Week7-argue a point of view, Access to the internet is a fundamental human right

[Saurav Khadka]

To begin with, it is crucial to keep in mind the answers to the question “What do human rights protect?” and “What qualifies something as human rights?” According to Brian (2012), “It describes the nature of human rights as being moral rights that are possessed by all human beings by virtue of their being human”. Human rights is something that applies to all the human being in this world regardless of what caste, religion, and ethnicity. We already have human rights related to political aspect, economic, administrative and other aspects in our daily life. However the concept of human rights in relation to accessing the internet is also rising these days with increasing number of internet users in world. According to Jørgensen, R.F (2013), “From 2000 to 2011, the number of humans with access to the Internet has increased by approximately 480%, for a total of over 2 billion Internet users”

Internet has transformed the big world to a small place. Every information is accessible via internet. Communication, education, work, entertainment, medical, and many other aspects of life has been connected with internet in one or the other ways. Can we detach internet from human lifestyle?

Most of everyone now uses internet every now and then. All the activities people do in day-to-day life ranging from playing around with their smartphone after waking up to last thing they do before going to bed involves internet. Different people with different opinions argue about accessing internet should be a fundamental human right. According to Natalie Bernasconi (2010), “Internet access is a basic human right, and within 10 years, it will be an essential human right, because it will play an increasing gatekeeper role in three components of our rights as humans to realize our full potential: freedom of expression, democratic participation, and economic livelihood.”

However, there are also some point of view which disagrees that internet access should be a part of human right. According to James Maxlow (2010), “Internet access is not a basic human right. It can contribute to meaningful and profound communication between disparate cultural groups, it can provide educational opportunities to individuals at a lower cost than ever before in the history of the world, and it can offer vast audiences that are no longer limited by geography or nationalized institutions. Internet access can deliver all of these societal benefits and more, and yet none of these makes it a basic human right.”

In my opinion, internet is a must have to everyone, and access to internet should be included in fundamental human rights. I cannot imagine my life without internet now. It feels so dumb without internet. Hold on and think about all those times that you access internet in a day. More than 50% of our daily activities involve accessing internet for various reasons. And that is fine, not being able to access internet will leaves us behind in this fast paced world. If we think about those countries which are still developing, and if access to internet will be considered as human right, there are at least some chances that they will be educated enough to cope with present world.

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