one of the pillars supporting a thriving economy in a country, seems separated from technological advances. However, there is a rapid rise of online education being used in form of open source videos by renowned schools and universities around the world. For example, the Internet provides free and exigent access to knowledge databases and information and provides much more opportunities to teachers to find effective teaching aids and resources. In fact, today schools are using Internet to disseminate homework, provide library resources and stream class videos as well. A Babson Survey Research Group reported (Exhibit 4) that in the USA, in the fall of 2011, total number of students enrolled in at least one online module was 6.7 million (Blair, 2013).

 Internet has also created easy access to lifelong learning. Online education is highly relevant in higher learning, especially when today, a degree or course can be completely carried out over the internet via distance learning. Further, such courses, certifications and degrees can be free as well as paid. Distance learning is increasingly using Internet technology to provide better access to education and training in a cost effective manner (Bates, 1997). Today, even organizations invest in creating training portals online to enable their employees gain new skills and upgrade existing ones. A report by Docebo (2014) claimed that the worldwide market for self-paced e-learning was $35.6 billion and is expected to grow to $ 51.5 billion by 2016 (Docebo, 2014).

Apart from striking growth in paid online learning markets, free online education courses, often known as “massive online open courses” (MOOCS), are springing across the Internet. One of the pioneers in the field of free online video streaming to teach students was Salman Khan, a visionary who worked to provide “free world-class education for anyone anywhere.” He started the Khan Academy, a not-for-profit organization, in 2005 and began the journey of open source education. The organization that started by teaching mathematic lessons online, gained funding from Bill and Melinga Gates foundation, O’Sullivan Foundation etc. As of 2013, the Khan Academy website hosted more than 5,000 free educational videos (Koeniger, 2013). These videos are used in classroom in many parts of the world, for example, USA, Ireland, Latin America etc. Chile is one of the biggest examples where Khan Academy videos are streamed in schools (Light and Pierson, 2014).

Today, just like Khan Academy, various free MOOCs are available online. The forerunners in this category include Edxonline, MIT Open Source and Coursera (Audsley, et al., 2013). Professors from top universities across the world, including the Ivy League universities have come together to offer quality course videos and material for free. Universities which are part of these MOOCs include Harvard, Wharton, Caltech, NTU, Bocconi, NUS, Tel Aviv University etc. As of January 2014, Cousera had over 5 million students from 190 countries with 22 million enrollments (Coursera, 2014). Exhibit 5 explains the reach of Coursera (Coursera, 2013).

One of the biggest reasons for success of massive online education sources (free or paid) is a neutral and open internet. A non-neutral net would mean ISPs can offer differential subscription plans for higher bandwidth to stream videos, and limit access to quality resources. Inevitably, the impact of an increased price for internet access and bandwidth would be felt the most by poorer students and schools in developing countries who do not have the financial capability to “pay to play”. Schools using such online lectures may bear the brunt in form of increased cost of the internet, resulting into financial burden of increased school fees, leading to lower student enrollment, a lower quality library database, and affect streaming speed for students all over the world enrolled in MOOCS. Same would be the case with online distance learning courses. People enroll for online courses to upgrade their knowledge and gain knowledge at fees lower than what is required to attend college or universities. In a non-net neutral world, organizations hosting such courses may have to pay ISPs, in-turn increasing the cost of the courses for the learners. If they do not pay, availability of such courses to learners, their speeds might frustrate learners into dropping out.

Another area that may be affected by lack of net neutrality is library services. When it comes to libraries, especially public libraries, non-neutral Internet can mean higher service charges for premium content (information) online. In a time where libraries already run on tight budget, higher costs for internet access could result into other tradeoffs which can include lesser books, constrained opening hours, fewer staff  and access to limited databases (Stripling, 2014).

