Proposed FCC plan expansion raises questions: Is Internet access a right?

Coverage Type: 

Is Internet access a right as much as it is a necessity? Many argue that it is, saying that connectivity is a fundamentally important part of Internet access.

“The reason the FCC is promoting the expansion of Lifeline,” says American Enterprise Institute visiting scholar Daniel Lyons, “is because it is valuable for all members of society to be digitally connected.” Digital connectivity can improve social lives and provide paths to progress for individuals across the social spectrum, says Lyons. Critics of Internet access as a right say that although freedom of expression is indeed a human right, the Internet is a means to an end where expression is concerned, not expression itself. Is it the government’s responsibility to provide access to the Internet? “I think that it is helpful for the government to subsidize access,” says Lyons. “But I don’t think it is a duty or entitlement in the same way as Social Security.”


Proposed FCC plan expansion raises questions: Is Internet access a right?