
Wikimedia in Iraq has nearly 12M subscribers free of mobile data charges - The_ed17
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/02/28/wikipedia-zero-iraq/
======
djrogers
This is a clear violation of net neutrality principles, but it's also clearly
a good thing for the Iraqi people. How do those in the hard-core NN tent
square that circle?

To sidestep any straw-man arguments about war zones, different country, etc;
What if this were implemented in Appalachia to give access to wikipedia to the
poor an uneducated there?

~~~
AndyMcConachie
NN is about preventing one competitor from getting an unfair advantage. So
unless you view Wikimedia as having a competitor, or some future potential
competitor, this doesn't really violate any NN principles.

In essence, if we're all OK with Wikimedia having a monopoly on what it is
that Wikimedia does then there is no problem.

Going back to the roots of the ICC(predecessor to the FCC) trains could carry
USPS mail at different rates than other cargo. The USPS had a government
sponsored monopoly on mail delivery. However, rate discrimination between
similar cargo from different parties was prohibited. This is the basis for our
concept of common carriers and NN.

~~~
woah
NN is a pretty loosey-goosey principle that mostly just means "I don't like
Comcast". There's also some partisan political football mixed in, and in the
EFF's case, sizable donations from content providers like Google who want to
preserve a strong bargaining position when buying bandwidth.

~~~
SwellJoe
Not merely "I don't like Comcast", though I (and a huge portion of their
customers) _really_ don't like Comcast.

It is the very high potential, one might even say certainty, that if given the
opportunity to hobble their competitors in the entertainment space and to give
themselves a massive advantage, they will do so.

The telcos and cable operators in the US have never been anything but monopoly
or duopoly players. They don't know how to compete on any other field. If they
are given the gun with which to shoot Netflix (for example) in the head (or
demand ransoms that only major players can pay), they will likely pull the
trigger the same day.

So, no. It's not about disliking Comcast, it is about knowing with confidence
that the internet will be harmed, maybe drastically, by giving Comcast (and a
few others who play according the same rules) the ability to do so.

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seibelj
Wouldn't net neutrality supporters be enraged because all data is not being
treated equally now? Upstart wikis will never be able to compete!

~~~
gbl08ma
You kid, but as much as I like Wikimedia (and as much as I would like to
access Wikipedia free of mobile data charges), I think this objectively makes
it harder for projects in the same field to compete, even if just a tiny bit.

I like to think I'm a net neutrality supporter, but when my mobile plan
included unlimited data for the carrier's own music streaming service, I
started using it and the unlimited data came in really handy. I used other
streaming services much less because of that; Spotify, for example, didn't
stand a chance of seeing my money.

I guess you can't have your cake and eat it too...

~~~
megalodon
There is a pretty big difference between a charitable non-profit organization
and a proprietary music streaming service.

~~~
yosamino
Sure, but the barrier for the ISP to allowing the same thing for a proprietary
music streaming service has been lowered.

This is, apart from the utility that it brings, advertisement for the
operator:

> Wikimedia recognizes the user is on that operator's network and serves a
> banner on the top of the page indicating free data courtesy of their mobile
> operator, which reinforces a positive brand experience for the operator. [0]

It's not inconceivable that the ISP would do similar deals with
$music_streaming_service. Maybe for some payment.

[0]
[https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero](https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero)

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koolba
So how long till someone makes a VPN that uses Wikipedia edits as the
underlying communication channel? The latency would be on the order of seconds
but the throughput would be decent.

To those of you who think I'm joking, it's already been done with DNS lookups
so why not here too?

~~~
yosamino
Way ahead of you

[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/wikipedia-zero-
fa...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/wikipedia-zero-facebook-
free-basics-angola-pirates-zero-rating)

~~~
DanBC
Here's the HN discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11358846](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11358846)

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yosamino
Does this mean users of this thing will not be able to substantially edit
wikipedia, because they won't be able to cite sources ?

Or check sources ?

Because if they get free access to wikipedia _only_ that would be the case.

If, on the other hand, only people who are already subscribers don't get their
wikipedia traffic counted, then that seems a small improvement at best.

~~~
rhcom2
Damn that is a good point that I hadn't thought of.

This version of wikipedia puts a lot more faith in the editors because users
can't check sources.

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smilekzs
Meanwhile in People's Republic of China, a peaceful (as in not troubled by
war) country, People's access to Wikipedia still depends on the mood of those
in power...

~~~
astrodust
China has been at war with its own people for generations now.

~~~
vkou
Every government (Or at least, the people they represent) is at war with its
servants.

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anc84
I would much rather see devices fitted with full dumps of the text content of
Wikipedia(s). The english Wikipedia is just 60 Gigabytes for heaven's sake!

~~~
eugeniub
Most smartphones in Iraq probably have 4–16gb of storage, and 64gb flash
storage would be prohibitively expensive for most Iraqis. The English
Wikipedia is 60gb, but that's without _any_ multimedia. The total size of all
media in Wikimedia Commons is 23 terabytes.

We could create a minified version of the Iraq Wikipedia that could be around
40gb, but many will not want it, so we'd have to sell Wikipedia phones and
non-Wikipedia phones.

You could sell copies of the minified Wikipedia on microSD cards, but a 64gb
microSD card still costs about $20, but that price is out of reach for most in
the war torn country.

Then there's the issue of updated content. One of the main uses for Wikipedia
is learning about current events, current status of crises, recent elections,
recent deaths, etc. You wouldn't really be able to do that with this system.

~~~
guaka
The Arabic ZIM file of February 2017 is 5.4G.
[http://wiki.kiwix.org/wiki/Content_in_all_languages](http://wiki.kiwix.org/wiki/Content_in_all_languages)

------
strgrd
> Wikimedia recognizes the user is on that operator's network and serves a
> banner on the top of the page indicating free data courtesy of their mobile
> operator, which reinforces a positive brand experience for the operator.

I would like to know just how different Wikipedia Zero is. Can people still
make accounts and contribute articles with this service?

~~~
yosamino
From the same article:

> Through the Wikipedia Zero program, mobile data fees are waived for
> subscribers of participating mobile operators so that they may read and edit
> Wikipedia without using any of their mobile data.

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redsummer
Is invading them not enough? Does the US have to force an encyclopedia of Lord
of the Rings trivia on them too?

