Sir Tim Berners-Lee, founder of the World Wide Web Foundation, is not happy with the current state of the internet across the world and while addressing a news conference in London on Thursday, he said Internet access should be declared as a human right.
Berners-Lee claimed internet is still out of reach of around 60 per cent of the globe’s population or nearly 4.3 billion people around the globe. It needs to be considered a priority of same urgency as better education, healthcare and clean water.
“It’s time to recognize the Internet as a basic human right,” Berners-Lee said.
Tim Berners-Lee said that it is a matter of great concern that the web is gradually becoming less free and more unequal with users increasingly subject to state and government surveillance and a lack of liberty and privacy.
The World Wide Web Foundation’s 2014-15 Web Index report on the Internet and its impacts on society, the economy and politics, found that 84 per cent of countries have weak or non-existent laws to protect citizens from indiscriminate mass surveillance, up from 63 per cent in 2013.
Around 38 per cent of countries are now censoring politically or socially sensitive content to a ‘moderate’ or ‘extensive’ degree, an increase of 6 per cent from 2013. In addition, only a quarter of the countries assessed this year effectively enforce clear rules to protect net neutrality.
He said the Internet should be made free of any political and commercial discrimination and that the users’ privacy and freedom should always be protected regardless of their location.
The report revealed that Denmark, Finland, Norway, and the UK were among the countries that ranked best in the use of Internet for economic, political and social progress, while Yemen, Myanmar and Ethiopia ranked last in the list.
agree with you Tim. the problem is that neither governments, security forces nor the entertainment industries want that to be so unless they can spy on everyone and what they are doing! wrong doing on the internet, as far as the entertainment industries are concerned, is the most dastardly of crimes! instead of it being a civil offense because someone copied something, it is now a criminal offense with jail time and the sentences are getting longer, all for, in the main, joe bloggs copying something for the family to watch or listen to. no serious criminal people, just families! but they are chosen because they cant fight back. now we have reports of how those same industries are getting Attorney Generals to mount attacks on Google and all because those industries dont want to up their own game but expect everyone else to bring their games down to the industries level. dont forget how the USA, yet again, have been changing laws, lying, as well as carrying out illegal acts just to get someone who isn’t liked jailed because he made a go of using the net.
until the USA can be trusted to act in ways they know they should, your dream of having internet access as a basic right will remain just that, a dream!!