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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.
**AA vs. Tim Berners-Lee. Round 1 Fight!
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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.
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I think the main point is that you shouldn't get kicked off the net because the *IAA said so.
Quick vehicles, large livable buildings and females covered in grease are not culture. The internet itself is so twisted into culture and way of life now that it almost is a necessity. As TVs die, non voip phone calls end, newspapers become news-websites, etc etc eventually the only source of all of this will be the "internet" as a whole. Therefore making sure it's unrestricted, readily available and easily accessible should be handed now, rather than after the politicians have made a huge damn mess of it. Be careful how you privatise your culture, it may become unaffordable eventually.
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.
I don't think it trivializes human rights at all.
Say for instance you have a third world country led by a petty dictator who declares it illegal to discuss politics with foreigners (e.g. Libya). If such a government set up a state television network and a state internet to spread lies and propaganda, while banning it's citizens from accessing the world wide web and talking to foreigners, then yes, I would say that a human right had been violated
Basically, if you aren't economically able to provide access to the internet for your citizens, you aren't committing a great injustice or war crime or whatever. But if you could provide it, and you choose to ban it instead, then that would sound like something wrong to me.
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.
Given that it's how people look for jobs, conduct their livelihood, keep in touch with people, do their banking and loads of other stuff ... you can make the argument that for a lot of us, the internet has become fundamental to how we do a lot of things.
So are cars. In fact, you could substitute 'automobile' for 'Internet' in your sentence and have it perfectly valid. Should having a car be a fundamental human right?
If someone cuts me off from the internet for 6 months, my life reverts to the stone age in a lot of ways.
How entertainingly dramatic. Stone age? Do you realize that many of us lived healthy, invigorating lives before the 1980s?
Now, it might seem laughable and trivial to call it a human right when people don't have really basic rights like personal liberty or religious freedom ... but, in terms of how it impacts my ability to carry out my daily life (such as my job), it's difficult to express just how entwined it has become.
So, I can see why some of these "three strikes" laws whereby you suddenly can't access the internet would be fairly devastating to someone.
Your personal convenience does not raise the issue to a fundamental right. While I agree that the 'three strikes' rules are stupid and useless, you do realize that if you 'struck out' you could still go over to your friend's house (assuming, of course, you had any) and use their Internet to carry on those dramatically important parts of your life that require it.
For all of you that think the Internet is that important - maybe you should go outside for a while without your cell phone or anything with a battery. It's shockingly pleasant (except for those unfortunates living in Cleveland or New Jersey, probably best you all stay indoors).
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
that's like saying driving is a human right because it is so prevalent in modern society.
Driving should be a right in modern society. Not because it is prevalent in modern society but because it has become practically necessary to survive in modern society. People are compelled to pay for and support the infrastructure that is required for people to drive, the same infrastructure that restricts/outlaws other viable means of transportation (i.e. horses), and as result should have the right to use it. The whole 'driving is a privilege' is complete BS. It used to be true, it no longer is. Don't buy it, try to survive in a suburban/rural area without the ability to drive and see how far you get and how difficult it is.
This is not to say all people should be provided gas and vehicles. Just that they cannot be denied the right to drive if they have the ability and the means to do so. Also, keep in mind, in the days of horses, depriving a man of his was considered a capital offense as it deprived him of his livelihood.
For pete's sake, comparing web access to "fast cars, a big house and loose women"? Or "a million dollars"? Fucking retarded.
Granted, maybe "right" isn't the correct word, but tell me, would *you* be able to survive without access to the Internet? Seriously, if you had to look for a new job, do you think that having only printed paper classifieds is sufficient? It seems like any time someone tries to suggest that maybe if we try raising the bar and giving people a helping hand (you know, by giving them access to *find* a job) that people start saying the world is going to end and all those people without jobs are just no-good lazy bums anyway. You know what makes me cynical? Not the people on welfare. It's the people who bitch about welfare and "entitlements".
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It's the 21st century and Internet access -is- a fundamental human right.
Obviously not on as basic a level as access to clean water or the right to live, but absolutely on the same level as other recognised human rights like:
- access to education
- rights to free speech
- rights to seek employment
- rights to communicate
These days the majority of my personal interactions with government services, retailers, educational institutions, employers and clients are through the internet. It's becoming increasingly necessary to have internet access just to function in modern society and people without are gradually being disadvantaged and marginalised. Without internet access you're severely limited in the number of stores you can shop at, the amount of educational material you can access and the number of employers that will hire you (try getting a professional job without an email address).
