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The first time I heard about the internet was in the 1990s when a friend told me about
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it with great excitement.
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He said the internet is so amazing, you can just go to this site called Yahoo and search
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for say Van Morrison and it will display every single page about Van Morrison.
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I said wow that's so cool, I love Van Morrison.
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At that time if you told me all the ways in which the internet was going to change our
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lives in the next 25 years, I would have said no way, that's science fiction.
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But much of the science fiction of that time is everyday banal reality today.
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I often think that I am so lucky to live in these amazing times.
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All the information in the world at my fingertips and within a few seconds I can listen to any
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song ever recorded, download most of the bookstead exists and watch any film that I want to.
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I can connect to my friends around the world and make new ones.
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This is the most empowering tool in human history.
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But here's one question, is there a flip side?
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Welcome to the seen and the unseen, our weekly podcast on economics, politics and behavioral
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Please welcome your host Amit Barma.
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Welcome to the seen and the unseen.
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The topic for today is the future of the internet.
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And my guests are Nikhil Pawar of Media Nama and Amit Doshi of IVM Podcasts.
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IVM Podcasts by the way are my partners in running the seen and the unseen.
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Nikhil has been worried about the future of the internet for a while and he suggested
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the theme of this episode.
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Amit co-hosts a tech podcast on IVM networks called Shunya One and is one of the most clued
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We had this conversation a few weeks ago and it's quite a lively discussion.
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Nikhil and Amit, welcome to the seen and the unseen.
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Yeah, this is my first time on.
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So Nikhil, the internet like air, like water, it's something we just take for granted.
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We assume that it was always thus and always will be a wonderful free place where anyone
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can say what they want and free exchange of ideas and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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But you have recently been extremely worried about the direction that the internet is going
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Tell us a little bit more about that.
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So the internet is this massive global space which unites the world that are potentially
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no geographical boundaries on the internet.
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Something that I create or I write can be read by anyone else in the world and vice
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And we've, many of us have grown up with this space, right?
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So there is, there's a sense that we belong to the internet and we feel quite often we
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feel more at home on the internet and people we meet of the internet.
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I don't know, but you know, growing up when I first started meeting friends off the internet,
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I had my uncle tell me to be careful, et cetera, and text messages, SMS at that point in time
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about where I am and who I'm meeting and all of that stuff.
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We've sort of outgrown that phase now and you know, today if you land in any country
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in the world, you probably have people you want to meet or you already know because you've
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interacted with them on the internet around things that are common.
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So in that sense, the internet is this global public commons that unites the world.
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And what's been happening over the last five or six years is that there is this massive
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and this is a political thing, there's a massive shift in the concentration of power on the
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internet and the web seems to be shrinking.
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And so, you know, our access points to the broader internet are getting more limited
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And what's also happening is that for the new people who are coming online, for most
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of them, the browser is just an app on the device.
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And so therefore, they don't really necessarily get to experience that, you know, some silly
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blog somewhere that someone's written, because how will they find out that this exists?
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They don't know what a URL is, they may not know how to type a URL, the URLs are maybe
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And so there is a shift in the way how we access the internet.
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This is something that's irritated me for so many years, right?
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I mean, we got to a point where we could get rid of desktop software by getting our browsers
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on the PCs being able to do all of our stuff over there, right, our email and all that.
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And now we went back to the same thing as soon as mobile phones came, where now everything
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has to be through an app instead of being able to use like an open browser.
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And that's actually the challenge, right?
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So the French regulator, RCEP, has recently come out with a consultation paper on device
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neutrality, saying, and you know, I was initially against that idea, because I say that, you
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know, devices are unregulated, anyone can launch a device.
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But there is a concentration of power that's taken place there in terms of the app stores.
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And you know, one of the things that came up recently in India was that the TRAI, which
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is the Indian telecom regulator could not launch an SMS spam app on the iPhone, because
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Apple wouldn't allow certain permissions.
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So if you think about it, Apple is a regulator that's regulating the Indian telecom regulator.
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And that's a bizarre situation to be in.
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And therefore the TRAI started pushing back.
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But really where we are going with this here is that Apple controls what gets on to the
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app store in the same way that Google controls what gets on to the Play Store.
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And between the Play Store and the app store, I think they probably have 99% of the watch
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They're actually not really good actors in this space a lot of times as well.
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I mean, like the way that the what happened to Windows Phone, right?
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In some ways, it's entirely because the app store and the Play Store would not play well
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But they don't play well with each other, right?
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So then this is this is a fight between elephants and the grass is getting crushed.
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And that grass which is getting crushed is the internet, the broader open internet.
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So I want to go back to how you started the episode.
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And forgive me if I ask some newbie questions and, you know, seemingly basic things.
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I just want to kind of see if I'm understanding you correctly, where you pointed out about
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how the internet is shrinking as a space.
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Now I get that all the big players are getting much, much bigger, that more people's first
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exposure to the internet is, say, through a Facebook or, you know, through a Google
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than instead of just a wild worldwide web of sites that we had out there.
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But at the same time, it's still open.
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Anyone can go out there and start anything, start their own site, start their own app,
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start their own platform.
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They might not get much traction because the way people filter content has changed.
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And that's kind of been, you know, these large companies are dominating that filtering process
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where people discover content and so on and so forth.
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So I guess the way you need to look at it is that what part of this is harmful for free
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speech, what part of this is anti-competitive in nature, right?
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And how are, for example, filter bubbles impacting our discovery of things?
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If you look at, let's say, Google search versus discovering something on Facebook, Google
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search is largely intent based.
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But I'll take you back to almost 10 years ago when News Corp started complaining about
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Google search because Google's algorithm, which is a black box, was defining how News
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Corp's content was being consumed.
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And so we're back to that same battle here.
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But now it's not just a battle on Google search, but it's also around Facebook and the filter
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bubbles and the access to content there.
