Wikipedia Zero was a project by the

Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best kno ...

to provide access to

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

free of charge on mobile phones via

zero-rating Zero-rating is the practice of providing Internet access without financial cost under certain conditions, such as by permitting access to only certain websites or by subsidizing the service with advertising or by exempting certain websites from ...

, particularly in

developing markets An emerging market (or an emerging country or an emerging economy) is a market that has some characteristics of a developed market, but does not fully meet its standards. This includes markets that may become developed markets in the future or were ...

. The objective of the program was to facilitate access to free knowledge for low-income pupils and students, in by means of waving the network traffic cost. With 97 operators in over 72 countries, it was estimated that access to Wikipedia was provided to more than 800 million people through the program. The program ended in 2018. The program was launched in 2012, and won the 2013

South by Southwest South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in m ...

Interactive Award for activism. After having received criticism over the years for violating the principle of

net neutrality Network neutrality, often referred to as net neutrality, is the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) must treat all Internet communications equally, offering users and online content providers consistent rates irrespective of co ...

, in February 2018, the project announced the end of the initiative, stating that it would take a new strategy on partnerships. Despite providing service to 900 million persons, the project was seen as jeopardized by a lack of growth, and by the declining price of cell phone data.

Facebook Zero Facebook Zero is an initiative undertaken by social networking service company Facebook in collaboration with mobile phone-based Internet providers, whereby the providers waive data (bandwidth) charges (also known as '' zero-rate'') for accessin ...

has been cited as an inspiration for Wikipedia Zero.

History

A brief history of launches is provided within that map above. In addition to that, Wikimedia Foundation: mobile network partners has a complete list of participating mobile networks and launch dates. * Malaysia, on 12 May (

Digi Telecommunications Digi Telecommunications or Digi.Com Berhad ( d.b.a. digi; ), is a mobile service provider in Malaysia. Its largest shareholder was Telenor ASA of Norway with 49%. On 24 May 1995, Digi became the first telco in Malaysia to launch and operate a f ...

) * Kenya, on 26 July 2012 (

Orange S.A. Orange S.A. (), formerly France Télécom S.A. (stylized as france telecom) is a French multinational telecommunications corporation. It has 266 million customers worldwide and employs 89,000 people in France, and 59,000 elsewhere. In 2015, ...

) * October 2012: Thailand, in October 2012 (

dtac Total Access Communication Public Company Limited, commonly known as DTAC is a GSM mobile phone company in Thailand. It is the nation's third largest GSM phone company, after AIS and True. DTAC is owned by Norwegian company Telenor both direc ...

; Saudi Arabia with

Saudi Telecom Company Saudi Telecommunication Company (stylized as stc) (Arabic: شركة إتصالات السعودية ) is the Saudi digital enabler of telecommunications services in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and among the operators in the Middle East. The comp ...

* May 2013: Pakistan, with

Mobilink Mobilink ( ur, ) was the trade name of Pakistan Mobile Communications Limited (PMCL), a mobile operator in Pakistan providing a range of prepaid and postpaid voice and data telecommunication services to both individual and corporate subscribers ...

* June 2013: Sri Lanka, with

Dialog Axiata Dialog Axiata PLC ( si, ඩයලොග් ආසිආටා පීඑල්සී, Ḍayalog Āsiāṭā PīElSī, ta, டயலொக் ஆசியாடா பிஎல்சி) (formerly known as MTN Networks and later Dialog Telekom), i ...

* October 2013: Jordan, with Umniah; Bangladesh, with

Banglalink Banglalink Digital Communications Ltd., d.b.a. Banglalink ( bn, বাংলালিংক; previously Orascom Telecom Bangladesh Ltd.) is a Bangladeshi telecommunications company headquartered in Dhaka. It's the third-largest mobile networ ...

* April 2014: Kosovo, on the

IPKO IPKO is a company that provides telecommunication services in Kosovo. It is the second mobile operator in the country. Amongst their services are: mobile telephony, fixed telephony, internet provider and cable TV. The main shareholder of the compa ...

network * May 2014: Nepal, with

Ncell Ncell Axiata Limited (previously Ncell Private Limited) ( ne, एनसेल आजियाटा) is a mobile service provider from Nepal. Ncell is Nepal's second largest telecommunications company, after Nepal Telecom. The company was founde ...

and in Kyrgyzstan with

Beeline A bee line is an idiom for the shortest route or a straight line between two points (see "as the crow flies"): bee line, bee-line, or beeline may also refer to: Brands and enterprises * Beeline (brand), a telecommunications brand by VimpelCom L ...

* May 2014: Nigeria, with

Airtel Nigeria Airtel Networks Limited (Airtel Nigeria), commonly known as Airtel, is a leading mobile network operator in Nigeria. According to the Subscribers statistics released by Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) on 30 August 2019, Airtel Nigeria ha ...

* October 2014: Ukraine, with

Kyivstar Kyivstar ( uk, Київстар) is a Ukrainian telecommunications company, providing communication services and data transmission based on a broad range of fixed and mobile technologies, including 4G (LTE) in Ukraine. The Kyivstar mobile netw ...

* December 2014: Ghana, with

MTN Ghana MTN Group Limited, formerly M-Cell, is a South African multinational mobile telecommunications company, operating in many African and Asian countries. Its head office is in Johannesburg. , MTN recorded 280 million subscribers, making it the ...

