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Internet Access Is a Human Right, Says United Nations
- presidentender 14y agoThe concept of "rights" is growing less useful, I fear.
- qq66 14y agoThe resolution doesn't seem to say "Everyone should get free Internet." It says something to the effect of "Restricting people's online expression is a violation of their rights," condemning what Syria or Egypt's governments did when they shut down Internet to prevent citizens from coordinating revolutionary activities.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- kiba 14y agoThey might as well just say "freedom of expression".
- dllthomas 14y agoI'm not sure that protection an individuals freedom to express themselves necessarily entails protection of the transport of encodings of that expression - I would rather see that latter protection made explicit.
- mkaltenecker 14y agoWhat’s so bad about clarifying that that includes the internet? I mean, there are politicians in democratic states who believe that protections afforded to the press on the basis of rights don’t apply to, for example bloggers. It’s not altogether obvious why freedom of expression or speech should automatically include the internet.
- smsm42 14y agoAre they going to issue press-release on every possible form of expression? That'd take a while, but then again - generating headlines is their business, so it's a win-win.
- sirclueless 14y agoThe slippery slope argument is a straw man. The primary diplomatic function of the U.N. is laying down specific guidelines for international conduct, so that there's no more arguing about what constitutes a violation of a specific treaty. For example, suppose Ukrageria says, "But Zimbraqistan stationed 14 battleships outside of our port, that's an act of war," and Zimbraqistan counters, "But we just want them to lift the 200% tariff on Zimbraqistanian goods." The U.N. has specifically said that free access to ports is a sovereign right, so that resolves this dispute and gives Ukrageria international support for a declaration of war against Zimbraqistan. Similarly, some countries have criticized Egypt for disconnecting its citizens from the global internet. Egypt in turn counters that their citizens still can express their opinions and speak freely so it's not a human rights violation. The purpose of the U.N.'s resolution is to resolve this dispute and clarify that freedom of expression must include international communication over the internet.
- smsm42 14y agoRight, before they did it everybody thought "freedom of speech" meant only that you can use your actual voice freely. But now everybody knows you can also use Twitter! So what about using printed media? Radiowaves? Phone communications? Should we wait for UN to explain us about that too? For anybody seriously considering the question it mus be obvios the question is not in the means of expression and freedom of speech was never meant to be restricted to exercising one's vocal cords.
- tikhonj 14y agoNo it isn't. The point isn't that you should get free internet--the point is that a government should not prevent you from freely using the internet. This is no different from a right to, say, travel. The internet is particularly important because it is very good for getting a message out to the world at large. Other existing channels tend to be more difficult to use or more limited. The internet lets people document current events first-hand without having to rely on reporters or news organizations. So there are definitely some completely rational and practical reasons to declare internet access an international right, at the very least as a check against oppressive government.
- spindritf 14y ago> The point isn't that you should get free internet--the point is that a government should not prevent you from freely using the internet. Isn't that already covered under freedom of speech?
- roryokane 14y agoI don’t think so. With only freedom of speech, the government could still ban access to all foreign-country-hosted read-only sites – sites without commenting or other interactivity. That would include many informational sites and blogs.
- SoftwareMaven 14y agoAnd does this prevent that? China and Iran signed on as well.
- _delirium 14y agoIn practice, no, because UN resolutions are only as good as their ability to enforce them, which in the case of general-assembly resolutions basically boils down to no ability, except attempting to shame people who flaunt them. Only a handful of UN organs (e.g. the Security Council and the International Criminal Court) have anything approaching teeth.
- taylorbuley 14y agoOne distinction philosophers make is "positive" (freedom of) vs. "negative" (freedom from) liberty. If you take this as the former, then perhaps I agree. But I suspect this was intended to be the latter -- i.e. freedom from ignorance.
- mthreat 14y agoAs someone who was once banned from the Internet by the US gov't[1], I actually agree with you. People throw around terms like "human right" without knowing what it means. If access to the Internet is a human right, that means every human in the world should be able to demand access to the Internet? I think the Internet absolutely should receive First Amendment protection in the US (and the US Supreme Court agrees), but calling it a human right doesn't seem to agree with the definition[2]. I'd love to hear arguments for the other side. Note that this doesn't mean I think governments should be able to actively deny individuals access to the Internet, but a Constitutional right is not the same as a human right. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Lamprecht http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Lamprecht [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights
- mthreat 14y agoAnother point - people in prison still deserve "human rights", even though they've lost their right to freedom. This implies that even freedom isn't a human right. Of course, you could argue that this leads to a contradiction about taking away one's freedom, but that's another discussion.
- zcid 14y agoVia the social contract, by infringing on the rights of another, one volunteers to temporarily suspend the right to freedom. A right cannot be taken away or lost as they are inherent to the human condition.