No, the right to access the internet doesn't mean everybody's entitled to free, super fast porn streaming in their living rooms. It does mean governments have a responsibility to ensure internet service in available to people in the same way they do electricity, phones, schools and medical treatment. It means that barring someone from accessing the internet is a violation of their rights and is not acceptable as a form of punishment.
This is what's really wrong with all the bullshit MPAA/RIAA three-strikes disconnection laws, that after illegally downloading a total of 3 songs, you can lose your access to -everything- else you rely on the internet for. Hope you didnt need that connection for your job, studies, financial services or anything else in your life.
No, it's about time we recognise that internet access is a fundamental right in a modern, information based society.
Here in Finland, internet access has been a right now for more than a year. I believe also some other countries in the EU have similar rights.
Too many posts here are wrongly confusing a right with something you get for free. Just because it's a right, does not mean it costs you nothing. I have a legal right to be provided access to the internet. I do not expect to get such access for free. Just like access to clean water and electricity, these are also rights for which I have to pay to receive.
What it means is that the government cannot take my internet access away or force me to be disconnected from the internet. I have a right as a citizen to have access to the internet and that cannot be taken away legally.
This is a clever argument (I like it!), but it's flawed.
It turns out that most of the time, you don't have a right to a jury or a fair trial. Go ahead and march into the nearest courthouse right now and demand a fair trial. You'll find that you can't get one, because you aren't currently being prosecuted for anything.
The fair trial right is conditional on the government initiating the action of prosecuting you. That is, they wouldn't normally have the right to force you to attend court for trial or punishment, but we will let them, provided they fulfill certain conditions, such as making a jury available to you. Fair trials are not natural right, because absent governemnt, there are no trials (fair or unfair) at all.
To put it another way, requiring the right to a fair trial, is a concession we make, in order to make it more palatable to grant the government the power to deny us our negative freedom to not be involuntarily summoned to court or punishment. Without recognizing that negative freedom, there is no reason to create the positive right. It all comes down to negative liberty.
The way that Berner's-Lee might be able to use this, would be if government violated our negative liberty by forcefully requiring us to have internet access. That might create a right to use the net. If, for example, they were to say "We have the power to imprison you if you don't file your taxes, and we refuse to accept tax returns that are not e-filed," then your rights would be violated, but we might decide to allow that (i.e. think of it as a not-abusive or unfair rights violation), if as a condition for that, they treated net access as a right.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
I think others are assuming an importance to electricity it doesn't deserve. Sure, without it life can become harder if you like having lighting, heating, and refrigeration , but jesus, get a sense of perspective.
I think others are assuming an importance to telecommunications it doesn't deserve. Sure, without it life can become harder if you like calling places in cases of emergency , but jesus, get a sense of perspective.
I think others are assuming an importance to interstate roads it doesn't deserve. Sure, without it life can become harder if you like to haul stuff around the country or get places , but jesus, get a sense of perspective.
So on and so forth. The internet plays a MAJOR role in today's world, and it's only going to get bigger. You're already at a significant disadvantage if you're computer illiterate these days, and many places have started switching to "online only" options for things like filling out applications.
~X~
The UN long ago forgot that products and services cannot be "rights" in a society that's free of officially sanctioned theft and compulsory labor. The concept of "rights" has become so silly with these people that a nation can seriously propose such lunacy as this: UN document would give ``Mother Earth`` same rights as humans. They've become little more than a very expense three-ring circus who has no authority whatsoever on the subject.
You can try to universally provision a good or service free of charge, but you will bring it into a state of scarcity in the process.
Pi Ran Out
'It's possible to live without the Web. It's not possible to live without water."
As someone who just lived through the Christchurch, New Zealand earthquake of February 2011, I can attest that even if you don't have water, it's a whole lot easier to get some if you have the Web (in my case a Blackberry).
Street water was off. The City Council had water trucks making deliveries and trucks of bottled water, but their location kept varying. They posted the schedule to the Web. If you didn't have timely information on where the trucks were going to be...
It's possible to live without the Web, yes. But it's a whole lot easier to get your Maslow on with it.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
A few years ago when we had a crisis involving our water and electricity (in Western Australia) the Governments (State and Federal) made comments that clean running water and electricity were 'privileges' and not 'rights'. I would say that in this day and age in a first world country that they are incorrect, especially as we pay top dollar through the nose for both. It was just a cop out by both Governments for poor infrastructure planning. But internet access doesn't come close to either of these. How will Berners-Lee convince the Government that it is a human right when they don't believe that about water or electricity? Will I end up having a connection to the internet and no electricity to use it?
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)