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So I think another discussion that's probably going to be had and we're not having it yet
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is the neutrality of algorithms and who controls what the algorithms show us from that perspective.
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Because there was one experiment which Facebook did in, I think, 2012 where they started changing
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the news feed to make you happy and sad.
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And so, you know, is it really neutral is the question.
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And do we have multiple options in terms of algorithms as well?
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These are discussions that are going to happen because they change, they shape not just the
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way we consume content, but they shape how we view the world.
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They can shape democracies.
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And I'd like to go back to where this battle actually started.
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And so I kind of like to imagine Facebook as a country.
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And the same way Google as a country and Amazon as a country.
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And there is this turf war and this land grab that's taking place across the board.
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So whether you look at let's say, Amazon doing AWS, which is their hosting service, Google
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So you know, different companies are now looking at various industries, sub segments to get
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into to get more information and more control in that space.
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Everyone wants to do commerce as well, and everyone wants to do devices as well.
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Voice is where the real battle is happening right now in terms of Google Home versus,
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you know, the Amazon Echo.
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You might have noticed recently there was this battle around YouTube being removed.
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I think so Amazon Prime is no longer available on Chromecast.
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Amazon Prime is no longer available on Chromecast.
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And there was a reciprocal reaction there.
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And all of this because of these battles between these guys, consumers effectively are deprived
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But you know, I don't understand that it would be a problem what you're describing.
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If it was just one big monolithic company taking over clouds and taking over content
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But what you seem to have there is a really healthy competition, and I think that's good
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Well, generally, I would agree with you and I am pro competition in most places.
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What I think happens over here is these ecosystems develop lock in.
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And when you have lock in of that nature, it's difficult to move from one to another,
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I set up my entire home to function on a Chromecast and through using all Google services.
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All of a sudden, I can no longer use Amazon Prime, right?
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Well, I still use it on Chromecast casting my screen.
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But that's because casting is a protocol.
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It's not necessarily a, you know, it's...
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And by the way, there is every possibility that casting in the future may not allow it.
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You don't know how this is going to function in the future.
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And we've seen this happen before.
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So again, I mean, I brought up Windows Phone earlier, right?
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But there was a big problem with YouTube on Windows Phone.
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When Windows Phone wanted a YouTube app, Google wouldn't make it.
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They made their own, but they use private APIs and then Google blocked that app and
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So there's always this kind of fight going on with these platforms.
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See, one prism through which I look at the world, as you know, Nikhil, is the whole issue
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of what is voluntary and consensual and what is not.
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And what I see happening here is, and not just in terms of devices and not just in terms
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of Google versus Facebook, is a question I always ask myself is where is the coercion?
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Now if all these different companies are offering different kinds of products and the consumer
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can choose between one and the other or just take a combination of all of them, why get
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in the way of that voluntary exchange?
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Like when you talk about the algorithm that Facebook would have to make people happy and
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sad, that yes, when I read about it, it makes me angry that damn, I'm being manipulated.
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And that makes me pissed off.
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But then my appropriate reaction to that should be to go off Facebook.
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My point is that if people have signed on voluntarily to Facebook and if everything
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is voluntary and there's no coercion anywhere, then who are we to condescend and get in the
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No, so this particularly impacts you if you're a creator and see, this is the difference
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between the internet and traditional platforms like TV and cable, et cetera, which is why
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the internet has no parallel.
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When you're a creator, your dependency on the distribution platform is very, very high.
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Now go back to let's say another six, seven years and there was a big battle between Hatchet
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as a book publisher and Amazon and Hatchet did not want Amazon to drop hatchet prices
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essentially and Amazon therefore started showing I think fewer hatchet results in searches
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I was actually a Hatchet author.
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I mean, I launched in India with my book and I think it's legitimate.
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I mean, it's two private parties negotiating.
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But that's where power comes in, right?
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The power of the platform is always going to be greater than the power of the creator.
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One of the things you have to remember about all platforms is that they're in the business
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of maximizing fragmentation and monetizing the aggregation, right?
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So when they maximize fragmentation and we've seen, so I did some research on the YouTube
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ecosystem and when YouTube initially started, every creator was really, really happy because
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they got special attention from YouTube and YouTube guys would come and teach them about
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how to do better and better and initially they made a lot of money.
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As more and more creators started coming on, they started getting less help and they started
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making less money and so therefore as fragmentation increases, it's the aggregator that holds
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all the power and unfortunately the way markets work is that there is only space for a few
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large aggregators and the network effects that come in really inhibit competition and
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therefore you've seen that with Facebook, for example, there's literally no competition
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in the social networking space.
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In case of Amazon, India still has competition in case of Flipkart and I don't quite agree
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with them but they've also been complaining about capital dumping because they realized
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now this is a battle about deeper pockets and then it's going to be a last man standing
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You've convinced me in the sense that...
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What I'm trying to say is that this is a power game and the content creator is always going
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to lose in this battle.
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Okay, so here's the deal.
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So what I was originally arguing and I see the nuance that you added to that.
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What I was originally arguing was that as long as there is competition, you can sell
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your content to Netflix or Amazon or blah blah blah.
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What you're saying though is that say you look at Amazon, they are basically the only
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There's no other business, network effects kick in so if a publisher fights with them
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or doesn't agree to their terms, they don't have a choice.
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You have a similar kind of monopoly in terms of uploading videos.
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If you want to make your own home videos and monetize them and so on, you basically don't
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You have to go to YouTube.
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But at the same time, having said this, it seems problematic to go to a private party
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like an Amazon or a YouTube in these instances and try to regulate them and especially when
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that regulation is done by government, the process will always be corrupted and there
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will always be unintended consequences that are also harmful plus it's coercion.
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So how do we reconcile this?
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At some point, doesn't a platform become a public good?
