
Tim Berners-Lee: Web access is a human right - luigi
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/041211-mit-berners-lee.html
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calpaterson
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.

"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.

~~~
_delirium
The idea's been applied to more basic information sources for a while, at
least by some people. Some of the advocates for public libraries have long
argued a version of "access to knowledge" or "access to information" as a
right. Extending that to the internet seems to be sort of a modern version
(although that could presumably also be fulfilled via libraries; it's not
clear that _home access_ to internet is specifically required).

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DanielBMarkham
_While access to water is a more fundamental right..._

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

~~~
bobbin_cygna
> yes, there are going to be real rights associated with them.

what's a real right?

~~~
warrenwilkinson
My criteria is when someone mentions a right, can I meaningfully append the
question 'At whose expense'? If I can, it's bogus.

These are rights: Right to liberty, to own property, to your life, to the
pursuit of happiness, to freedom of speech.

These are not: Right to a job, to a 'fair' wage, to an education, to internet
access, to clean water, to a pig every month.

Real rights prevent someone from doing awful things to you, basically "No one
will harm you, or interfere with you doing this" (where this might be living,
owning property, speaking, etc). The bogus rights are basically promises of
free stuff.

~~~
nooneelse
Wait, just being able to ask the question? There isn't even a dependance on
the answer?

Wow.

Then your two sets aren't even correct. None of the things you mention are
rights. You can append the question to all of the things you put in the "These
are rights" pile, even if you would then think the answer is "nobody".

Heck, sometimes the answer will even be someone besides the "right holder".
Person A's hypothetical "right to liberty" can clearly come at the expense of
person B, when person B is using person A as trained but unpaid labor.

I think this simple criterion is rather flawed.

~~~
jerf
"Wait, just being able to ask the question? There isn't even a dependance on
the answer?"

You appear to have skipped over the word "meaningfully" in warrenwilkinson's
post, or perhaps he edited it in, but either way, it addresses your concern.

(To your later point I'd observe that rights are generally considered
symmetrical; in a society where you have "the right to liberty" your example
falls through because A's right is being violated for your example, and your
argument seems to fundamentally require asymmetry for it to make any sense.)

~~~
nooneelse
You are shifting all the work that the criterion was meant to do into the term
"meaningfully". Without elaboration on the application of that term, this is
of no help as I used a very common standard of "meaningful", "having meaning".
A question has meaning, even when the answer is obvious or the answer to a
"who" question is "no one". Example: "Who has been to Mars?" is a clearly
meaningful sentence.

The issue at play later is: does person A have a right to liberty.
Warrenwilkinson's criterion for it not being a right was the ability to append
"At whose expense?". I even made that a more reasonable criterion, by implying
the further requirement that, in order for a hypothetical right to be
considered not a right, it had to come at the expense of someone else (the
elaboration used by many other people in better statements of similar
criteria, and seemingly the underlying consideration really at play in the two
lists warrenwilkinson gave). The objection to even this elaboration was that
in the case of a society with slavery, the hypothetical "right to liberty"
would obviously come at the expense of slaver owners.

You introduce the interesting symmetry constraint, as charitably as I can
gather, intending to use the symmetry between the slaves and owners. No help
really, as the owners might as easily conclude that they don't have a right to
liberty, they simply have liberty itself. If you landed on an island with
slavery on-going, does the criteria proposed have any teeth?

There is, I think, a sharper edged point than this merely amusing slavery
objection, but I've mentioned it in other threads already.

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jdludlow
Of course it's not a human right. Neither are water or food, so his analogy is
pointless.

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.

True rights require no infringement on others. You simply have them, without
requiring labor, money, or time from others.

~~~
calpaterson
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights>)

~~~
gloob
To quote myself from a few months ago:

 _"I am a citizen, you must hold (if you are the government) or fund (if you
are a taxpayer) an election for me to vote in."

