Web Creator Tim Berners-Lee: Internet Access Is A Human Right

We're living in a world where Internet access should be as readily available as water, according to the man who helped create the web, Tim Berners-Lee.

Berners-Lee, who made his comments at an MIT symposium on "Computation and the Transformation of Practically Everything," noted that people have become so reliant on the web that it should be a right to have access to it, as reported by Network World.

"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."

He also noted that the Internet should be stopped from becoming a petri dish for rumors, and from fomenting conspiracy theories. Part of the problem is the size of the Internet--the number of web pages compares favorably with the number of neurons in the human brain. But the Internet can be controlled to an extent the brain cannot.

"To a certain extent, we have a duty about the web which is greater than our duty about the brain, because with the brain we just analyze it," he said. "But with the web, we actually get to engineer it. We can change it."

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Comments

[jeff.mowatt]

01:46 AM on 04/15/2011

As said here:

"Availability of affordable, modern day Internet access is crucial to any nation’s economic development. This is by now a truism and does not need much elaboration. It is enough to understand that nothing whatsoever can happen in terms of social, economic, civic, and political development without communication. To the extent that communication is limited or completely absent, development is equally limited. If demonstration of this is needed, each reader is invited to do the following. For the next week, do not speak, do not write, do not read, do not listen to or access any form of communication in any way. With those restrictions, it might still be possible to survive for a week. Extend the same restrictions indefinitely, and basic survival will be at risk. It is almost impossible to imagine life without communications of any kind. "

http://en.for-ua.com/analytics/2007/08/06/121201.html

[littlebrowngirl]

08:09 PM on 04/14/2011

Web access is a human right and not healthcare?

[Chockolate]

06:18 AM on 04/15/2011

Only in the USA...

[djv1255]

08:58 AM on 06/07/2011

Like healthcare, people should have access to the internet but should the government say we should have "free" access to it?

[johnny g locker]

02:05 PM on 04/14/2011

Oooh. Too many conspiracy theories? Get a life.

[hungrypilot]

08:52 AM on 04/14/2011

"The man who helped create the web"? How many people are going to continue to try to take credit for that?

[dblohangel]

09:39 AM on 04/14/2011

Add my name to the growing list...just above Al Gore's. ;=D

[lanebaldwin]

09:58 AM on 04/14/2011

Al Gore never said he "invented" the Internet. What he did say is that he led the charge in government to push it forward. Big Difference. But, if all you want are vague talking points with which to bash your opponent, you can continue to make the claim...

[luminavi]

11:44 AM on 04/14/2011

The porn industry has been trying to take credit for it --- but they're the ones who probably deserve the credit most.

[CaptainObvvious]

02:25 PM on 04/14/2011

God bless them... They have given me countless hours of enjoyment 2.5 minutes at a time. :)

[lj9283]

03:23 PM on 04/14/2011

The porn industry did not "invent" the Internet, but the streaming applications first pioneered by that industry was the cause of a great deal of early expansion of the WWW.

[lastpost]

08:29 AM on 04/14/2011

“the Internet can be controlled to an extent the brain cannot”.
You say that now Tim. But is it sans the benefit of foresight?

“we have a duty about the web which is greater than our duty about the brain”
Isn’t this a matter of preventing one from developing into the perfect $#*! storm? Whilst socially engineering the other out of being the perfect $#*! storm.

[adam smolkowicz]

06:57 AM on 04/14/2011

Smolkowicz i totally agree with this article

[Enkida]

04:56 AM on 04/14/2011

There are more important basic human rights to look after before "web access." I consider basic human rights to be things like food, water, the right to exist peacefully as basic. Web access for everyone is something I would class under a social justice and equality action, but to put it up there with food, water, clean air? Seems a bit pretentious, when many people in the world don't even have the former yet. In other words, giving someone a terminal with free 'net access when they are starving will not really do much to further their situation. Basic human rights are the basic level of survival and social justice. Internet access is a tool that can further that if used properly, but not a "right."