Access to limited databases and lesser books can have a direct impact on research related activities. Internet has enabled researchers across the world to access academic and research related information. This has not only resulted in faster pace of research, it has reduced redundancies in research effort as well. Today, academic research papers are available on online databases. Researcher can refer to these databases to get a fair idea about (1) number of researchers conducted in the area (2) whether the area has been previously covered by someone else (3) literature available on related topics etc. This has gone a long way in helping researchers to uncover and work on topics where academic research hasn’t been exhaustively conducted. Second important contribution has been the wave of electronic journals, following the same standard as top academic journals across the world. This has provided more avenues for researchers to publish their work and contribute to the existing body of research. Non-neutral Internet is bound to affect the cost-value structure of access to online resources, thus, forcing universities and institutions to reduce budgets leading to constrained access to information. This will eventually harm the final output of research, which has gained tremendously since the advent of Internet.

Thus, be it school, college, university, research or corporate, education as a whole stands to lose quite substantially if net neutrality is compromised. Activities such as research, collaboration, e-learning, distance education, etc. all depend upon idea of non-discriminatory and open internet, and non-net neutral world can undermine the overall mission of education across the world (Educause, 2010).

In this present age of the information society, the ability to use technology to gain information adds a competitive edge and creates information literacy which is of absolute value. Information literacy is gained through education to enhance one’s cognitive ability to pick and sieve critical information, and most importantly apply and use it to one’s advantage. This is especially so in today’s knowledge economy. Thus, as Cook (2014) posits, changes to net neutrality framework of the Internet can impact access to learning online, sharing information and research related efforts.

Net Neutrality and Impact on Public Sphere

Countries with democratic polity often take the concept of public sphere for granted. Noted German philosopher Habermas (1962) describes political sphere as a society which has engaged in and will continue to engage in critical political debate. According to him, one of the important conditions of political sphere is the fact that all citizens must have access to ongoing debate(s), which is aimed at forming some sort of consensus or public opinion. As compared to other mediums, Internet, though not perfect, can be considered as a suitable medium for existence of public sphere.

For the existence of an active public sphere, citizens require information and expert views, which can be used to frame issues and push public opinions as well as challenge existing norms in different aspects of public sphere. Internet has a potential to provide the medium where extensive information can be made available (news, expert opinion blogs, etc.), and platforms can be provided for further debate and discussions (social network, comments on articles, etc.). For this reason, net neutrality is extremely critical when it comes to public communication (Grazian, 2005). It not only initiates dissemination of political news, but also offers an active forum for discourse amongst its citizens (Newman, 2008). In fact, as Barron (2007) posits, the existence of net neutrality is responsible for the effectiveness of Internet as a forum for public debate.

Today, people are not just using Internet to gain political information, but numerous people are turning to online political activism. The Arab Spring, though not triggered by the internet and social media, is once such event the Internet played a central role in shaping political debates (Howard, et al., 2011). Similarly, the recent Occupy Central movement for Hong Kong democracy used the Internet and social media for communication and dissemination of information. So much was the power of information and images posted over social media, that China had to block access to Instagram, a photo-sharing app to restrict news about the movement in mainland China (BBC, 2014).

Academicians in the recent past have studied Internet as a tool for political deliberation as well (Warnick, 2007). Internet provides newer and more accessible ways for political participation as well as to acquire information previously inaccessible. This can include in depth information of the backgrounds and political history of candidates, past deeds good or bad etc. (Bowen, 1996). This information becomes critical when mainstream media, at times, selectively omits information due to governmental pressures or for profits. Online petitions (e.g. Jan Lok Pal Bill in India in 2013 or unofficial referendum in Hong Kong in 2014) and direct questioning of candidates (e.g. 2007 CNN-YouTube debates that invited questions from public) has seen a rise across the world. While the efficacy of Internet is debatable and matter of further research, Internet does provide a very vibrant platform for communication in the public sphere (Exhibit 3). Internet, also helps empowers otherwise invisible marginalized citizens to be heard, and thus, helps provide diversity in opinions in public decision making process (Milakovich, 2010).

