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High-speed human right?

March 21, 2011 1:14 by Eva Fernandes

When Reuters CEO Tom Glocer was at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit this year, one of the comments he made:”I believe internet access is a basic human right” made local headlines.

Though such a statement may be considered controversial, it is hardly a new argument. It has been the subject of debate for years now. In fact, just last year the BBC conducted a world-wide survey GlobeScan for the BBC, in which they asked more than 27,000 adults across 26 countries if they considered access to internet as a basic right. And the results, as you’d imagine were more than positive: 87 percent of respondents felt the internet was a human right which is interesting because even though 71 percent of these people didn’t currently use the internet, they believed they should have access to it.

Of course, the respondents, much like Glocer, were referring to access to the internet in light of governments attempting to prevent citizens from accessing particular information for political reasons. Such an argument is especially relevant with region-wide protests and revolutions being organised and propagated through the internet in the Middle East.

The flip side to such an argument is a question of relativity. While I agree that a citizen should not be denied access to information and communication by a government, this question just seems irrelevant in countries that do not have access to the internet at all.

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Tags: human rights internet access, internet access, internet access human right, internet access worldwide, reuters CEO internet access