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At some point, the fact that YouTube exists as it exists, it is a public good now at this
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Yeah, Google owns it, Google monetizes it, all of that, but it is ubiquitous in its usage.
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It's just so far out there that a certain amount of, I hate saying governmental regulation,
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a certain amount of oversight of some nature is necessary.
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I'll tell you where I agree with you and where I disagree with you.
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Where I agree with you is that when we used to speak of net neutrality earlier and I might
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have had this discussion with Nikhil and I commented from a property rights perspective
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and the question I would ask is who owns a spectrum?
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The government of India owns a spectrum and whether they should own the spectrum or not
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is a separate argument, but given that they own the spectrum, they have a right to license
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it out under whatever terms they want.
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And when the net neutrality issue broke up, I actually went and looked at their existing
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contract with telecom providers, which allows them to change the terms in between as Nikhil
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and gang were arguing for and to impose these conditions.
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So coming at it from property rights, I get that.
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But let's say YouTube is someone who is, you know, they're on the internet, they're providing
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a service, they're not compelling anyone, they're not stopping competitors.
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Who are we to interfere?
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I don't get that model right.
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You have to define what are they doing.
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It really is tough to kind of figure out, you know, what is the differentiation?
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How do you make a distinction over here?
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I mean, really, actually, I mean, look, the conversation is now changing around the fact
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that every single entity that has over a billion users is being treated as something called
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And those entities now have the power not just to, you know, impact creators, but also
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And this is exactly why governments are now becoming a lot more conscious of the power
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Like, I go back to the idea of Facebook as a country, you know, when Zuck visits, he
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has these are all diplomatic visits, effectively, there's a certain minutes or some talking
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points that are already defined with the prime minister, with different ministers.
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So if you just zoom out and think of Facebook as a country in a virtual world, what you
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will see is that they have a team that looks at the government policy, the government as
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If you're running a page on Facebook, you're effectively, that's essentially the Ministry
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of Commerce, if you think about it, that looks at those relationships.
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Their task is to encourage users of the platform, but also because Facebook's, it's a business,
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is also to ensure that there is enough monetization that comes in.
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So there are significant controls that it is able to exert by virtue of its scale and
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And under those circumstances, I think regulation is bound to happen because there are negative
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consequences that are also coming out of it, which are impacting physical countries.
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So let's look at a couple of them that are happening, right?
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So let's look at the impact of fake news, for example.
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The US election is very clear that they had very few advertising controls that allowed
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the marketing and very tiny granular segmentation in terms of targeting individuals with content
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that they felt would impact the way they vote.
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I mean, there are also instances where fake sites have been created and they're saying
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you don't need to go and vote.
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You can just go click here and vote on the website, right?
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Now, these are real consequences for democracies and they need controls in place.
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In the same way, when you look at it, let's take Uber as an example and the rape case
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Now Uber treats itself purely as a platform saying that we are helping discovery of cabs
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and they claim to not be accountable for the behavior of the drivers because they're a
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But the fact is that they are responsible because they're selecting who gets on the
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platform and they need to do their own due diligence.
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There's another debate when it's coming to around rights of drivers as either employees
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versus or just being merchants on Uber's platform.
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So what's happening right now is that there's a gap between the responsibility and the accountability
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And that exists today because of something called intermediary liability protections.
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It means that an intermediary like an ISP, like a Facebook, an Amazon or an Uber is not
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liable for the actions of the entities on it.
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And we had our own case in India around that with essentially bazhi.com where Avneesh Bajaj
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was arrested because someone put up a porn CD on sale on bazhi.com.
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It later became eBay India, but we brought in those protections as well in India to protect
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the platforms which are merely mean marketplaces for exchange.
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Now because of the scale of a lot of these platforms and the impact that they're having
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and how they impact even merchants and the power that they have over them and the fact
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that they can shape consumer behavior now, countries are looking at regulating them because
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they are responsible for some of this behavior of not, let's say, clamping down on fake news,
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but they're not held accountable because they have these protections.
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So why I'm worried about the open internet going forward is that these intermediary liability
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protections, which I support, look like they're going to get chipped away at bit by bit by
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So I want to come back to this and I'll ask you to elaborate on this because it's very
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interesting and I share the same worries.
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There's a tangential thought though I just want to throw up.
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It's just a tangential thought.
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I've also written op-eds and columns bemoaning the whole fake news culture and more than
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that what has happened to our political discourse with polarization and echo chambers and so
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on, all of it enabled by technology.
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But my point here is that we might be shooting the messenger because what all of this points
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to is that human beings have frailties in their psychological needs and the way they
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Why fake news dominates so much is that people also need to believe in fake news that once
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they've given their allegiance to a tribe, they will ignore everything from outside and
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the confirmation bias kicks in and they'll just consume content that is tailored to their
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For example, you spoke about how Facebook created these pages which said you don't have
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to go out and vote, just click here.
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And the point is to me what that indicates is a human frailty and the fact that technology
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amplifies these frailties leads to huge problems.
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But to me the amplification isn't the problem because technology, the flip side is it also
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So the issue here isn't the technology.
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The issue here is that people are flawed and frail in these ways and that brings about
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the philosophical question that if human beings are like this, is it the good state's job
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to save them from themselves?
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And I would argue that the difficult answer to that is no.
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Well, the way I look at it is that for again, for free speech to sustain, for democracy
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to sustain, certain amount of paternalism needs to kick in at some point in time.
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Now what the threshold for that to kick in is the one that we have to consider.
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Now in case of let's say, let's take the 66A judgment which was from 2015, if you're
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a free speech absolutist, you would say that all speech is kosher.
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But we have reasonable restrictions there in order to protect people, in order to protect
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So I must say I'm an absolutist and I feel those restrictions should not be there.
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So for example, there is a restriction on the incitement to violence.
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Now what we fought against was not against incitement to violence.
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I mean, I'm someone who believes that incitement to violence should not be allowed and people
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should be put in jail for inciting violence.