Net neutrality proponents argue that allowing ISPs to decide on this flow of information will be highly detrimental to the public sphere. ISPs, if left unchecked, can easily slow down or block website content that go against political ideologies or corporate profits. Absence of net neutrality has the potential to turn the Internet to what television has become today (Barton, 2005). Just like a news broadcast house selects what news go on television and in what order and time, the Internet users may also get to read the content the ISPs want to promote and have political or commercial interests in. With selective promotion or blockage of content, ISPs and their partners can convert and exploit the Internet into another agenda setting medium. Further, creation of so called ‘fast lanes’ might slow down access to certain type of content, thus, effectively preventing users to access content they prefer without interference (Newman, 2008). Thus, net neutrality becomes highly critical for public sphere as it is an essential element of free speech, which is the prerequisite for healthy public debate and political participation.

The second, more critical aspect in the net neutrality issue refers to regulatory censorship and governmental policies. A brief look at some of the Internet governance and net neutrality / related policies indicated that from West to East, governments have shown different attitudes towards the issue of Internet governance.

Censorship is probably one of the biggest threats to open internet and net neutrality and can threaten free exchange and debate especially in the public sphere. To further the debate, we consider the example of China. The Great Firewall of China blocks access to various websites such as Google, Facebook to name a few, as these sites refuse to block certain type of content that the Chinese government does not wish to release to its people. Officially referred to as the Golden Shield Project, the content over the internet is censored using sophisticated Internet Protocols that enable selective content to go through to the end user. Content is often filtered and blocked based on keywords (e.g. Tiananmen, Occupy Central) or specific websites (Twitter, Facebook, Google search etc.). In some cases web content on websites is temporarily disrupted. For example, on October 1, 2014, Yahoo services were disrupted as China sought to control information coming from Hong Kong democracy movement from reaching mainland readers. Just two days before, on September 29, 2014, Facebook’s photo-sharing application Instagram became inaccessible in China. (Bloomberg, 2014).

While China is an extreme example of censorship and lack of net neutrality, it’s implications on net neutrality globally cannot be ignored. China shows that technologically, it is possible to create selective access and temporary blockage of web content. The bigger problem is that, this practice can be easily replicated by governments and corporate giants for purposes of personal agenda or profits. By keeping the practice of selective flow of information sparse and low key, net neutrality can be easily compromised.

While largely, we agree that net neutrality is essential for vibrant and active public sphere, complete lack of governance on Internet is proving to be extremely tricky in today’s era. The debatable outcome of Arab Spring, use of social media by ISIS terrorist group to influence and recruit far beyond their boundaries, has raised essential questions on security at large. Proponents promoting Internet regulations also state that blocking content on the web becomes a necessity with issues of public safety and law and order. Volatile, yet legal, matter on the social networking sites or defamatory video content can be socially unacceptable or may trigger outrage creating law and order situations. There have been instances where governments have selectively blocked access to Internet pages. For example, UK government with the help of Google identified search terms that would restrict content related to child pornography (Hayland, 2013). In another example, during an incident of communal clashes in Gujarat India in September 2014, government ordered temporary suspension of mobile internet and text messaging services to stop rumour and news of clashes from spreading across other parts (Bhan, 2014). While, such issues do have some value and raise concerns for need of selective and responsible Internet governance, giving the power of governance to select few ISPs may not be the way forward.

For the purpose of this debate, we conclude that as far as public sphere is concerned, net neutrality is critical. Lack of net neutrality and permission to ISPs to govern the Internet sphere will convert Internet into a mass medium comparable with today’s radio or television, which is largely in existence for corporate growth and profits only. Net neutrality is essential to achieve Open Internet as well as promote information literacy, self-empowerment, critical thinking and evaluation of information. If information is available selectively, the completeness of the information will be in question, thus, affecting the quality of public communication and debate in the public sphere.

Net Neutrality and Regulations

Before we move on to discussing the impact of net neutrality on public sphere, let’s take a look at some of the regulations governing net neutrality in different countries.

