Let’s talk hypotheticals

Yesterday we told you about India’s equivalent of the National Telecommunications Commission banning both free Facebook and the company’s free website access initiative, internet.org on grounds of net neutrality. Net neutrality, for those not in the know, is the principle that internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source and without favoring or blocking products or websites.

Facebook’s free access plan is in direct violation of this core principle, despite its altruistic goal. Remember, Facebook’s Internet.org initiative only favored a few, well established websites – smaller websites and services are not included in the free access.

Even access to free Facebook is already a violation of the net neutrality principle. Both local telcos already violate the spirit of net neutrality laws, as each one favors Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and their own music and video streaming platform of choice, providing free access to them depending on who you go with.

So our question today is two fold: are you in favor of the NTC applying the same net neutrality principles here in the Philippines (assuming that they have the means to enforce it) and what would you do if free access to Facebook suddenly goes away? Would this be a good thing or a bad thing for the local tech landscape? Let us know in the comments below (and try to keep things civil folks!)