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But then you're like an accessory to a crime.
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It doesn't exactly fall under free speech.
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So again, if you're an absolutist, it wouldn't be a crime, right?
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I think that's a narrow view of an absolutist.
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That's an accessory to a crime.
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If you are instigating a crime, you're part of that crime.
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No, but it is a reasonable restriction that is there in terms of free speech.
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Why does it need to be applied to free speech as opposed to being applied to the violence
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I mean, I think it applies to the violence as well.
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Like the US Supreme Court had a guideline which was, you know, the phrase clear in present
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That if you say something and there is clear in present danger, if I remember correctly,
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if there's clear in present danger and it's imminent damage will be caused because of
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So for example, if you stand out there and you say that libertarians are terrible people,
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I wish they didn't exist.
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I think that should absolutely be allowed.
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But if you were to say, there's Amit Verma, he's a libertarian, kill him.
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But then you're an accessory to a crime.
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But that's a fire in a crowded theater, right?
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No, that's actually a different...
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So it's the same kind of thing.
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I've written a few pieces on that.
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The fire in a crowded theater is a terrible example, but let's not go into that.
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No, no, but I'm saying that that's not allowed under the free speech judgment as well.
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So paternalism will kick in at some point in time to prevent harm from taking place.
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No, I think we're defining paternalism differently though.
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Now when you go back to, let's say, how these platforms are essentially being governed,
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the lack of governance there from the platforms themselves is hampering the existence of countries
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Now, if you're going to come at me and say that geographical boundaries shouldn't exist,
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countries shouldn't exist, that's a completely different debate.
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But it is for the protection of the state and for the people in the state that some
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of this paternalism has to kick in from a regulatory perspective.
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See, I don't call this paternalism.
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For me, all state action is paternalism.
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I think the state's legitimate duty...
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I mean, we can agree to disagree, but I think the state's legitimate duty is to protect
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the rights of its citizens.
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So if you stand up and say, there's Amit, he's a libertarian, kill him, then obviously
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You're being an accessory to a crime or you're causing one to be committed and the state
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is entirely entitled to protect the rights of Amit, the libertarian.
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And I don't consider that paternalism.
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But paternalism would be to say that if you are to say that libertarians are bad people
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and then I protest to the state and I'll say that, please make Nikhil shut up.
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He should never be able to say this again.
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So even the judgment looks at advocacy and incitement differently.
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And there's nothing wrong with advocacy, which is what the judgment clearly defines.
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But again, we've moved away from...
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These are the minor things we can agree to disagree about the meaning of words.
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I'm just like, where did we go?
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So let's go back to the concentration of power and what that means, because what's happened
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since 2012, 2013 is that these large platforms have become substantially large.
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So between Tencent, Baidu, Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, the world is essentially
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being carved out amongst these players.
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Now there's competition that's taking place between them, but each of them has a disproportionate
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amount of ability to influence the future of countries and indeed the future of the
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So I think what I'm worried about is like I'm someone who started a site almost 10 years
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ago with very little money and now we've been around for 10 years, our ability to do...
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So for example, advertising as a revenue source has been shrinking substantially because all
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of it is being aggregated by Facebook and Google.
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Now this is legitimately one market power, the way I see it, but it's also inhibiting
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And so therefore antitrust can't quite kick in because one, there is no indication of
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clear harm, but also there is no clear indication that these guys are doing something to inhibit...
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There's no nefarious activity.
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There's no nefarious activity.
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But at the same time, is that healthy for the space is something which is being debated
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It's the shrinking of the web, so you're more likely to start a business, an e-commerce
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site, for example, on an e-commerce service on Amazon rather than start your own e-commerce
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portal now because market power is retained by Amazon and Flipkart for that matter.
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So that fragmentation which was the internet and the impact that that had on allowing people
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to come and have the freedom to create, the freedom to build something of their own is
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kind of getting lost bit by bit.
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So I'm worried about where we're going here because then what happens is instead of that
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free open space which we had, we will now all be subject to the terms and conditions
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of these platforms because really we don't have any other place to play on anymore.
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So what are the kind of solutions that you propose, number one?
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And number two, what are the kind of solutions you're worried about coming from governments
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So I don't really have a solution right now.
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I have more of a problem that I'm trying to articulate.
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Because I'm also someone who wants limited government action in all of this, right?
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Because I don't want us to lose intermediary liability protections and even if you think
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about it, net neutrality was exactly that battle that the ISPs should not shape our
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internet experience because they have exclusive access or exclusive ability to control how
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we access the internet.
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And there was a great deal of cartelization in India which now has been affected or no
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longer exists because Jio came in.
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But I think the best analogy that I heard for ISPs and I think we need to look at other
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platforms from that perspective as well is to think of them as stock exchanges.
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So like if a stock exchange starts prioritizing a particular trade, it reduces trust in that
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In the same way, if an ISP starts prioritizing one source of data versus another, makes it
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cheaper for you to access one particular source of, let's say, videos versus another, they're
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shaping your experience and that reduces trust in the ISP itself.
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Now in an open free market situation, you would have a million other ISPs to go to.
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But that doesn't happen because spectrum is limited, right away access is limited.
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We don't have unbundling of the last mile in India.
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And therefore, these are the controllers of our access in a sense.
#
So let's say if you think about it from a free speech perspective, you and I are talking
#
But when we're talking over the internet, there are multiple layers that come in.
#
So one is it starts with the device, then it goes to the network, which is the ISP.
#
Then there are submarine cable providers.
#
Then there are platforms to which that data goes.
#
Then again, the same exercise towards the person who's receiving it, right?
#
So all of these players in the middle have the potential for changing how we communicate,
#
whether we're able to speak to each other or not.
#
I'd say one important thing about free speech, and a lot of people don't get this, like often
#
if I block someone on Twitter, they'll be like, you're attacking my free speech.