There has been a common misconception across the world that issue of open Internet and net neutrality regulations is a very American concept. One possible reason for this belief is the extensive media focus and subsequent debates that follow the issue in USA. However, net neutrality is a worldwide issue, even though it does not generate a large public debate, probably because of lack of ‘affordable’ Internet in most nations (Talbot, 2014).

A brief look at net neutrality regulations in select countries demonstrates that most countries use one of the three approaches to net neutrality regulations (1) promise of  net neutrality by law (2) self-regulation (industry as a whole commits to a code of conduct) or (3) co-regulation where regulators step in to define guidelines (PT, 2014).

For example, in April 2014, European Parliament voted for implementation of rules that preclude network discrimination or anti-competitive commercial agreements (Kehl, 2014). On the other hand, United Kingdom has depended upon self-regulation, which it believes will provide higher transparency to the consumers (Marsden, 2014). While unconfirmed, there have been reports that the UK is expected to strongly oppose the EU’s net neutrality rules.

Brazil’s Marco Civil law made Brazil a leader in promoting net neutrality, promising  net neutrality, freedom of expression and right to connect (Edgerton, 2014). Similarly, Israel, which had net neutrality in mobile broadband, in 2014, extended its net neutrality law to include wireless services, however, the law is wispy about important technical questions like tired pricing and paid prioritization (Israel Technology Law Blog, 2014).

In the USA, the hot ground for net neutrality debate, in January 2014, a federal court overturned Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules on net neutrality. Since then, FCC has held a public debate on whether to allow for net neutrality or to squash net neutrality completely. While there has been no legal outcome yet, in October 2014, President Obama stated he was unequivocally committed to net neutrality and firmly opposed the concept of fast lanes (Wyatt, 2014).

In Asia, Japan has handled the net neutrality issue by mandating compulsory disclosure of traffic management practices. In Singapore, government policy prohibits discrimination or blockage of ‘legitimate’ content over the internet, thus, facilitating competition and safeguarding consumer interests. However, there is no clear definition of what comprises legitimate content. Further, guidelines only state minimum quality of service, thus, leaving ISPs to provide secerned offerings (IDA, 2011). Where Japan and Singapore still preserve net neutrality in principle, extreme cases of lack of net neutrality can be seen in South Korea where in a landmark decision, the Korean Communication Commission in 2012 allowed its ISPs to charge extra from the users for Voice Over IP (VOIP) services or even block VOIP (Moody, 2012). Similarly, China is another extreme where concept of net neutrality does not exist. Web content is highly regulated and controlled by the government using sophisticated firewall called ‘Golden Shield Project’. Often referred to as The Great Firewall of China, the project is run by Ministry of Public Security for purposes of censorship and surveillance (pingp, 2011). In India, despite many efforts, there has been no legal framework for net neutrality and ISPs in most instances adhere to the principles of net neutrality (TNN, 2014).

Thus, various regulations or lack of it show that there is no clear consensus on net neutrality across the world. With such diverse levels of commitments and points of view on net neutrality, it would be interesting to examine how net neutrality, lack of it, or excessive governance can impact public sphere and freedom of expression.

Introduction to Net Neutrality & Open Internet

The Internet first came into existence in 1969 for purposes of data sharing and transfer between computers based at different locations. What started out as a network created for specific defense data transmission and sharing, has today, become the backbone of communications world over. From being used for a really small defense network in the United States of America (USA), the Internet today connects billion+ computers across more than 200 countries. Such is the criticality of Internet to governments and corporates alike, that a world without the fast communication that Internet provides is impossible to imagine.

