
Almost 4 in 5 people believe access to the Internet is a fundamental right. - jamesbritt
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/technology/8548190.stm#
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dantheman
Illustrates the common confusion between negative and positive rights. You
have the right to have access to the internet, but you don't have the right to
force others to provide you with internet access; just as you have the right
to free speech, but don't have the right to force others to print you
pamphlets.

~~~
yardie
That doesn't make any sense. I'm still trying to figure what in your positive
and negative rights mean. Rights are what you can't take away, not what you
can force on others. No one is required to pay for anyone elses internet or
print anyones pamphlets.

I have the right to speak freely or remain silent. I can't be forced to speak
nor can I be forced into silence. 4 out of 5 people agree no one should be
denied access to the internet. If I paid for it, it's mine to use. If I use
the free airport wifi it's mine to use. Gov'ts or individuals shouldn't be
able to say I can't use the internet at all.

~~~
jamesbritt
"Rights are what you can't take away, not what you can force on others. No one
is required to pay for anyone elses internet or print anyones pamphlets."

There are people who claim that their right to the Internet means that if they
cannot afford t then someone else is obligated to pay for it, else they are
being denied their right to the 'Net. (And, presumably, if there is no
Internet then someone has to go make one.)

This is a 'positive right'. It obligates other people to take action to
provide something.

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RyanMcGreal
I'll preface by stating that I do believe in "positive" rights - more
specifically, I believe that "negative" and "positive" rights sit on a
continuum rather than in separate domains.

However, it just doesn't make sense to claim that access to the internet is a
fundamental right, any more than it makes sense to say that access to a radio
frequency band or a newspaper is a fundamental right (though I'll note in
passing that "freedom of the press" strays into this territory insofar as the
operational definition of a "journalist" for the purpose of press freedom is
someone who writes for a publication - hence the kvetching over whether
bloggers qualify as journalists).

Having written that, we are getting to the point at which the rights to
expression, association, secession and so on are effectively tied to internet
access - for the simple reason that huge swaths of human activities predicated
on such rights happen over the internet.

As such, it makes sense to regard internet access in parallel to access to
education and health care - necessary prerequisites to the widespread exercise
of fundamental rights.

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TrevorBurnham
To be precise, almost 4 in 5 people in the 26 countries surveyed answered that
they agreed to some extent with the statement "Access to the Internet should
be a fundamental right of all people."

The statement is agreeable because it doesn't specify whether this should be a
positive or a negative right. Is the questioner asking whether taxpayers must
pay for the Internet access of the less fortunate, or whether governments have
the right to restrict that access?

The fact that the USA and Canada had almost identical survey results despite
vast political differences highlights the ambiguity of the question.

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shrnky
Government loves when we declare something a right. It gives them the power to
regulate it.

So now the government gets to make laws about isp records retention, anonymous
usage, etc. I mean it's a right after all.

Also since it's a right, it must also be fair. No one person can have faster
internet speeds than another; with the exception of government bodies of
course.

If my upload speed is 128k and your upload speed is 5MB, well that's not fair
as you can upload you political videos quicker and to more websites than I can
in a given day, etc.

------
pmccool
Interesting definition of a fundamental right. All the usual suspects (speech,
movement, association, due process, etc) don't depend on technology (and,
incidentally infrastructure). I just can't come around to the idea that access
to telecommunications is "fundamental".

~~~
potatolicious
I think it is - it also depends on how the question is phrased.

I don't think anyone owes anyone free broadband internet access - we have the
right to free speech, that doesn't mean you get to use the postal service for
free. It does mean, however, that we recognize the overwhelming good for
society that a system that carries free and open speech can provide, and make
efforts to ensure it is accessible to all.

Similarly, for the internet I think our stance ought to be that it is
something that provides an overwhelming good for not only this country, but
for the globe in general. For this reason we should be ensuring that it is
affordable and reliable to all.

Likewise, I think it is a right in the sense that no one should be denied
access to it. Nowadays so many critical, vital functions to a normal life is
online (searching/applying to jobs, basic information retrieval, etc) that
short of some grave, enormous threat, no one should be barred from using the
internet.

~~~
cromulent
That's how it is seen here in Finland. The idea is that all residents will
have the services they need, regardless of financial or social status. They
have simply added internet access to the same list as public transport,
wheelchair ramps, etc. Makes sense to me.

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benwr
The article never lists which twenty-six nations were surveyed. Of the fifteen
or so mentioned, only a few aren't safely within the modern "first world."

~~~
quant18
The actual list list seems to have a fair mix of high, middle, and low-income
countries, though not really proportional to the income distribution of the
world's population: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Costa Rica,
Egypt, El Salvador, France, Germany, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, India,
Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama,
Philippines, Portugal, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, UK, USA.

See <http://globescan.com/news_archives/bbc2010_internet/>

~~~
andyking
...which reads, with a couple of exceptions, like a list of countries where
the BBC World Service has the bulk of its audience.