- noblethrasher 14y agoActually, a problem with Social Contract theory is that it can't deal with free-riders. If you never agreed to the contract then you can't be obligated to its terms. So you can infringe on the rights of people who did ascent to the terms of the contract without being obligated to submit to any punishment.
- deleted 14y ago
- jsnk 14y agoThis is actually an area for a long-lasting philosophical debate. Here's is a paper by Isaiah Berlin [1] on the debate over positive and negative liberty. >The first of these political senses of freedom or liberty (I shall use both words to mean the same), which (following much precedent) I shall call the ‘negative’ sense, is involved in the answer to the question ‘What is the area within which the subject – a person or group of persons – is or should be left to do or be what he is able to do or be, without interference by other persons?’ The second, which I shall call the positive sense, is involved in the answer to the question ‘What, or who, is the source of control or interference, that can determine someone to do, or be, one thing rather than another?’ The two questions are clearly different, even though the answers to them may overlap. [1] http://www1.nsd131.org/classpages/bwilliamson/Shared%20Documents/Two%20Concepts%20of%20Liberty%20Berlin.pdf http://www1.nsd131.org/classpages/bwilliamson/Shared%20Docum...
- scarmig 14y agoSome other philosophers question whether there's even a meaningful difference between positive and negative rights. Those critiques go beyond a mere, "well, it's meaningless for the rich and the poor to have equal rights to use any printing presses they own." What is one of the main arguments against that distinction? Well, consider: many people here are arguing that the Internet isn't a right because someone has to provide or pay for it. In some sense, it's not a "natural" right in the same way that they perceive, say, property rights to be. But when you say you have property rights, you're not just saying that the government won't come and take your stuff. You're saying that the government has a positive obligation to send violent thugs in uniform to protect a monopoly, of use and transfer, over a physical object that it has recognized for you. (After all, otherwise a right to private property would be meaningless.) That leads the people making the initial positive/negative distinction into an intellectual trap: all of a sudden, their negative liberty has shown its true colors. It requires as much government involvement as, say, the universal provision of healthcare service. Or the Internet! Even freedom of speech requires government action to uphold: it's pretty meaningless to have freedom of speech if the government won't back up its guarantee of force on individuals who would harm you for saying something.
- aszepieniec 14y agoJust who is going to use violence against whom so that whose rights are not violated?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- adventureful 14y agoGoing to have to start by proclaiming that several other things are human rights before you get to Internet access. Access devices are a human right. Electricity is a human right. Access to telecom lines (of some sort) is a human right. Access to mobile or a spot to plug into is a human right. Transistors are a human right. Storage is a human right. Some kind of electronic or digital display is a human right.
- kkowalczyk 14y agoFirst, this is a set not a list so it's nonsensical to rank those in importance. More to the point, I don't read that proclamation as "everyone is entitled to internet access". I read it as: no-one (specifically government) should be able to take away your access to internet. The difference is not that subtle. It's important because it counters a growing world-wide tendency to take away your access after some minor infractions like copyright infringement. It rightly recognizes that access to internet is almost a necessity to conduct your daily business (in first world countries, at least) and denying that access creates incredible hardship and can ruin lives (ruin not at all rhetorically; if you, for example, make money via etsy or odesk, taking away this income might push you over the poverty line).
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- Dylan16807 14y agoThey're called negative rights.
- saraid216 14y agoI don't find this as absurd as you make it out to be. Let's do it.
- ctdonath 14y agoThere is a difference between the right of not being prevented from doing something, vs. the right to force others to facilitate someone doing something. The right to acquire and use something at your own cost as you see fit is one thing, forcing others via state police powers to pay for and provide those things to you is another. Know the difference, lest people argue about different things.
- roryokane 14y agoThe Chinese delegate stipulated that the “free flow of information on the Internet and the safe flow of information on the Internet are mutually dependent” while signing the resolution. I think his supposed reasoning is that if people are scared of encountering “unsafe” things on the Internet, they will avoid the Internet and thus lose opportunities for speech. But that still seems pretty unconvincing – I’m having trouble understanding how the rest of the Human Rights Council can let China pretend to support the resolution when it has such a weak defense for its censorship policy.
- gogobyte 14y agoThe problem is I despise UN because it is an organization of dictatorships mainly, and extremely corrupted one.