What's your feeling on that positive right? I've encountered people who argue
against democracy, and I've encountered people who will re-word the right as
stated above and then call it a negative right. I disagree with the former,
and the latter only succeed in demonstrating that the difference between
positive and negative rights is one of phrasing, and not of the right itself.
Do you have a different take on the matter?_

The idea of "negative" and "positive" rights is one way of looking at the
matter, but it has flaws.

Edit: I don't mean to imply the parent post is making any argument one way or
the other; I'm just commenting on the idea itself.

Edit 2: Other things (some completely outlandish, some more plausible) worth
thinking about:

    
    
      - I own a square mile of land with a river running through
        it.  You own an adjacent square mile of land downriver
        of mine.  If I, entirely on my own property, divert the
        river such that it ceases to run through your property,
        have I aggressed against you?  Do you have the right to
        never have the value of your property decrease?
      - I am fantabulously wealthy and buy up all the food in
        the world.  Do I have the right to refuse to sell it?
        Have I aggressed against the other 7 billion by forcing
        the large majority of them to starve to death?
      - The local branch of the Nazis are hunting for members
        of unpopular minorities.  I am a gay black Jew.  Am I
        justified in trespassing on a stranger's property in
        order to hide and evade capture?

~~~
calpaterson
This is only a problem if you take an absolutist line, which I don't think
anyone really does. Even the toughest libertarians still want a police force
and law courts.

~~~
rauljara
If a philosophy doesn't work in absolutist terms, perhaps it shouldn't be
expressed in absolutist terms. The parent comment left no apparent wiggle
room.

~~~
calpaterson
Meh, people are lazy with language like this all the time. Many people say
"murder is always wrong", but, when you ask them, say "well, self defense is
ok". Instead of assuming the worst possible case for your opponent, be
charitable with his case. You'll avoid nonsense discussions much more often.

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ck2
Let's put it this way.

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.

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.

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.

~~~
teaspoon
I'd venture to claim that it is far more feasible to bring 100% of the world
population internet access than to bring them health care at even US Medicaid
standards.

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benologist
Internet access and especially _personal_ internet connections is a luxury
that almost the entire world has very limited or no access to.

To call it a basic human right when it's only really accessible to an elite
slice of humanity is just silly.

~~~
cryptoz
There are far more connected people than you think. Something like 30% of the
people on the planet have web access. 30% is not "an elite slice", especially
considering that over the next decade or two the number will climb higher and
higher until it's pretty much 100%. The developing countries - especially in
Africa - are exploding in web use, especially mobile web.

TBL is perhaps a bit early with his words, but not by much I'd say.

Edit: Numbers: <http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm>

~~~
benologist
I don't know, I've been in a _lot_ of poor countries and I'm sitting in a
_really_ poor one right now - Nicaragua. There's loads of internet cafes and
the people do use them but that's like an hour here and there for the small %
that actually use the internet at all.

I bet that 30% includes them even though they're a long way from our
dependency on being connected 24/7 and the deep integration into our lives -
we're probably _disconnected_ less than these people are _connected_.

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jcromartie
It must be pretty awesome to be a guy who _invented_ a human right.

~~~
jpr
It's easier than you think. Just invent something and declare it human right.
Done.

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benihana
Here's a simple check you should make before opening your mouth to talk about
human rights.

Is the thing I'm talking about created, made, or maintained by the work of
others? Yes? Then it's not a human right.

~~~
nooneelse
Infants must be fed and cared for in several ways, necessarily using the
resources and time of others. Therefore, within your framework, they have no
right to life. Care to rework it a bit?

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

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darksaga
Some alert congress so we can update the constitution.

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lotusleaf1987
This is already happening in Finland:
[http://articles.cnn.com/2009-10-15/tech/finland.internet.rig...](http://articles.cnn.com/2009-10-15/tech/finland.internet.rights_1_internet-
access-fast-internet-megabit?_s=PM:TECH)

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.

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.

