Vint Cerf: Internet Access Is Not a Human Right

I began this piece raring to disagree, but I find it hard to fault his logic. A human right to unimpeded use of carriages would seem hilarious today, and a right to the use of landline phones will likely become so in the next decade.<p>We don't want to regulate specific rights as reactions to the particular issues of the day, we want to distill those issues to their essence so that we can meaningfully protect freedoms that are fundamental to meaningful human existence.<p>However, as others have noted here, this article leaves a couple of important points unaddressed.<p>Firstly, how can we be sure that the internet isn't fundamental? I can imagine arguing (in an earlier time) that legal counsel shouldn't be a human right, because we'll have something better than the legal system at some point. Yet thousands of years of human development have led only to a more complex legal system with the same fundamental ideas. Maybe the internet isn't horse-riding, maybe it's the invention of law. How do we know?<p>Secondly, if internet access isn't fundamental, then what is its more essential formulation? Being banned from the internet today makes you deaf, dumb and blind; much like being banned from electricity would cripple you. The difference is, nobody's trying to make three strikes laws for the power grid. We need to protect something. So what is it? The idea of free access to information? Ability to form and join networks? It's clearly not anything that's currently protected.<p>Unfortunately, there is more than just an academic interest at stake here. It's well and good to say "ha ha, you see, I have a new and interesting perspective", but this is a situation where there are actual losses being made in terms of real people's access to the internet. Unless Vint Cerf is trying to say that's not important, perhaps it's a little counterproductive to make an article that shoots down a core idea for internet freedom without providing anything else of substance to fill its place.

I get extremely frustrated when writers try to decide whether something is a human right or not. The whole concept vexes me:<p>1. Statements like this: the author comes up with a criterion for what a human right should be, and gives examples of things she thinks are human rights, but doesn't notice that they violate the criterion.<p>"<i>The best way to characterize human rights is to identify the outcomes that we are trying to ensure. These include critical freedoms like freedom of speech and freedom of access to information...</i>"<p>These are fundamentally NOT rights that can be identified by their outcomes. This point is almost trivial. The freedom of speech is not "an end in itself" any more than the Internet is. Free speech is "an enabler of rights, not a right itself" which is his criterion for not-a-human-right. We want free speech so we can influence civil rights, protect our freedom or &#60;insert whatever right we think we have&#62; not just so for the sake of spouting things into the public or private sphere.<p>2. Rights conflict, so asking whether something is, or is not, a right becomes irrelevant. Let's say we've decided I have a right to not be murdered. Great. That might conflict with your right to, say, freedom. Obviously that's restricted so that you don't do things. Or maybe everyone has a right to their property, but also an equal chance at getting to water, and I own the only watering hole. The question is what we do when they conflict (i.e. we say that my right to not be killed trumps your right to do whatever you want, or access to water trumps the right to property).<p>3. They never seem to make a broader point about how to make the world a better place, other than "now that you know the Internet isn't a human right, you can, er, um, work to make it better?" Blah.

I have read the piece three times, and I get the point, but I don't see the purpose. I suppose he is trying to say that "freedom of access to information" is the real right, and that declaring internet access as a right is foolish. I agree.<p>The problem is that I know of no country that offers "freedom of access to information" as an ordained right. In America, we accept Voltaire's line: "I disagree strongly with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." but that is not quite the same as "freedom of access".<p>I wish Vint Cerf had actually said something rather than just waxing poetic.

Vint doesn't say what he means by 'Internet', and I think that his argument fails on a sufficiently broad definition of Internet.<p>The Internet is 'just a technology' if you define it as a network of nodes which communicate using Internet Protocol.<p>That may have been the original meaning of the term as Vint planned the early work, but that meaning is not what it means to most people.<p>In modern usage, the open Internet is a global network that allows data to be passed between any two hosts without requiring that third parties authorise the content of that data.<p>Under that definition, the Internet is a concept synonymous with uncensored automated communication, rather than a specific technology; these concepts are capable of surviving into the future even if the hardware and software protocols layered on it change drastically.

More generally: nothing can be a right if it must be paid for by other people; rights can only be proscriptive, never prescriptive.

This is a weird piece, I didn't quite understand what he is riling against. One place where I would like to clear the distinction is:<p>"we have come close to this with the notion of “universal service” — the idea that telephone service (and electricity, and now broadband Internet) must be available even in the most remote regions of the country. When we accept this idea, we are edging into the idea of Internet access as a civil right"<p>Let's not confuse access to Internet (which is described here) and <i>free</i> access to it. You can have free service to all houses in the US but if the likes of SOPA are implemented, I think most people agree that some rights are being trampled on. Otherwise, why oppose SOPA at all, or why find the Chinese Firewall objectionable? To put Cerf's analogy on better ground, it's as if you have phone service but can only call some numbers.

There seem to be some technologies, like telephones and indoor pluming that aren't really "rights" but when treated in a rights-ish manner, make everyone's lives much better. If a rich 1% decided that they'd rather have the money it took to build the sewer system for their town than the sewer, their lives would become worse, not better despite having the extra money(1). If only the super rich had phones, they'd be nearly useless(2).<p>Internet access is certainly looking like its shaping up to be one of those things.<p>1) And everyone else would be much much worse off.<p>2) The phones, not the rich, but both come to think of it.