One of the most critical debates surrounding the Internet in the last decade is referred to as “Net Neutrality” a term coined by Columbia Law School Professor Tim Wu in 2003 (Wu, 2003). While there is no particular definition universally accepted, net neutrality broadly states that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) should treat the content sent across internet as equal, without providing any discriminatory or preferential treatment to certain types of content over others or charge discretionary fees to companies to ensure their content reaches the user (Ammori, 2014). The concept promotes the freedom of the Internet and helps keep the Internet free from discrimination (Newman, 2008). It is a network principle which goes back to original Internet design which treats every data packet (content on the Internet) as equal without giving it priority over others (Guo et al., 2013). For example, an ISP like Comcast, Sky, Singtel, Airtel etc. should not provide special faster speed to Youtube.com and a different speed to Dailymotion.com, thus, advocating the thought that all content flowing over the internet must travel at the same speed and should be treated in the same manner (Newman, 2008). Exhibit 1 explains the technical concept of net neutrality (Digital Information World, 2014).

As Professor Wu predicted in 2003, regulators will indeed spend more time resolving conflicts between commercial interests of ISPs and interests of the public. In 2010, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of the United States released draft rules to help “preserve an open Internet” in USA (FCC, 2010). In this draft proposal, FCC clearly stated that there is no debate that Internet owes its success to openness and protocol transparency and posited that open Internet will be critical for future development. It agreed in its draft that there is a need to have regulations in place to ensure open Internet or net neutrality because ISPs have motivation as well as technology to discriminate for or against certain Internet content which can not only affect companies using Internet to send data, but also users using internet to receive the data. Some of the key aspects put down by FCC in the draft rules prohibits the ISPs from (1) Discriminating for or against lawful content, applications or services used by subscribers, (2) Giving priority to some Internet traffic over others or charge a fee to give priority and (3) Levying extra congestion charges.

For years ISPs have been lobbying with governments across the world to end net neutrality and as such it has been a highly debated across the globe. The debate is often two-sided, where ISPs debate against net neutrality and companies and end users debate for it. The proponents or supporters of net neutrality argue that discrimination of content on the Internet will provide higher leverage to richer companies using the Internet to buy priority access, thus, creating a bottleneck for innovators, start-ups and small and medium business enterprises that may not be able to compete with big wigs. For example, Youtube or Amazon will have an upper hand compared to smaller players like Dailymotion or Freepeople. This is the supply side argument. On the end-users side or the demand side, the argument stresses that the money spent by companies to gain priority in data dissemination may ultimately pass on the higher expense to the users who will ultimately bear the monetary brunt. Further, the ISPs themselves might charge the end-users to get their requested content on priority. For example, Netflix may pass on the higher expense by increasing subscription fees or ISPs may come up with a different data pricing for video streaming services. Some proponents also argue that net neutrality is central to as an issue of freedom of speech (Cherry, 2006), making it much more socio-political issue, rather than it being just an economic one.

Those opposing net neutrality usually the ISPs, argue that they can provide quality service if they are allowed bigger hand in their network management. They further argue that the investment required in building better and updated infrastructure is expensive. Thus, if they are not allowed to charge differential fees to those who provide majority of content (example providers like Google, Facebook, etc.) then such companies are not contributing fairly for the usage and access they have. Simply put, it means that those who depend more on Internet for their business and make higher profits out of it must pay more (Ganley and Allgrove, 2006). However, it will be misinformation if we consider only the ISPs to be opposing net neutrality. Some academicians have provided evidence which supports opposing view (Owen, 2007; Hemphill, 2008).

Internet is the backbone of communication. Advent of social media, electronic transformation of libraries leading to higher knowledge dissemination, faster information and quick news transmission has resulted in providing benefits to the society that cannot be measured in mere numbers. From simple advantages of e-learning to higher advantages such as citizen journalism, Internet has contributed vastly to evolution of knowledge and information literacy of the society. As technology advances, newer challenges to Internet as medium of communication will emerge. Maintaining the freedom of the Internet and the ongoing Net neutrality debate is one such issue facing the society at large. (Exhibit 2)

In this paper, we discuss the issue of net neutrality within the concept and importance of open Internet to examine the following questions:

• What are the impacts of net neutrality on public sphere and does it protect freedom of political expression?
• What are the impacts of net neutrality on education and subsequent information literacy?