Akshay, Thanks for a very thoughtful response. All your points are very incisive, and prise open the key basic issues that are involved here. My responses are inline.
On Saturday 23 January 2016 06:23 AM, Akshay S Dinesh wrote: > On Thu, Jan 21, 2016 at 10:14 PM, parminder <[email protected]> wrote: >> This is a very important issue. When the current net neutrality and Free >> Basics storm passes, and we have a better idea about what side is govt >> tilting towards, some of us plan to write a letter asking TRAI to look into >> this case of 'platform abuse' by Facebook... Remember, TRAI has competence >> both in matters of infrastructure as well as content (it issues >> recommendations on media as well). >> >> Comment and/ or support is welcome.. >> > I would be careful about which parts of Facebook's campaign we call > platform abuse. > > Showing the user a notification drawing their attention to an issue > that a website believes in is not platform abuse. If that's the case, > Wikipedia did platform abuse for SOPA, reddit does it for many things, > Mozilla does it on their homepage, Google does it on their home page, > etc. Unlike in the technical arena, where we may tend to think in binaries, the socio-political space admits of a more graded thinking. (I am not running down the technical realm here. The difference is deliberate and by design.) Small 'abuses' may not be considered abuses, but the same thing when it becomes big and substantial it may require legal/ regulatory check... We can pick up examples from all around us about what invites legal restraint and punishment, when a very similar thing in small measures, and not causing adverse social effects, may not. So, yes, of course, if close to elections, Google's homepage begins to wear, say a saffron color, or distinctive colors of any one political party, that would be scandalous. Dont you think so? I am sure it is likely to invite state action from many possible sides... As for wikipedia and SOPA, while I too campaigned against SOPA, I think, such is the somewhat monopoly position of wikipedia, that perhaps it should *not* have used its platform for the campaign. It may be easy to say, it is ok that they did... But the next political issue may not be as clear cut.... What if wikipedia did a similar thing when say government of India is mulling a law about 'some kinds and levels' of data sovereignty (which the EU for instance is) and wikipedia comes in and uses its platform to weigh on one side than the other. It is a slippery slope. We can progressively keep taking examples of more and more politically divisive issues... The whole meaning of a platform is a certain level of monopoly and intermediation neutrality . What would and what may not quality as a monopoly platform to be subject to regulation against platform abuse is an issue of judicial/ regulatory determination, which test can never be perfect. > > Making one-click emails possible from a throw-away email address is > not platform abuse. It just shows that Facebook is technically capable > to circumvent spam filters. Yes, they would have had an unfair > advantage since they are a platform where people already have > accounts. But, that's only a technical advantage. No, facebook is not just a technical thing, it is a social fact, a social structure. And a big one at that. And so the advantage is social-structural, and subject to legal/regulatory examination and checks. The functionalities that facebook employed for this campaign in its own favour are not available to other users, to be used on and trough facebook, who may want to promote a different point of view on the same political question of net neutrality and zero rating. In fact the manner in facebook did this political campaign in its own favour is an exemplary instantiation of why free basics is such a bad thing..... > > Pre-composing a template response is not platform abuse. Even > #savetheinternet did that. savetheinternet people and website simply do not have the platform power for it to be held guilty of platform abuse... > > Spending millions on ads is not platform abuse either. In fact, as Prabir pointed out, it is a de facto abuse of a few other laws... > > The abuse Facebook did is on TRAI's consultation process in what TRAI > themselves describes correctly as "reducing this meaningful > consultative exercise designed to produce informed decisions in a > transparent manner into a crudely majoritarian and orchestrated > opinion poll". > > So, it became a platform abuse only when Facebook did what is okay > (showing notifications, sending emails on behalf of others) to do > something that is not okay (not informing people of what the > consultation process is, disrupting the process). But then going by your logic, why should the second thing be not ok... Any political player - if you are going to make no distinctions between different types - have a right to be partisan. It can give its followers what information it wants to give and not give what it does not want to. do we not all do such kind of things... The problem here therefore is the extent of structural social power enjoyed by a particular party, which in this case cna be called as 'platform power'. > > The irony is not lost on me that if Facebook decides to show > notifications to vote in favor of a political party, it would not be > abusing anything, but rather just taking part in the "crudely > majoritarian and orchestrated opinion poll" that we call democracy. > And I don't think TRAI will have the moral authority (if not > technical) over whether networks can convey a political message to its > users. As argued above, I disagree... Would you be ok if google in the election days begins to show a partisan political message next to its search bar? This is what you are claiming to be ok, and arguing that law/ regulation can have no moral authority to stop... > > Lots of depth to go into these thoughts. Thanks for deciding to pursue > it, Parminder. Thanks Akshay, all your points above to be are 'the' key counter points to what I proposed and thus helped me a lot to doing further into the depths :) parminder > > Akshay > _______________________________________________ > network mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.fosscom.in/listinfo.cgi/network-fosscom.in >
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