Tim Berners-Lee: Web access is a human right

It's a real shame when an expert on one topic starts to talk in public about another area they don't really know about.<p>"Human Right" is an attribute with a lot of implications. If the web is a human right because otherwise people end up disadvantaged, then surely more basic communications technologies are human rights also? Like pens and paper? Even worse, if your logic is that things become human rights because they're simply beneficial, then you have to create loads of new human rights. Washing machines are human rights. Public transport is a human right. Five pieces of fruit a day is a human right. And then you're starting to loose a lot of the original meaning of the term.

<i>While access to water is a more fundamental right...</i><p>Sorry, I can't get past this. If the word "right" is so fluffy we can use it anywhere, it doesn't have any meaning.<p>I firmly believe that computers are becoming integrated with our minds. That means, yes, there are going to be real rights associated with them. It's an open issue to figure out exactly when we cross that line where the rules change, but we're getting very close.<p>But if "health care", "internet access", "water", and all these other things are tossed out as rights, it takes away the entire reason that internet access may qualify. It's just a jumble of feel-good meaninglessness.<p>We face this same problem with the word "war". We have a war on drugs, a war in Afghanistan, a war on poverty, a war on crime. If it's all a "war", then none of it is a war. The word war has no meaning that we can grab onto.<p>Sorry, I know it sounds pedantic or like splitting hairs, but it matters: Berners-Lee could make a good case for this, if he knew what the argument for rights were based on. Without that, however, he actually hurts the cause. That's not good.

Of course it's not a human right. Neither are water or food, so his analogy is pointless.<p>This is "you have a right to free speech; you don't have a right to a printing press" for the modern age. You still have the right to free speech, and in the case of the Internet, the right to freely associate. You don't, however, have the right to have someone else pay your ISP bill.<p>True rights require no infringement on others. You simply have them, without requiring labor, money, or time from others.

Let's put it this way.<p>If 99.9% of a society is web enabled and you deny access to the web to a subset by pricing it out of reach or allowing carriers to not install cables because it would not be not profitable for them in the short term, well then you've done a human injustice.<p>But would not say it's a human right just yet. When society demands that you are web enabled or face crippling setbacks and some people still cannot afford it, then you've got a problem. That's not going to happen anytime soon.<p>Instead, let's focus on affordable, accessible, quality health care as a real human right since many 3rd world countries still won't have that for quite some time, as well as the United States.

Internet access and especially <i>personal</i> internet connections is a luxury that almost the entire world has very limited or no access to.<p>To call it a basic human right when it's only really accessible to an elite slice of humanity is just silly.

It must be pretty awesome to be a guy who <i>invented</i> a human right.

Here's a simple check you should make before opening your mouth to talk about human rights.<p>Is the thing I'm talking about created, made, or maintained by the work of others? Yes? Then it's not a human right.

That's a stretch and one I don't agree with.

Some alert congress so we can update the constitution.

This is already happening in Finland: <a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2009-10-15/tech/finland.internet.rights_1_internet-access-fast-internet-megabit?_s=PM:TECH" rel="nofollow">http://articles.cnn.com/2009-10-15/tech/finland.internet.rig...</a><p>A rising tide floats all boats, so I really don't see why this is such a big deal. If the government was willing to build an ISP or subsidize existing providers, this would be a win-win scenario for everyone-- it would accelerate the spread of information, increase literacy, give people the ability to self-educate.<p>If you think people should have access to public libraries and public education growing up, I don't see why you'd disagree with this.