#
Well, the truth is that you can say whatever you want.
#
You can choose not to receive.
#
You are not entitled to my attention.
#
You are entitled to say whatever you want in your own space.
#
So similarly in this case, we are not, like if you and I want to communicate online, and
#
of course we are going through all these different intermediaries.
#
But we are not entitled to any platforms.
#
And as long as we have a choice of platforms, it should not matter.
#
But the point you're making is we don't.
#
You see, because you will not have a hundred million submarine cable providers in the world.
#
You will not have, you don't even have, let's say you have about 200 or 168, I think, ISPs
#
But really three or four of them own most of the access.
#
But they compete with each other or are they cartels?
#
So I view them as, so the smaller ones are too small to compete with the larger ones
#
which operate like cartels.
#
And the smaller ones will depend on the larger ones also to a large extent.
#
There is a great deal of dependency between them also, also because when it comes to international
#
bandwidth access, there are only very few gateways and many of those ISPs also own the
#
So therefore, you know, what I'm saying is that it's the number of intermediaries in
#
this entire process can change the way we communicate, can prevent us from communicating
#
and therefore you need neutrality in their behavior to ensure that free speech is communicated.
#
The other thing is that I don't, and this is something which a lot of people miss and
#
especially libertarians, which is that the internet is not just a market.
#
So one of the things that many people, especially libertarians miss is that the internet is
#
not just a marketplace.
#
It's also a global public commons, right?
#
We don't just sell what we create.
#
There is contribution that's happening to community run spaces, community owned spaces.
#
So if you think about Wikipedia, if you think about GitHub and the code that's created,
#
the ability for us to contribute to each and all of these are also owned platforms run
#
by separate organizations, but the ability for us to contribute to each other, you know,
#
this is the space that's given us the creative commons license for example.
#
That's the definition of a market by the way.
#
Market basically is a web of voluntary interactions.
#
So then I stand corrected.
#
But you get the gist of what I'm saying, it's not just, it's not just owned by private
#
So tell me something, and this is probably the gist of everything.
#
What do you want the government to do and what do you want the government to not do?
#
I don't really have an answer to that question.
#
But given a part answer, what do you want, what are you worried that the government might
#
do which for example, the government could easily overreach, overregulate and become
#
So this is where I'm sort of caught in a bind saying that I do believe that we need regulation
#
to ensure neutrality and to ensure that for example, national interest is protected, citizens
#
are protected, foreign actors can't come in and manipulate elections in our country.
#
At the same time, I'm afraid of over regulation which might create, put in liability on these
#
You know, so if, if there is liability, then there is no reason to do this business in
#
It's a chilling effect.
#
It's not just a chilling effect.
#
If it's just, it's impossible for these businesses to sustain.
#
So I'll give you an example.
#
So think about it this way, if YouTube was held liable for every video that's put up
#
What would you have done?
#
The number of court cases would essentially kill YouTube, right?
#
So there are more lawyers than coders.
#
There are more lawyers than coders anyway.
#
But there are more creators.
#
I don't think that's true anymore.
#
But there are more content creators than there are lawyers, right?
#
And so therefore, each is a case in that sense.
#
And so this is the safe harbor that these intermediaries have gotten has given us the
#
Like one of the things that's happening amongst the music industry, for example, and this
#
is based on conversations I've had with a bunch of people in the music business over
#
the years in India, is that they want the ISPs to be held liable for piracy, saying
#
that the ISPs are distributors of pirated content.
#
And they make money because we download more, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
#
If that happens, ISPs would shut down essentially.
#
I mean, it's like saying that if someone takes stolen goods on a road, then the person who
#
owns the road should be liable.
#
But this is still an argument which finds favor with some people in government, with
#
And so therefore, I worry about opening the gates to government regulation there, right?
#
And what's going to happen as a consequence of that could be disastrous for the internet
#
and disastrous for users.
#
So does deregulation work as a solution over here?
#
Again, deregulation also doesn't work because we are currently operating in a deregulated
#
And without any regulation, we have several problems which have cropped up, like for example,
#
fake news, a large amount of hate speech and abuse, significant amount of privacy violations,
#
the creation of filter bubbles, terrorist outfits using that anonymity that the internet
#
And I mean, I'm someone who supports anonymity because it gives vulnerable communities a
#
But the same anonymity has also been used, for example, by ISIS handles, right?
#
So there's no right answer to this.
#
We have to find a balance because somewhere we have to look at from a harms regulation
#
So the other part of this entire platform battle that's going on is around data protection
#
and privacy because the amount of data that they're collecting that gives them the ability
#
to again, create more filter bubbles, target people better, allow advertisers to target
#
people more sharply and yet not control what kind of communication advertising is going
#
there because it's going at such a large scale that it's impossible for them to monitor
#
So we've got this beast that we're dealing with right now.
#
And we want the beast because it's great benefit that comes from it.
#
But there's also great harms that come from it.
#
And so somewhere from a deregulation perspective, for example, net neutrality is a kind of deregulation
#
because through the regulation of imposing net neutrality, you have a deregulated space
#
on the internet, right?
#
So I don't exactly agree because there are laws which govern them, but largely it allows
#
the freedom to do legal things.
#
I think so moving aside from like these specific issues.
#
So let me just, there are two other things, right?
#
One of the things that is going to come up for discussion is algorithmic neutrality.
#
Because it's the way the algorithms are functioning without regulation, being a black box that
#
is impacting the content that people consume and has the potential to impact again, has
#
a potential to impact democracies.
#
Device neutrality is another one that's going to come up around that same issue.
#
So I think trying to enforce some of these neutralities like telling a company what kind
#
of algorithms it can or cannot use is problematic in some senses.
#
By definition, they're going to have bias built in and they're made by humans, right?
#
So here's where intermediate liability comes back to this discussion, right?