I wish I could be more eloquent at expressing this, but the fact that people in our Western culture can call internet access a "human right" at all just goes to show how out of touch this culture is with international reality.

[mlu]

11:54 AM on 04/14/2011

Yeah, and I think affordable health care is pretty far above this too.

[CaptainObvvious]

02:34 PM on 04/14/2011

However we are American and such as we are we are supposed to judge ourselves against ourselves and our own virtues instead of the rest of the world.

I don't disagree with you of course that food and water and whatnot are more important than internet access but the article is correct in that the internet isn't a luxury anymore. Not having access to the internet puts those students at a significant almost insurmountable disadvantages.

The ability to communicate and be connected isn't the privilege it used to be... It is something that is deeply rooted into our every day life. Not having it isn't something you me or anyone else posting here could understand. Most of us including myself lived before the internet and were puzzled by what it was when we were introduced to it but it is ensconced in our lives in such a way that is is a necessity.

I don't think we are limited to one lofty goal at a time. Sure we have plenty of hungry children who need food and that should be a primary concern but there isn't any reason we shouldn't be able to do both things at the same time.

[Enkida]

07:25 PM on 04/18/2011

It depends how you read the context of the statement. If you limit it to the audience he lectured to, then yes: I don't think any of us could be a successful student at MIT without 'net access. I, however, had the feeling from reading the article, especially concerning the quote about access to water versus internet access, that he was referring to humanity in general on a global level.

Right there, I have to disagree. When you're speaking of basic human rights, you're speaking of a universal concept that applies to all humans, everywhere. I feel it's just a bit arrogant to make that declaration using ONLY our own standards, virtues and culture as the meter stick. Er, yardstick. Especially when we haven't even overcome basic problems like hunger in our own country yet. We *aren't* ready to graduate onto bigger philosophical ideals like internet access as a "basic" right. I don't even consider electricity to be a basic human right, for that matter. That doesn't mean I don't think it's a good thing, and the same can be said for 'net access. I just think it's a big and erronious assumption to call it something that we cannot reasonably live without. And that, for me, is the definition of a basic human right, which is something else we can debate about extensively. ;-)

[Danek Greori]

01:51 AM on 04/14/2011

It seems so foolhardy and ridiculous to even tout the idea of Internet Access being a "human right". When you live in a modernized country and are bathed in the benefits of technological progress it is easy to think that Internet Access is something that you and everyone else should have a fundamental right to, but that is only because we are so insulated from the harsh reality that is life for a majority of people of the world.

First off, lets keep in mind that less than HALF of the human population has access to an Internet connection at all (it's barely even 1/3 of the human population). So, if we were to declare that Internet access is a basic human right, how then would we go about ensuring that that right is being given? A stable electrical grid is still a rarity for a majority of the developing and underdeveloped world, how could they possibly ensure a "basic human right" that requires an modern infrastructure when they lack even the foundation for that infrastructure.

Secondly, we still have not conquered the major societal and biological ills that take the lives of so many people every year: war, famine, disease, genocide. Lack of Internet access is not killing anybody; on the contrary, lack of justice, lack of food, lack of health care are killing millions.

This kind of stuff makes me lose respect for Sir. Tim Berners-Lee.

[luminavi]

11:46 AM on 04/14/2011

I know! Make these people walk a mile or two for water, or eat only a small bowl of rice per day, and we'll see how much longer they'd rate internet access as a 'human right.'

[CaptainObvvious]

02:36 PM on 04/14/2011

Should we only judge ourselves and create goals to make sure we are just better than starving third world nations?

We are supposed to have loftier goals... In the way of life we should be trying to create internet access SHOULD be a fundamental right as it is no longer a luxury.

A man's reach should always exceed his grasp and we should never just be content because we can afford to eat three meals a day and have water pour from the tap. Out goal isn't to be better than impoverished nations it is to be better than ourselves. Our standards of human rights is different than those other countries.

[lilylee86]

01:49 AM on 04/14/2011

That is quite good.
Joyfax Server

[jerrycomo]

01:47 AM on 04/14/2011

I love the Internet so much, it's has basically become an essential commodity.