- accountswu 14y agoYou mean it's a dictatorship run by the minority rich western white countries that force their imperialism on the majority of the world through the various arms of UN? That the US is able to impose sanctions on Iraq and now Iran even though the majority of the world is opposed to the sanctions? That the US is able to shield Israel from any sanctions despite its grave violations of human rights, its refusal to end the military occupation, its refusal to allow Palestinians to have their land back (whether 1967-occupied 22% or the 1948-occupied 78%), its refusal to allow the right of return to non-Jews who were kicked out in 1948 (under UN law the refugees forced out or those left voluntarily have the right to return) and its insistence to allow Jewish immigrants to settle in the land being stolen every day by demolishing homes and evicting non-Jewish owners? http://mondoweiss.net/2012/07/state-dept-says-it-is-not-consistent-on-human-rights-violations-involving-israel-and-neighbors.html http://mondoweiss.net/2012/07/state-dept-says-it-is-not-cons... MS. NULAND: We have no reason to believe that it is not credible. It’s based on eyewitness accounts, and they’re reporting from a broad cross-section of human rights figures inside Syria. QUESTION: So the next time Human Rights Watch comes out with a report that’s critical of Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians, I’ll assume that you’re going to be saying the same thing, correct; that you think that the report is credible, it’s based on eyewitness accounts? MS. NULAND: As -- QUESTION: And you’re not going to say that it’s politically motivated and should be dismissed? MS. NULAND: Matt, as you have made clear again and again in this room, we are not always consistent. https://www.google.com/search?q=peaceful+settlement+of+the+question+of+palestine https://www.google.com/search?q=peaceful+settlement+of+the+q... http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/resolving-the-israel-palestine-conflict-what-we-can-learn-from-gandhi/ http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/resolving-the-israel-palest... Year Vote [Yes-No-Abstained] Negative votes cast by… 2005 156-6-9 Israel, United States , Australia, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau 2006 157-7-10 Israel, United States , Australia, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau 2007 161-7-5 Israel, United States , Australia, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- sigzero 14y agoThe UN can say it all it wants. That doesn't make it true.
- alan_cx 14y agoYou too, right? And round and round we go....
- scott_meade 14y agoThe motion does not say that Internet access is a human right. The gist of the motion is captured in the affirmation that "the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online, in particular freedom of expression, which is applicable regardless of frontiers and through any media of one’s choice" [http://www.regeringen.se/content/1/c6/19/64/51/6999c512.pdf http://www.regeringen.se/content/1/c6/19/64/51/6999c512.pdf] The UN is simply affirming that the media through which a expression is conveyed should not change the understanding that freedom of expression is a human right.
- sirclueless 14y agoNot just the form of media, but also communication across sovereign borders. That is, Egypt can't make a media bubble and say, "Sure, our citizens are free to use the internet to express whatever opinions they like to other Egyptians. It just has to be on the Egyptian twitter on Egyptian servers."
- aioprisan 14y agoI hope that we won't be forced to sign up for Internet service or pay additional taxes to allow for this human right to be spread and given to everyone as part of a government mandate- I mean tax- by buying the service from private companies.. All kidding aside, how much do you want to bet that in the next 10 years, we'll all be mandated to purchase or pay for Internet access?
- ctdonath 14y agoThe USA Constitution was way ahead - by some 225 years - with its "1st Amendment" protection of freedom of speech, of press (publishing), and of association. Gorvernmental interference of what someone says, how someone says it, and who they work with to say it, has long been prohibited. Nice to see the UN catch up. Notice, however, the difference between not interfering vs. forcing others to facilitate : negative vs. positive rights.
- twelvechairs 14y agoThis isn't really 'catching up' in the way you say. The UN declaration of human rights already says "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.". This move by the UN seems a deliberate point to ensure 'the internet' cannot be excluded from these bounds. I'm not sure the USA has yet been so explicit. As a side point for educative purposes only - the US bill of rights was not the first to enshrine freedom of speech and press for a country - that was the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (though both built on the English bill of rights, which enshrined freedom of speech for parliamentarians).
- maratd 14y ago> the US bill of rights was not the first to enshrine freedom of speech No, of course not. We all get our ideas from somewhere. Much of American law and concepts come from English common law. The English picked it up from the Romans and Germans. So on and so forth. However, the US bill of rights is certainly the longest lasting. It is my understanding that the US constitution is the oldest constitution that is still in effect.
- zacharycohn 14y agoSo how do this and "3 strikes" rules (when your ISP kills your internet connection because you got caught pirating 3 times) get along?
- alan_cx 14y agoUS or EU? As an EU resident, I see the 3 strikes being, er, well, struck out after years of court battles and misery for users. Interestingly, as far as I can tell, the 3 strikes thing wouldn't last in an EU court anyway as it contradicts a lot of existing human rights law. One problem the UK government has is that it is on a program of moving essential government services to the internet, so cutting whole house holds off the internet would deny public services to people. Worse still, innocent by standers and / or kids. The schools my kids go to extensively use the internet for homework, etc. In the end, 3 strikes will fail, if it ever gets enacted. Like I say, all we have to do is suffer for a few years while it happens. Why do we have to go through this pain? Because certain industries that pour money in to party funds refuse to change. So, rather than prop them up with public money, government uses law. Quite vile, but there we go, we voted these people in, so its "our" fault. (Edited typo)
- noarchy 14y agoI'd prefer a right to use the internet freely, rather than have a right to free internet. "Western" governments are rushing as we speak to catch up to the internet censorship of countries like China and Iran.
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- yobbobandana 14y agoIs there any written statement by the UN about this?