#
It's applicable to platforms and effectively is based on the fact that platforms have no
#
say in what people consume.
#
Now, if an algorithm is controlling what you can consume, effectively it's no longer a
#
It's an intermediate liability.
#
Protections will not be available.
#
But see, here's the thing.
#
Every algorithm, as Amit just said, will have some kind of bias.
#
You know what he's saying as well, that the second you introduce a bias into the system,
#
at that point in time, it's no longer neutral.
#
Yeah, but the moment you try to regulate the bias, you introduce another bias into the
#
I think the important thing here is you let users choose between biases.
#
That's exactly the solution, right?
#
So if, let's say, on Facebook, I had the ability to delete my entire history and start over.
#
I don't right now, but I can have a fresh newsfeed with no bias in the system at that
#
That freedom is useful.
#
If I had, let's say, four different algorithms to choose from, or maybe a hundred different
#
algorithms to choose from, that again allows me choice from that perspective.
#
But to get to that space from here, isn't a better way of doing it consumer activism,
#
users saying that, hey, no, we don't like these features, we want those, rather than
#
I mean, I know you're not suggesting that, but I think the classic-
#
Government action is very problematic in this kind of a situation, right?
#
Like, how is any kind of government action going to be able to define the rules that
#
algorithms need to function under?
#
I mean, like, how is that even a possibility?
#
So there are discussions that are going on around that, which is around essentially regulating
#
So if there is demonstrable harm that's coming out from an algorithm, and you can feed a
#
data set to see what's happening there, there is a potential for regulation to go and correct
#
That feels very nebulous to me.
#
It's a complicated one.
#
And these are early days.
#
What I'm pointing towards is that these things are going to happen in the future.
#
Because this problem is only growing, right?
#
And the US elections are a clear indication, elections in Italy as well.
#
So these are, I mean, we have, in India here, we have a major fake news problem right now.
#
And again, that's again, two internet issues fighting off against each other, right?
#
So one is the problem of fake news.
#
The other is need for privacy.
#
You have end-to-end encryption on WhatsApp, but WhatsApp is where most of the fake news
#
It's the largest media platform in the country.
#
And again, there's a human tendency and hunger for fake news.
#
So in a sense, we're shooting the messenger.
#
But what you're saying is also cautionary in a sense, because I know you'll agree with
#
my principle that whenever you give government any kind of power, you have to assume that
#
it will necessarily be misused.
#
So if you give government the power to regulate Facebook, then assume that if you're a left
#
liberal, assume that Yogi Adityanath will be prime minister and he'll be running the,
#
he'll be setting that regulation.
#
And if you are more culturally oriented and not anti-national, then assume that Sonia Gandhi
#
will be somehow in charge and running.
#
You have to assume that the worst person you can think of is in power in the government
#
and give power to the government accordingly and build in enough safeguards to that accordingly.
#
No, so we need the safeguards there.
#
So we need regulation with oversight and safeguards.
#
And of course, it's not a perfect science.
#
We've had issues in every single instance where this has happened.
#
But I think we have, the world is fast reaching a point where doing nothing is not an option.
#
I think, you know, the problem with India essentially is that a lot of the problems
#
that are caused by government, people can't think of any other solution to them, but more
#
But this is not just India, right?
#
And this is a social problem.
#
But all social problems cannot be solved by government intervention.
#
If you look at Trump's election, for example, and the alleged usage of misinformation, filter
#
And the Russian involvement and all of that.
#
No, by the Russians in fact.
#
And the impact that that has had, like I gave you that example of, hey, you can go on the
#
You don't need to go to the election booth, right?
#
Those things are real problems.
#
Yeah, but here's my point.
#
See, I find Trump's election very distasteful and disturbing and literally depressing.
#
I was just very sad that day and I was also the same day demonetization happened.
#
So it was a double whammy for all of us believers in liberty.
#
But then the point is people are entitled to vote as they want, to get whatever news
#
they want, to believe whatever they want.
#
That's the heart of individual freedom.
#
Now, I agree there's a social problem there, which you've correctly identified, the filter
#
bubbles and blah, blah, blah.
#
What you're ignoring there is the issue of bounded rationality and information asymmetry.
#
Both of these issues are very real.
#
I'm taking those for granted, but I'm saying government intervention leads you to totalitarianism
#
So that's what I'm saying.
#
So I can't... so my point here is I'm someone who was inherently opposed to the idea of
#
government regulating a space that means freedom for me.
#
My sense is this is bound to happen now.
#
This is... because this is unfortunately an idea whose time has come because of all the
#
dangers and it started with the Arab Spring.
#
We've come a long way from the Arab Spring where, you know, it was people on Facebook
#
who got together and that led to a revolution.
#
Here now it's been a change in government and electing someone is being instigated through
#
So I don't think there's any going back from there because every single government in the
#
world from now on is going to be conscious...
#
So I want to ask you another different follow-up question and go deeper into this.
#
But before that, I'd just like to say that, look, a problem which is caused by the large-scale
#
voluntary actions of individuals can only, in my view, be solved by the large-scale voluntary
#
actions of individuals, whatever form it takes and it's an unknown, unknown, we don't know
#
But then what you do is you're ignoring a period of indoctrination, using fake information
#
to make people believe that something is real because, I mean, if you look at it, we are
#
in an era when there is going to be AI-generated videos and for most people they will not be
#
able to make out the difference between one and the other.
#
In fact, I'll be able to have a podcast where you are attacking net neutrality and saying
#
completely the opposite things.
#
But that wouldn't be me.
#
It would be your voice.
#
Anyway, so the question I'm going to ask is like, we are more or less on the same page.
#
These are minor sort of bickerings which, you know, can...
#
Which are the fun things to talk about.
#
Of course, the fact that we are pretty much on the same page.
#
So my question here goes away from the problem itself to the kind of activism you've done
#
when you did the Save the Internet campaign and so on, and my question is this.
