Neutrality on the Internet

Freedom of connection, with any application, to any party, is the fundamental social basis of the Internet; and now, is the basis of the society we built on the Internet.

- Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Internet

Net neutrality is a very relevant issue, especially to us tech-savvy Singaporeans, that has been appearing more and more often. What exactly is net neutrality? Well here’s a good definition from Wikipedia :

.. a broadband network free of restrictions on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, on the modes of communication allowed, which does not restrict content, sites or platforms, and where communication is not unreasonably degraded by other communication streams ..

The internet in Singapore, as we have it right now, is mostly unregulated save for a handful of sites with paedophilia content and/or extremist religious preachings, which of course I’m fine with. But this raw and vast expense of knowledge at our fingertips could potentially run the risk of being regulated by our local internet service providers, if what’s going on in the UK were to happen here as well.

A few days ago,

Virgin Media CEO Neil Berkett has attacked the principle of net neutrality, whereby internet service providers do not interfere with or degrade the speed at which content is delivered from websites to consumers, branding it as “b****cks”.

This has resulted in a huge lash out from the netizens in Europe, particularly those 3.6m of them whom are currently subscribed to Virgin’s internet services.

While it’s only in the discussion stages and UK seems hardly close to home, the same situation turned around on us might not be treated with such apathy. Here’s a hypothetical situation : A few years down the road, if Singtel were to invest a few billion dollars into Google, which currently owns Blogspot, access to the alternative blogging sites could be severely restricted by regulating the Internet to their own capitalist interests. That means no more wordpress and no more livejournal, unless you upgrade to their premium package.

This, like all other local initiatives, won’t be a one-off change but will take place gradually, and will be packaged and promoted to appear fair and logical to the insipid unaware Singaporean (think ministerial salaries, unnecessary GST hikes, public transport fares, etc).

Here’s a good picture to sum up what I meant : link.

The beauty of the Internet is that it finally provides an unregulated source of knowledge which does an excellent job of challenging state-run media when it comes to providing unbiased news. Without the Internet, would I have ever known Dove is one of the main reasons why Indonesia’s rainforests are falling faster than a stack of cards? Without the Internet, would I have ever enjoyed the clarity of thought and realised how the top paid ministers in our government has never once taken responsibility for Mas Selemat’s escape? Without the Internet, I’d probably never have been exposed to trance music and would still be suckered into listening to horrible mandarin trash pop because that’s all the radio plays.

Speaking of the radio, did you know it was once an unregulated medium of communication, like the Internet, but ended up getting regulated for commercial use in the end?

This issue has been on my mind for a couple of days and, coincidentally, I read that our local bloggers have taken it upon themselves to propose sweeping changes with regards to Internet regulation to the Minister for Information, Communication and the Arts. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m quite the armchair critic, and I give my heart-felt thanks and salutations to them for taking this initiative to ensure net neutrality.