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Berners-Lee: Web Access Is a 'Human Right'
jbrodkin writes "Two decades after creating the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee says humans have become so reliant on it that access to the Web should now be considered a basic right. In a speech at an MIT symposium, Berners-Lee compared access to the Web with access to water. 'Access to the Web is now a human right,' he said. 'It's possible to live without the Web. It's not possible to live without water. But if you've got water, then the difference between somebody who is connected to the Web and is part of the information society, and someone who (is not) is growing bigger and bigger.'"
A free and open internet may disappear if we don't fight for net neutrality. And we need it more now than ever.
So not providing web access is in the same category as e.g. imprionment without trial or torture? Will we see stories about how people in Guantanamo Bay are *gasp* deprived of Facebook? This does seem to triviliase human rights just a little.
This is becoming a joke, first people try to claim health care is a right (as if I could just march in a doctor's office and demand my right to a checkup) and now this guy is trying to claim web access is a right? Does that mean he thinks the government should provide computers to all to exercise this right then?
Please people, stop. You trivialize and diminish what real human rights are when you try to expand it to include goods and services and you feel are essential but they just aren't "rights".
fill in the X with your favorite personal privileged that you'd like other people to finance for you.
Me, I'd like fast cars, a big house, and loose women. I mean, those are all things that make me happy and happieness is a basic human right, right?
Moreover, the divide between myself and those who have the sweet cars, fast women, and kickass houses is growing bigger and bigger every year, and I think it's high time that the government stepped in and gave me the crap I'm asking for.
I think Berners Lee and others are assuming an importance to the web that it doesn't deserve. Sure, without it life can become harder if you do a lot of shopping and banking online , but jesus Tim , get a sense of perspective.
... that the idea behind human rights was to prevent torture, exploitation and give everyone the right to the fair trial.
Internet access? How pathetic the human race has become.
THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS - CC Licensed Sci-Fi Novel
A lot of people confuse the two. For instance, in the USA, we have the right to print our own newspapers, pamphlets, flyers, etc., collectively known as the freedom of the press (which obviously extends to electronic media as well). In this case, the government can't prevent you from doing it, but they also don't have to supply you with the means to produce those materials. I'm afraid more people will view the "right" to internet access as a government provided product that costs the entire society, in which case it is actually an entitlement. The bad thing about entitlements is that the government can also place restrictions on how you use them, since they're holding the purse strings...
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Internet access isn't a human right. Nevertheless, the internet is an incredibly important tool used by all modern nations of the world. To that end, internet access should be treated as just another facet of the basic infrastructure of any modern nation. Basically, internet access ought to be treated as a postal system or the highways: it's so important to the survival of any nation, economically and militarily, that the government should regulate it and allow citizens to use it as a public system. As it is, internet access in modern America is what the railroad companies were during 19th century America: they are owned by huge, ultra competitive corporations, whose economic fights are doing more harm than good to the nation.
There are NO positive rights, only negative rights. You have a right not to be stolen from or murdered. You do NOT have a right to have stuff given to you, because that implies that there is a right to take that thing from someone else. Such "rights" lead straight to hell.
If you want to argue for net neutrality, fine, but arguing that someone must take on the role of Santa Claus is just asinine, and highly destructive if such mandates carry the force of law and the threat of violence from the state which follows.
Access doesn't really mean anything more than having the opportunity to swing by your local library to use one of the public computers from time to time. Access does not mean having personal broadband, an iPad, a netbook, or any of the other gadgets and toys that some would like to think it means.
I do believe that basic access should be a guaranteed right -- but that does not absolve the individual from having to pay their bills, do some legwork to get to the library, or otherwise put in an effort to make use of their rights. Think "voting" -- just because you have a "right" to vote does not mean anyone else has to do diddly squat to help you get to the polling station.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The infrastructure that was mostly paid for by the taxpayers. So we do own it, really.
Sorry buddy but that is utterly false. The modern internet is run over fiber optics that was laid across the country by Quest and Level 3 and other companies. The last mile that runs to your house was wired in by a company. The government has not been a majority spender on the internet for at least a decade, probably longer... what Arpanet gave us was the concept of the internet, which private business has taken and run with.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Positive rights are "more fun" than negative rights, which is why I think most people gravitate to them. This is how we get arguments about how great Cuban healthcare is, while completely ignoring the fact that if you own an unlicensed cell phone in Cuba you will quite literally be facing "reeducation through hard labor" or worse. The left has almost completely abandoned negative rights except when someone does something to a protected group that is bad enough to make a liberal say "there ought to be a law..." (and by coincidence, there was, in the Constitution).
Instead of focusing on rights to this or that material thing, how about getting hot and bothered about the poor not having these rights in most of the world:
1. The right to freedom of speech.
2. The right to worship freely.
3. The right to protection from abusive searches and seizures.
4. The right to keep and bear arms for personal defense.
5. The right to a public, honest and open trial with legal defense.
6. The right to not be tortured.
7. Habeus corpus as a human right.
The infrastructure that was mostly paid for by the taxpayers. So we do own it, really.
Much like the railroads were given free land and various rights in the 19th century. Have you tried getting a free ride from the rail roads?
:-)
Personally, as a taxpayer, I'd rather have a free in the F/A-18 I've paid for.