#
Can you tell me a little bit about the different interest groups involved and what the interplay
#
For example, a big company would, contrary to what people think, always be against free
#
They'd be looking to consolidate their turf and to prevent newcomers from coming in and
#
they'd be against competition.
#
Similarly, you'd have small groups of people with absolutely no voice like you and me who
#
would want competition and want markets to prevail.
#
Similarly, you would have different government bodies operating in their own silos who would
#
want to explore opportunities for rent seeking.
#
So how does an interplay between the different interest group play out?
#
And you've actually been part of negotiating with all of these interest groups, right,
#
at different points in time.
#
So the way I looked at that campaign and the way we started it was this idea that we need
#
to first inform people and then give them a voice.
#
And interest groups will align in whichever way they want, but if there are enough people
#
involved and enough people who support net neutrality, people will align in support.
#
So you decided to make it a mass movement?
#
We decided to make it a mass movement from the very beginning because, look, I've taken
#
part in TRAI consultations over, I mean, over the last decade on several occasions.
#
I've sat in, I know how the process works.
#
And the TRAI really has the most open and transparent process.
#
What are their interests?
#
What are their interests?
#
What are they fighting for?
#
So historically, what's happened with the TRAI is that, you know, the industry guys,
#
the lobbyists for mobile operators, et cetera, go and visit them twice a week.
#
They visit different people, they are very organized in terms of they know who to talk
#
to, what about, et cetera, et cetera.
#
So if you have someone at a regulator who doesn't necessarily have much information
#
and is not very tech savvy, then these people become a source of that knowledge for them.
#
And of course they do want counterpoints because they want to be neutral in this entire process.
#
They want to be fair in this entire process.
#
But there aren't enough players on the other side that come and speak to them.
#
There's also a credibility issue.
#
So for example, who am I to go and speak, even though I have an opportunity, every single
#
individual in this country, every citizen can go and speak at a TRAI event at a TRAI
#
open house and voice their views on a particular issue.
#
What we did was we ensured that there was enough of a collective voice for citizens
#
in that particular situation because we were battling all the mobile operators which have
#
a tremendous amount of power which the TRAI had a great deal of affinity for because they
#
instigated this entire consultation process.
#
We had politicians who really did not have a clue about what net neutrality is in the
#
And I can't really blame them because most people in this country did not understand
#
We had businesses who again didn't have too much of a clue, but there was a clear benefit
#
for them in terms of at least the larger players for taking ownership of internet access to
#
So you had the operators which would enable this.
#
You had the businesses that would benefit from it.
#
And so neutrality had no voice in this entire debate.
#
And I got this feeling on two particular occasions.
#
One was the TRAI open discussion, they had a discussion with industry stakeholders invited
#
on creating a revenue share model between online content creators and service providers
#
So they wanted a revenue share.
#
So if you have advertising running on your site, the ISPs would get a revenue share of
#
So I saw that TRAI seemed to be open to this discussion.
#
That was a warning signal.
#
And it felt very lonely in that room, to be honest, even though there were a few other
#
people who spoke up for net neutrality.
#
But I actually at one point in time stood up and pointed towards a free speech argument
#
saying, do you realize what you're trying to do over here?
#
And how it's going to impact people and their communication?
#
And that this is going to get a constitutional challenge.
#
And the TRAI backed off a bit, they're like, you know, we're just discussing stuff here.
#
But really, there was too much power in that room going against us.
#
So the idea behind the net neutrality campaign was that votes beat money.
#
And so we went out and got the votes.
#
And so we had to fight off fairly significant stakeholders.
#
I don't know if I've answered your question, really.
#
No, your journey is fascinating, and I think both Amit and I agree.
#
But I'll tell you where this philosophy is coming from, right?
#
The two core ideas to this.
#
And one of them is that all of us have a certain amount of free time.
#
And if we love the internet, we should be willing to contribute our time and our effort
#
to making it a better space for the generations that are going to follow.
#
Because if the internet dies, then we'll all have a lot more free time.
#
So the other one, the other idea is this idea of active citizenship, that we have to become
#
active citizens and get involved in these regulatory processes, because what happens
#
is quite often we delegate that responsibility to our elected representatives or others.
#
And that's not working for us, right?
#
I mean, Barack Obama has this great quote that we cannot solve the problems of our times
#
unless we solve them together.
#
So it's important for us to come together around issues that we really care about and
#
voice our concerns, because there are enough elected representatives who will listen to
#
Governments will listen to us if we speak up.
#
But the problem quite often is that we feel that someone else will do our job for us.
#
So it sounds here that you overcame two classic public choice problems.
#
Like these are two problems of public choice theory.
#
One is the benefits are concentrated, the costs are diffused.
#
So you'll have these interest groups or these big companies making a lot of money.
#
But the costs are so diffused that the people who are bearing the cost, that is the citizens,
#
they don't even realize what's at stake.
#
And number two is that even if you get all the citizens to agree that, hey, this is a
#
problem, there's what is called the free rider effect, where they're willing to let someone
#
else fight the battle for them, and they'll post supporting tweets and supporting statuses,
#
but they won't do something themselves.
#
They want their free Netflix.
#
And the idea was around how do we get people involved.
#
So that's where the tech team came in.
#
Like we put together a team in a matter of 12 days, where we had a tech team in Bangalore,
#
we had a legal and policy team in Delhi.
#
And this is basically just me calling up friends and saying, hey, listen, this is going down.
#
We need to do something about this.
#
And I'll be honest, even at that point in time, I did not fully understand how to tackle
#
many arguments around net neutrality.
#
And the thing was that together, because we kept debating some of these things, we learned
#
If I didn't have an answer, someone else came up with an answer.
#
We crowdsource a lot of our learning from that perspective.
#
And the idea was to give people ownership of this movement.