[whatdoibelieve]

01:32 AM on 04/14/2011

I agree that it is a right in terms that the government should not be able to stop you from accessing it (or from accessing parts of it like China and Iran imposes). However, that is very different than saying the government has to provide it as a service. From this article it is hard to tell which way he leans.

[luminavi]

01:14 AM on 04/14/2011

Sorry, Mr. Berners-Lee, but you sorely need to gain some sense of perspective.

It's just plain ludicrous --- and SELF-SERVING --- to elevate net access to the same level of importance as freedom, shelter, food, water, justice, etc. There are hundreds of millions on this planet who are sorely deprived of those RIGHTS.

To pretty much imply that access to porn online, or one's Facebook feeds, is just as big a deal as not starving, or not being shot to death by fascist dictators, is not only absurd, but it also trivializes the suffering and experiences of those who struggle for those basic needs.

How about this - focus on helping those people gain those basics first, before celebrating our society's extreme obsession with technology and virtualization, and calling it all a "right."

[BigSlick674]

01:32 AM on 04/14/2011

So which class of people do you plan to block from the Web first?

[luminavi]

11:40 AM on 04/14/2011

Whatever class you belong to, perhaps LOL. The one with people who seriously need to get a life and get unplugged.

[SilentSolidarity]

12:58 AM on 04/14/2011

Net neutrality is law of the land in most countries. It's only in the United States where it is still "vague". How ridiculous.

[Evan Zimmerman]

10:49 PM on 04/13/2011

The internet is a product. It requires finite resources to be produced and spent in order to distribute. You do not have the right to any product, because that is essentially giving you the right to something someone else made; you cannot charge someone for something they have the right to, so all those people who provide energy to AT&T, for example, would go out of business.

[SilentSolidarity]

01:07 AM on 04/14/2011

It's not a product. It's communication. Nobody has the right to charge you for speaking. So why do you force people to pay for every minute they communicate?

Without net neutrality, the Web would have NEVER developed to what it is today. Data limits would have discouraged web 2.0 (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook) which relies on the exchange of large masses of data at high bandwidths.

It would have discourages the boom of large internet-based companies like Amazon, ebay, paypal, not top mention Google.

It would have discouraged the creation of internet newspapers such as HuffPost that increase consumer choice!

Net neutrality is THE base of the modern Internet. The only corporations that would benefit from data limits are ISPs, who would simply suck in the money without providing any improvements or rebates.


What would be a world without net neutrality? Just take a look at the branches where this rule is not enforced: Wireless broadband. Companies like Verizon and At&t charge $90 for a 10 GB data plan. The speed is ridiculous, the service is not better. So why do they charge so much? Because they can!

[luminavi]

01:23 AM on 04/14/2011

What's net neutrality got to do with construing the net as a "right?"

The only ones who would see the net as a "right" are people who are overly-dependent on it.

Our society has become so ridiculously dependent on what you call "communication," people can't leave their houses without their cell phones, families are sending each other emails within the same house, and people can neither write nor spell correctly any more without the aid of software spellcheckers.

[whatdoibelieve]

01:27 AM on 04/14/2011

"Without net neutrality­, the Web would have NEVER developed to what it is today."

Last I checked, net neutrality isn't the law or regulation and the internet is where it is today. Not that I disagree with the overall concept of net neutrality, I just think your statement is incorrect.

Now here is a question for you. Say you decide to start your own ISP company in a master plan community that you built on your land. You laid the lines to each house and you own all of the common areas. Why shouldn't you be able to charge what you want and limit the connection however you want?

[Robin Brenizer]

09:24 PM on 04/13/2011

I disagree. The brain CAN be controlled.

[chubber]

10:21 PM on 04/13/2011

The GOP disagrees with you...

[Tommygun264]

12:59 AM on 04/14/2011

While we may be able to discipline, condition and even train the brain to achieve certain functions through conscious thought, you can no more control the brain than you can "control" any other wild animal, and there are many mutilated lion, tiger, bear and elephant tamers who would agree with me.