* December 2014: Angola, with Unitel S.A. * Algeria, in January 2015 (

Djezzy Djezzy (Arabic: جازي) is Algeria's principal mobile network operator, with a market share of 65% (over 16.49 million subscribers in December 2016) and a network covering 90% of the population (48 wilayas). Djezzy is wholly owned by the Algeria ...

) * Moldova, in July 2015 (

Moldcell Moldcell is a Moldovan mobile network operator and is a subsidiary of Nepalese company CG Corp Global. It works in GSM, UMTS and LTE standards. General information Moldcell is a mobile telecommunications operator in Republic of Moldova, part o ...

) * March 2017: Iraq with

Asiacell Asiacell Telecom Company ( ar, آسياسيل, ku, ئاسیاسێڵ) is an Iraqi telecommunications company that offers mobile phone services and Mobile Internet mainly in Iraq. History Asiacell, the first mobile telecommunications company ...

* September 2017: Afghanistan with Roshan In February 2018, the Wikimedia Foundation announced that the Wikipedia Zero program would be completely phased out by the end of 2018.

Reception and impact

The ''Subsecretaria de Telecomunicaciones'' of Chile ruled that

services like Wikipedia Zero,

, and

Google Free Zone Google Free Zone was a global initiative undertaken by the Internet company Google in collaboration with mobile phone-based Internet providers, whereby the providers waive data (bandwidth) charges (also known as '' zero-rate'') for accessing selec ...

, that subsidize mobile data usage, violate

laws and had to end the practice by 1 June 2014. The

Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet ci ...

has said, "Whilst we appreciate the intent behind efforts such as Wikipedia Zero, ultimately zero rated services are a dangerous compromise." Accessnow.org has been more critical, saying, "

Wikimedia The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best know ...

has always been a champion for

open Open or OPEN may refer to: Music * Open (band), Australian pop/rock band * The Open (band), English indie rock band * ''Open'' (Blues Image album), 1969 * ''Open'' (Gotthard album), 1999 * ''Open'' (Cowboy Junkies album), 2001 * ''Open'' (YF ...

access to information Access may refer to: Companies and organizations * ACCESS (Australia), an Australian youth network * Access (credit card), a former credit card in the United Kingdom * Access Co., a Japanese software company * Access Healthcare, an Indian BPO se ...

, but it's crucial to call out zero-rating programs for what they are: Myopic deals that do great damage to the future of the open internet". The

's Gayle Karen Young defended the program to ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'', saying, "We have a complicated relationship to net neutrality. We believe in net neutrality in America", while adding that Wikipedia Zero required a different perspective in other countries: "Partnering with telecom companies in the near term, it blurs the net neutrality line in those areas. It fulfills our overall mission, though, which is providing free knowledge". Journalist Hilary Heuler argued that "for many, zero-rated programs would limit online access to the 'walled gardens' offered by the web heavyweights. For millions of users, Facebook and Wikipedia would be synonymous with 'internet'." In 2015, researchers evaluating how the similar program Facebook Zero shapes

information and communications technology Information and communications technology (ICT) is an extensional term for information technology (IT) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications (telephone lines and wireless signals) and computers, ...

use in the

developing world A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...

found that 11% of Indonesians who said they used Facebook also said they did not use the Internet. 65% of Nigerians, and 61% of Indonesians agree with the statement that "Facebook is the Internet" compared with only 5% in the United States. An article in ''

Vice A vice is a practice, behaviour, or habit generally considered immoral, sinful, criminal, rude, taboo, depraved, degrading, deviant or perverted in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character tra ...

'' magazine notes that the free access via Wikipedia Zero made

Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons (or simply Commons) is a media repository of free-to-use images, sounds, videos and other media. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation. Files from Wikimedia Commons can be used across all of the Wikimedia projects in ...

a preferred way for its users in Bangladesh and elsewhere to share

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...

ed material illicitly. This caused problems at Wikimedia Commons (where uploading media that is not free-licensed is forbidden). The ''Vice'' article is critical of the situation created by Wikipedia Zero and of the backlash among Wikimedia Commons editors, arguing: "Because they can't afford access to

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

and the rest of the internet, Wikipedia has become the internet for lots of

Bangladeshi Bangladeshis ( bn, বাংলাদেশী ) are the citizens of Bangladesh, a South Asian country centered on the transnational historical region of Bengal along the eponymous bay. Bangladeshi citizenship was formed in 1971, when the ...

s. What's crazy, then, is that a bunch of more-or-less random editors who happen to want to be the

piracy Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, v ...

police are dictating the means of access for an entire population of people."

References

External links

Wikipedia Zero Wikipedia Zero was a project by the Wikimedia Foundation to provide access to Wikipedia free of charge on mobile phones via zero-rating, particularly in developing markets. The objective of the program was to facilitate access to free knowled ...

at the

Wikimedia blog posts about Wikipedia Zero
{{Wikipedia Articles containing video clips Computer-related introductions in 2012 Internet access Net neutrality Projects disestablished in 2018 Projects established in 2012 Wikimedia Foundation

Zero 0 (zero) is a number representing an empty quantity. In place-value notation Positional notation (or place-value notation, or positional numeral system) usually denotes the extension to any base of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system (or ...

History

Reception and impact

See also

References

External links