Comment & Debate
Marshall Kirkpatrick. “Is Internet Access a Fundamental Human Right? ReadWriteWeb. June 11, 2009: “Here’s a prediction: in five years, a UN convention will enshrine network access as a human right (preemptive strike against naysayers: ‘Human rights’ aren’t only water, food and shelter, they include such ‘nonessentials’ as free speech, education, and privacy). In ten years, we won’t understand how anyone thought it wasn’t a human right.”
“The internet as a right.” Guardian. October 24th, 2008: “In a civilized society, education is a right. Some services we may pay for but society still treats them as rights: In any developed society, we expect to have water, electricity, even phone service (in the U.S., we all pay fees to assure that everyone can get a line). In the U.K., television is a right such as funding it is a responsibility. These rights can be met publicly or privately.
Why not the internet? I say that access to an unfettered internet – an open internet that is not censored or filtered by government or business – should be expected as a new pillar of civilized society. Just as we judge societies by their literacy, we should now judge them by their connectedness.”