#
So another core philosophy of the movement was nobody owns the movement, therefore everybody
#
Because a lot of these battles fall apart when it comes to taking credit.
#
And I don't have the credit for this.
#
This belongs to everyone who participated.
#
And all I did was go in and start asking people for help and trying to give them a reason
#
This, in fact, runs up against another behavioral economics funder, Diffuse Responsibility,
#
that if too many people have the responsibility for something, nobody will do it.
#
So this is the opposite of that.
#
Yeah, and you overcame that as well.
#
And I think that what we're seeing now, because even around Aadhaar, I'm interacting with
#
a lot of politicians, is that there is a growing concern amongst politicians also that they
#
don't necessarily understand tech, but they realize the impact that it's having.
#
And they want to help understand it from a user perspective, from a citizen perspective,
#
because that's their core constituency.
#
Because historically, they've only been visited by interest groups that seek to benefit commercially
#
So I think that the more, and we've got social media platforms now that allow us to communicate
#
I think one of the things that I want to work on over a period of time is to create more
#
platforms for engagement with the policymakers.
#
And that could be offline, that could be online.
#
I mean, we've seen his campaigns run, especially in the US, where people call up their representatives.
#
How many of us do that here?
#
And you've generally seen that MPs are open to these kind of engagements?
#
Look, we've, and I'm not going to name people, but because we ran the Speak For Me campaign
#
around Aadhaar, one of the things that we saw was that there were about, this is what
#
I've heard, that there were 11, 193 notices that were filed in the winter session of parliament,
#
which were essentially, because our campaign was around asking MPs to file 193 notices
#
for discussions on Aadhaar in parliament, right?
#
And there were over 100 questions asked about Aadhaar in that session alone, which is the
#
largest that I've seen so far.
#
So I think that MPs, if citizens reach out to them, they do react, they do respond.
#
It's just that historically, no one responds to them.
#
I mean, during the Net-to-Tribe campaign, some of the MPs got 10,000, 15,000 emails
#
These are MPs who typically would get five or 10 maybe in a month or something like that.
#
When you get that kind of volume, they know that people want to be heard.
#
So they are our representatives, but our democracy, the way it's built, is that there's a big
#
gap between the citizens and the ones we elect.
#
And that's largely possible because of the scale and no single voice is loud enough.
#
But it's almost like the creation of interest groups in a sense, right?
#
So you bridge that gap with the very same technology you denigrate.
#
But I'm saying, so that's the beauty of all of this.
#
For every single thing that I've talked about today, there are pros and cons.
#
And so the idea is to find a balance.
#
And the idea is to make sure the pros are more by voluntary action.
#
So I'm going to end by asking both of you two questions, which is what makes you worried
#
about the future of the internet and what makes you hopeful about the future of the
#
Amit, shall we start with you?
#
So I mean, like, worried, I guess, would be a lot of what Nikhil is talking about.
#
I think that is kind of a concern.
#
Keep your hands off the internet, basically.
#
You know, I mean, like, that would be my preference.
#
But I also understand that there are compulsions around why that can't be 100% kind of maximalist
#
There's like some sort of nuance over there.
#
And in terms of optimistic, I'm just I'm generally very optimistic.
#
I think that we haven't even it's not even 20 years old.
#
Or it's just 20 years old, 25 years old.
#
You know, I mean, like in the context of history, I mean, we haven't even like scratched the
#
surface of what we're going to get through this.
#
So I mean, like, from an optimistic perspective, I think that just what's going to happen with
#
this stuff is we haven't even seen anything close to what's going to happen.
#
Well, you don't know what you've lost till it's gone.
#
And so I am extremely worried now about the openness of the internet and the acts and
#
the the controls that are being now used in terms of accessing the internet, the new people
#
who've come on board and have no idea about all the wonderful things that are there on
#
the internet for them to experience just because they have access to only a few apps and they
#
don't even know how to go to a browser and type in a URL.
#
So I'm worried about how concentration of power is going to impact internet access in
#
What I am very optimistic about is that we're currently dealing with a generation that's
#
grown up with the internet and they care about the space, they love the space, even though
#
some of them may be signing up from some platforms, but I think most of us have access, we want
#
access and that's going to continue.
#
So ours is a generation that's going to fight for the internet now and there are a large
#
number of people who are as idealistic about it.
#
And essentially, there's a second rung that's going to be much better than us in terms of
#
fighting for the values that we want in the internet in a sense.
#
So I think I'm optimistic about that because I interact with a lot of, I hate to use the
#
word youngsters because that makes me feel old, but if you are old, what are we?
#
And I do feel very hopeful when I interact with them because there is genuine love for
#
the internet there and these are the people who will fight for it in the future.
#
And I think that's a very gratifying and inspiring note to end this episode on.
#
Thank you guys for coming.
#
If you enjoyed listening to the show, you can follow Nikhil on Twitter at Nixon, N-I-X-X-I-N.
#
You can follow Amit Doshi at Doshi Amit.
#
I'd also encourage you to check out the tech podcast that Amit co-hosts, Shunya One, on
#
the IVM podcast app or website.
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You can follow me on Twitter at Amit Verma, A-M-I-T-V-A-R-M-A.
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For past episodes of The Scene and The Unseen, including an episode I did with Nikhil on
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Aadhaar, please head over to sceneunseen.in.
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Thank you for listening.
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If you enjoyed listening to The Scene and The Unseen, check out another hit show from
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Indusworks Media Network's Cyrus Says, which is hosted by my old colleague from MTV, Cyrus
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You can download it on any podcasting network.
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He bends down to test the warm water for his bath.
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He comes here to quench his thirst for a hot shower and some podcasts.
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You can witness how he enjoys having other people talk about cool stuff in his bathroom.
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Indeed, it helps him with his loneliness.
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You can find more of his pieces on ivmpodcast.com, your one-stop destination where you can check
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out the coolest Indian podcasts.
