Question

Write 1200 word response on the following topic

Topic: Net Neutrality & Social Media: What the impact of the recent FCC ruling from the FCC could mean

1. Topic context and background – How did these areas function before the advent of social media? (15 marks)
2. Current trends and prospects – How is social media impacting your selected topic area? Provide three specific examples. (50 marks)
3. A discussion on ethical considerations, including, but not limited to, privacy and security, free speech, and intellectual property. (15 marks)
4. Issues and opportunities to improve/enhance the impact of social media on your selected topic in the next 3 years. (10 marks)

Answer 1

Hello,

Net Neutrality or the principle of ‘open internet’ protects our right to communicate online freely by ensuring that all internet service providers supply open networks and do not block or discriminate against any applications or content. These include discrimination by protocol, IP address and favouring private networks.

The term Net Neutrality’ was coined by Columbia University media law professor Tim Wu in 2003 and Chile became the first country in the world to pass net neutrality legislation in 2010, by adopting laws that prohibit organisations such as Facebook and Wikipedia from subsidising mobile data usage of consumers. In 2015, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) too ruled in favour of net neutrality by reclassifying broadband access as a telecommunications service. It is believed that Mexico has adopted one of the strictest net neutrality frameworks in the world.

The Social Media, in its purest form, is a veritable fountain of information. At its core lies a commitment to both openness and a level playing field, where an ability to innovate is perennially maintained. Therefore, the public demand is to neutralise the net in India as it is done in other countries. This enables equal access to the internet and greater penetration of information across the globe. This will strengthen the net consumers and reduce the exceptional profits made by telecom giants.

Internet is inherently neutral. The father of the World Wide Web (www), Tim Berners Lee himself revealed that it was designed as neutral medium. He further emphasised that there should be no censorship and the state should not restrict any legal content by the citizens.

Telecom companies, who own the infrastructure through which data packets passes inter alia argue that they should have a right to control this data flow and the ‘freedom’ to charge accordingly.

Their argument is that since telecom companies spend large amounts of money building the infrastructure, they should have a say over what content travels over or through it and of course make more money from it. Network neutrality is the principle according to which internet traffic shall be treated equally, without discrimination, restriction or interference regardless of its sender, recipient, type or content, so that Internet users’ freedom of choice is not restricted to particular content, services, applications or devices.

Telecom regulators are of the view that OTT players like WhatsApp, We Chat etc. are eating up the main revenue without investing in networks; OTT players, on the other hand, defend themselves by demanding access to web services without any discrimination.

Internet Service Providers (ISPS) can create slow as well as fast internet lanes, which mean all websites cannot be accessed at the same speed and one can do so only on paying an additional sum. ISPs can also charge extra for the free calls you make using services like WhatsApp, Skype and others and eventually the load of additional payable sum by the Over-The-Top (OTT) players will be pushed onto consumers.

One of the main reasons the Internet has been so successful is that people have generally been able to use it how they wish. The worst thing policy makers could do to the network would be to allow telecom companies to change that.

TRAI took a revolutionary decision, prohibiting telecom service providers from levying discriminatory rates for data, thus ruling in favour of net neutrality in India. This move was welcomed not just by millions of Indians but also by various political parties, business persons, industry leaders and everyone using the internet.

Social networking sites like face book, my space, twitter and orkut are platforms for Internet users to create individual profiles with personal information, make new friends and connect with old ones and even for business networking, in some cases.

Users can use certain applications which help them connect to each other through instant messaging and sending emails between each other, creating personalised profiles for themselves which can be accessed by colleagues and friends etc. Such applications are known as Social networking sites. Personal profiles are highly specialised as they are suited to the users needs. He/she can upload audio files, videos, blogs as well photos into the profile which can be shared to other friends. Facebook is considered to be the largest social networking site and it is interesting to note that it was originally founded by US based Mark Zuckerberg who wanted to stay in touch with his friends in Harvard Unviersity. Myspace is also another example of a social networking site which has over 250 million users worldwide.

SNS are being used for market research with regard to netnography as well as creating brand communities by different companies. SNS have also been used especially well for promoting movies for example when film makers create a fan page of their movie which allows user to access information such as trailers, photos and download games for free. Similarly companies sponsoring football clubs have used SNS such as Myspace to allow fans to feel closer to the teams they support. Apart from marketing their products through SNS other companies go to the extent of using SNS as a distribution channel for their products for example 1-800- flowers a US based florist has allowed facebook users to send virtual flowers to whomsoever they desire or send the real ones by directing users to their company website.

VIRTUAL WORLDS

Platforms which exhibit a 3 Dimensional environment through which personalised avatar forms of users can interact with each other similar to how they would in real life are known as virtual worlds. These virtual worlds could possibly be the best form of Social Media since they involve the maximum social presence of individuals rather than only some aspects of social life. There are two forms of Virtual Worlds.

VIRTUAL GAME WORLD

Firstly there are the virtual game worlds which involve users following strict rules through online role playing games (MMORPG). This has gained popularity and now even standard game consoles such as the Sony Playstation and the Microsoft X box allow multiplayer options to connect with users all over the world. A famous example of a widespread virtual gaming world is the “World of Warcraft” which has more than 8.5 million users as well as Sony’s EverQuest. These games have become such an important part of lives for some people that they start replicating their online role playing character in real life. It is also possible to leverage the popularity of virtual games into traditional communication campaigns. A good example is when Toyota used figures from the World of Warcraft into one of its car advertisements.

VIRTUAL SOCIAL WORLDS

The second form of virtual words is the virtual social world which allows users to live a virtual life online. Similar to the virtual game worlds, virtual social worlds have users in the form of avatars all set in a 3D environment though there is one major difference which is the absence of strict rules to which users have to abide and stick by. This allows more room for freedom and self presentation and thus it has been slowly seen that users or ‘residents’ of the realm bring several aspects of their real life into the online world. (Haenlein& Kaplan, 2009; Kaplan& Haenlein, 2009a, 2009b). A perfect example for virtual social worlds is the Second Life application which was created by Linden Research Inc. This virtual world allows day to day activities such as talking to other users, walking and even enjoying virtual sunshine. Attention to detail goes a step further due to the possibility of designing own clothes and furniture as well as buying and selling goods for virtual money. These virtual social worlds allow a large range of opportunities for marketers especially because they can get good market research virtually as well launch a product into the virtual market to see how it fairs.

Thank You,

Keep Chegging!!!