The Internet as a fundamental human right?

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Many around the world believe that the Internet access should be a fundamental right, as brought out by a recent BBC global survey. The case was earlier made for mobile phones as a basic human right, which I found rather unconvincing. On the other hand, I see the Internet and web, and the access to both from PCs and mobiles, as key platforms supporting and giving life to Article 19 of the UDHR,

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 basic freedom is also recognized in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 19), in other UN treaties, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Article 13), and in all three main regional human rights instruments (Africa, the Americas and Europe).

During the war, the Sri Lankan government (or more accurately, the diktat of the Ministry of Defence) repeatedly cut off communications to the North and East of the country in particular. SMS services were arbitrarily shut down on Independence Day in 2008. Even post war and in 2010 alone, access to information on the web has been curtailed.

And yet it is correct to argue that access to the Internet is one thing, regulation of the Internet another. The former does not guarantee the progressive nature of the latter. It is entirely possible to guarantee access, and yet have a censorious Internet and web filter. It is this right to communicate, anchored to Article 19 of the UDHR, that remains at risk in Sri Lanka even after the end of war.

Some key points from the BBC report:

  • Despite this enthusiasm there is also concern, with many web users cautious about speaking their minds online. The poll found that they were evenly split between those who felt that “the internet is a safe place to express my opinions” (48%) and those who did not feel this (49%).
  • Japan was among the countries where most web users did not feel they could express their opinions safely online (65%), alongside South Korea (70%), France (69%), Germany (72%), and China (55%). In contrast, most Indians (70%), Ghanaians (74%), and Kenyans (73%) felt they could express their opinions safely.
  • The poll also showed that most internet users feel that the internet should not be regulated by governments. More than half (53%) of internet users agreed that “the internet should never be regulated by any level of government anywhere”—including large majorities in South Korea (83%), Nigeria (77%), and Mexico (72%).
  • The poll also reveals that around one in three internet users across the countries polled regard the web as a good place to find a boyfriend or girlfriend.

Published by Sanjana

An Ashoka, Rotary World Peace and TED Fellow, I have since 2002 used, studied and advocated Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) to strengthen peace, human rights & democratic governance. I founded in 2006 and till June 2020 edited the award-winning Groundviews, Sri Lanka's first civic media website. From 2002-2020 I was a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Policy Alternatives. I pioneered both the use of social media for activism and online citizen journalism/civic media in Sri Lanka, including setting up South Asia's first Twitter and Facebook accounts for civic media, in 2007. Having started digital security training for human rights activists in 2010, I continue to advise civil society on digital hygiene, mass and personal surveillance, privacy and secure communications to date. I also curate a comprehensive digital archive of material linked to peace and conflict in Sri Lanka, since 2002. I specialise in, advise and train on social media communications strategy, countering-violence extremism online, web-based activism, online advocacy and grounded, context-based, platform-specific social media research. My work experience over two-decades spans five continents. Through the ICT4Peace Foundation and since 2006, I help strengthen information management during crises and work on countering violent extremism online. For over a decade, this included leading the Foundation's work on these lines with the United Nations and other multi-lateral organisations involved in peacebuilding, peacekeeping, and humanitarian affairs. Since 2008, I have worked in South Asia, South East Asia, North Africa, Europe and the Balkans to capture, disseminate and archive inconvenient truths in austere, violent contexts. I completed doctoral studies at the University of Otago, New Zealand, looking at the symbiotic relationship between offline unrest and online instigation of hate and harm in Sri Lanka and, in the aftermath of the Christchurch massacre in 2019, facilitated by leading research based on New Zealand's first ever Data for Good grant by Twitter.

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