<i>&#62; Today, if I were granted a right to have a horse, I’m not sure where I would put it. </i><p>Just because you have a right doesn't mean you have to "cash in" on it. According to the Constitution, I have a right to "liberty" [1]. If I didn't want liberty, the right should <i>still exist for those who want it</i>. Just because I don't want it doesn't mean nobody else wants it. Over-protecting is a better policy than under-protecting.<p>1. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life,_liberty_and_the_pursuit_of_happiness" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life,_liberty_and_the_pursuit_o...</a>

Any discussion of rights without discussing duties is vacuous because rights can't exist without duties ie: My right to X imposes a duty on you to provide or not prevent me from X.<p>So if internet access was a right, what is the corresponding duty it imposes and who is that duty imposed upon? Must the state (and therefore you) provide me with a super computer &#38; T1 connection or is free netbook and dial-up for all sufficient? Or perhaps your rich neighbour. Why not TV or radio as human rights?<p>Claiming these things as human rights imposes unjustifiable burdens upon others when you have no right to do so. If you disagree, please explain why I should be forced to ensure you have access to facebook and where your power of imposition comes from.<p>But just because something is not a right, doesn't mean that universal access is not a good thing. Plenty of goods such as education, healthcare and sanitation fail the duty test but their universal access is still a very good thing. We may even agree that these things 'should' be a right but in that case the right is a political one based on mutual agreement, not some inalienable human right.

What is a human right anyway? Ask an Ayn Rand fan, a libertarian, a Hobbesian, the United Nations, or a Swedish legal positivist, and you willl get different answers.<p>We need to define these things, otherwise the discussion becomes a clash of presuppositions and worldviews.

Internet access is not a human right, but right of free will when you are not harming anyone and right of free speech (a derivative of free will) is. That makes me think that when internet is taken away, there is a violation of human rights.

Cerf appears to be arguing semantics. What is one practical consequence of Internet access being seen as a "human right" as opposed to "civil right," or "really good thing to have"?

I disagree that the internet connectivity is not a right. It is the modern day equivalent of a library. I also see a flaw in his logic with the horse. Horses weren't owned by large monopolies and they didn't control how often you could use your horse. Imagine if Verizon owned all the horses at the time of the formation of constitution. With clauses like, "you can only use your horse from 8am-2pm" and if you fail to pay your monthly bill we will take your horse away from you. I would bet there would have been an amendment to the constitution to govern the horse.<p>Now im not saying the internet should be free but it should be available to all people, unrestricted by usage, uncensored by governments and affordable.

Forgetting the bit about human rights for a second, in his conclusion Cerf goes for this odd statement that:<p>"In this context, engineers have not only a tremendous obligation to empower users, but also an obligation to ensure the safety of users online." Ummmm, yesssss<p>"Technologists should work toward this end." And, as far as I know, they are.<p>This entire column just seems like wasted space and time, arguing frantically against... what, precisely? Engineers who don't think about "harms like viruses and worms that silently invade their computers"? There's a lot of alarmist language, and very little substance.

This is overly complicating a correct and basically simple issue.<p>In my view, a human right is something that, all things being equal, a human being would be able to provide by him or herself, and which can be restrained by another human. So there is a right to live, to eat, to speak freely etc.<p>Therefore, Internet access is not a basic human right, as it has to be provided by someone and isn't available to a naked human in the middle of nowhere, as we all once were.

I disagree with this.<p>Human Rights should be as specific as possible (but no less specific). There is real risk in making them too general. The Bill of Rights is a good example of what works (freedom of the press, right to bear arms, etc.). Abstract ideas that can be misinterpreted or interpreted under the aegis of whatever the mass public can be sold with (often as mere lip-service) are what can be most dangerous.

I always clash with people on this topic, mostly because to me "Human Rights" is mostly limited to "Natural Rights".

I see internet as the fourth dimension to daily life. It certainly isn't an necessity but making sure that it is available, if requested, is sane.<p>Related: <i>Finland makes broadband a 'legal right'</i> <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10461048" rel="nofollow">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10461048</a>

Yes it damn well is. If telephone access to emergency health and hospital services is a human right, then access to the VoIP telephone systems on which mobile phones access emergency responders is a right which cannot be refused by any lawful government.

There are no rights that give you a right to someone else's property.<p>Freedom of the press means you can own one. It does not mean your printing press can be taken from you and redistributed to some one else that can't afford to buy a press.

What if most everything you buy is full price unless you can buy it online?<p>So you'd have two classes of people, those with internet access and those without. Those without pay much more for food and clothing and possibly eventually shelter.

Internet is nothing but Expression. Free expression should be human right and so should be Internet. No less.

Internet Access is a NEGATIVE right

internet is not technology but a place and a medium to it.

My personal view of this is that the internet is no different than access to a telephone landline or a mobile network, a bicycle, a car or public transport. No one denies you access to transport or communication - you have a human right to them - but someone has to pay for the actual services in the end. The reasoning that internet should be a human right is semantically the same as people suddenly being given the right to claim someone else's vehicle or someone's phone at their convenience - read: their human right to it - or to claim a free ride on a public transport system. Cerf differentiates these parts in a pretty clear way that I like, in a way that seemingly very few others manage to do.<p>For some reason people partaking in this debate often feel that it's sane and logical that use of the internet should be a human right in a free-of-charge sense without a second's thought about the costs, while they realize the ridiculous err in their reasoning when you put it in the context of transport or communication. Somehow, in that context, they understand that these things cost money, and that it's neither violation of human rights nor denial of access to ask for payment prior to use.

I don't care about the semantics of "right". Free and easy access to all knowledge so far would really improve our societies and that is the main point.

The piece does not address the fundamental point that you cannot with intellectual honesty claim as a right that which, to be satisfied, requires another human being to perform work.