SaveTheInternet.in

SaveTheInternet.in is an Indian web petition portal started in 2015 to support the principle of net neutrality in India. Reported to be one of India's biggest online protests, "SaveTheInternet.in" is a campaign platform through which Indian citizens can send an e-mail to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) expressing their views on net neutrality. The campaign was started by many individuals from Reddit India, Nikhil Pahwa, founder of MediaNama, Kiran Jonnalagadda, co-founder of HasGeek and others to generate public awareness and garner popular support in response to a consultation paper introduced by TRAI asking for submissions on over-the-top-services. By 23 April 2015, 1 million e-mails had been sent to TRAI demanding net neutrality in India, trumping the maximum number of e-mails ever received by TRAI on a consultation which was previously 18,000.
As of 15th August, 2016, the SaveTheInternet movement has been converted into an NGO called the Internet Freedom Foundation
History
On 27 March 2015, TRAI released a consultation paper on over-the-top services (OTT) and net neutrality for public feedback. Following this announcement, various individuals including Pahwa and others listed on the website's blog started raising concerns about the implications of TRAI's proposal to impose extra charges on internet users for accessing "over-the-top services" such as Whatsapp, Skype Viber etc. On 6 April 2015, Bharti Airtel, a leading telecom provider in India announced the launch of Airtel Zero, a platform through which it would offer users free access to certain mobile apps and services from companies who have signed up with their platform.
Background
Members of the Reddit India community began discussing Net Neutrality in December 2014, after the news of Bharti Airtel deciding to charge extra for Skype (VoIP services) use on its network. Netneutrality.in was started on December 25, 2014, to talk about net neutrality and how Airtel was breaking it. A petition was started on Change.org addressing TRAI. Airtel decided to reverse their decision after the issue gained public attention and TRAI agreed to bring a consultation paper, which was made public on 27 March 2015. Nikhil Pahwa, with the cooperation of others created an abridged version of the paper as well as spreadsheets that allow users to inform startups, politicians and influential Twitter users about the consultation were created. Members of Reddit India and of other forums began discussions on the topic, with members collaborating on writing answers, and answering concerns. Detailed answers using legally correct language were prepared.
A catalyst to this movement came through a video message by All India Bakchod, a famous comedy collective that urged viewers to go to savetheinternet.in and mail TRAI the answers. This gave the movement a huge boost. Their loyal following, which includes many celebrities with massive fan followings of their own, in turn linked to the AIB video, widening the campaign’s reach. News of the Flipkart and Airtel Zero deal broke. Flipkart immediately came under harsh criticism. AIB’s video and the Flipkart news led to the media, which had already been covering the issue sporadically, moving their coverage up several notches; the #SaveTheInternet movement moved to newspaper front pages, prime time television, and online news and views sites. Simultaneously, multiple sub-campaigns were launched to encourage founders of start-ups and internet-based businesses to declare their support for net neutrality (including some who had signed up for platforms like Airtel Zero and Facebook’s internet.org); some of these companies withdrew and publicly stated support for net neutrality (notably, Flipkart’s withdrawal from Airtel Zero made a splash). Others proclaimed support for net neutrality without joining these schemes. Cleartrip withdrew from Internet.org, making it the first blow to that scheme. Several others quickly followed.
The inventor of WWW, Tim Berners-Lee, has spoken out against programs that violate net neutrality. "I tend to say ‘just say no’ when it comes to compromising on it", says Berners-Lee.
Support for Net Neutrality
Over 2 million unique visits were logged at SaveTheInternet.in, and over 1,000,000+ emails have been sent to TRAI Many activists are organising on-the-ground events in their cities to bring attention to the need for net neutrality.
National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI), a body under the IT Ministry, has come out in support for net neutrality. It issued a statement saying any move by telecom operators to selectively bundle the services will go against the basic concept of Internet.
Protest against Free Basics
Facebook rebranded their Internet.org platform as Facebook Free Basics and launched it on Reliance Communications, a mobile carrier in India. This has led to a second wave of protests and activism from the team behind SaveTheInternet. There have been arguments and discussions over multiple platforms, most notably the open editorials on Times Of India by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and SaveTheInternet team member Nikhil Pahwa.
Facebook claims that Free Basics will help startups broaden their reach, but several technology companies and startups have voiced their concerns about Free Basics and some of them have written to TRAI chairman, notably Microsoft, Paytm, Zomato, TrulyMady, HasGeek, Mouthshut etc.
AIB came out with a third video titled Save The Internet. Their first video was the tipping point for the SaveTheInternet campaign to go viral and get picked up by mainstream media. Paytm, a payments and ecommerce startup in India, ran TV advertisements in support of SaveTheInternet. Haptik and Truecaller have sent out push notifications on their mobile apps urging their users to send emails to TRAI against zero rating.
"Consultation paper is not an opinion poll", says TRAI chairman R.S. Sharma. TRAI was unsatisfied with the templated responses sent in by a large number of Facebook users from within their website, and have requested the public to send in valid responses. They have also extended the December 31, 2015 deadline to January 7, 2016.
"If Facebook is allowed to get away with this then every other company will offer its own “Free Basics” with other sites and we will grow up as a fractured country, unable to speak with each other because we are all on different, unconnected micro-networks", writes Mahesh Murthy in his LinkedIn post.

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