Mozilla India is calling for all mozillians to lend their voice to the Net Neutrality debate in India.
Mozilla has always stood for freedom, choice, and innovation on the Open Web. The principle of Net Neutrality is part and parcel in keeping the Web open.
Creating Internet Malls like Airtel Zero and Facebook’s Internet.org promotes the culture of exclusivity. To stay competent, even popular brands who support Net Neutrality are forced to join the Internet Malls or risk losing a lot of “free” traffic to competitors. Newcomers can’t even apply to be members of this “bully gang”. Casualties will include not just startups in India, but even services outside like DuckDuckGo, Loomio, GitLab, etc. who cannot be expected to be interested in business partnerships in a foreign country.
An earlier version of this post mentioned Opera Mini and UC Browser to be affected.
But it appears like they’re having deals with Internet.org
Allowing Telecom companies to charge discriminatory will also directly hurt the Internet user. Where before they could get one Internet pack and use whichever service they wanted to, now they will have to get additional packs for different services, or even choose to take a smaller pack that will allow access only to certain services. Users will be denied an experience of the complete Internet, even forcing them to turn away from it altogether.
Mozillians can’t watch this happen. And we won’t. In the next weeks, before TRAI makes a decision, and even after that, we shall be campaigning heavily across India to make sure every Internet user is aware of what is at stake here. We shall be joining hands with any like-minded organizations and making sure every effort to save the Internet succeeds.
Firefox Student Ambassadors
Firefox Student Ambassadors play a crucial role in this campaign. They spread the news the fastest and the widest. We urge you to include a segment about Net Neutrality in all the events that are happening from today. Document your efforts as we will be updating this blog with news about what is happening. If you need material or guidance you can send a mail to the Community India mailing list.
Regional Ambassador Leads
The presence and involvement of active FSAs are huge in India. RALs can help FSAs to spread the issues in their colleges and local club events.
Mozilla Reps Mentors
Mozilla Reps Mentors. From past few years all Mozilla Reps have gained good experience in handling public events and talks. We have well trained Evangelism Team in India. Activate your mentees and request them to lead the campaign and save the Web that we all love.
Webmaker Mentors
You have taught the Web and shared the thoughts on Net Neutrality since last few years. You have built a huge impact in your local and we can get an impact from your contributions. Enlighten your learners and get them to help lead this campaign to protect what they built so far and what they are going to build. Let them know that, protecting the world’s largest public resource is in their hands.
On social media use the hashtags #NetNeutrality and/or #SaveTheInternet. Some graphics can be shared from our Mozilla India Page. You can send people to netneutrality.in to know more about Net Neutrality or to savetheinternet.in to send email to TRAI.
As we do for any campaign we have made Social Media Avatars, to use and share. Please change your Profile pictures and Cover pictures and be part of our voice against anti-Net Neutrality. The web empowered you so far and it needs your support now. This is the time to give your love back to the Internet. Raise your voice and let it be heard.
Net Neutrality has already been breached. And our goal is reached only when we put Internet users back into the equation by implementing strong Net Neutrality laws. Let’s not let the Telecom companies clog up the tubes of the Internet. We have always fought for and protected the Open Web and we will continue to do that, today and forever.
ACTION STEPS
1. Spread the news
Let the conversations be about Net Neutrality. Let the lunch breaks, and coffee breaks be about the latest developments of it. Let all events, no matter what kind, have segments about Net Neutrality. The public needs to be aware of the issues. There are very many nuances and the Telecom operators will confuse the public if they aren’t already aware of these. Our only defense against the powerful Telecoms are an educated public.
2. Get the petitions sent to TRAI
At the time of writing this more than 4,00,000 mails have been sent to TRAI through savetheinternet.in. Now it is more of a signature collection campaign. The higher the number, the stronger the proof that India wants Net Neutrality. For laymen, ask them to use savetheinternet.in
For people who are interested to know more, encourage them to email advqos@trai.gov.in with comments to the 20 questions themselves. Let this be an exercise in learning about the issue deeply.
3. Document the effort
All of the fun is in creating memories. This is probably the first freedom struggle most of us fight. And this deserves to be preserved forever on the walls of your blogs. Let portraits hang from the walls of Facebook forts. Let hashtags be cannonballs to destroy lobbies against the Open Web. War heroes shall be honored with Open Badges and royal mentions on the Mozilla India Blog.
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