Is Unrestricted Internet Access a Modern Human Right?

[Commentary] Just as it took the invention of the printing press to trigger a deliberation on freedom of expression, technological changes today are so profound that they demand a reconsideration of what constitutes a fundamental right.

It is difficult, if not impossible in some places, to participate fully in today’s world without an open, available Internet. This will become even truer as access is increasingly required to win and perform jobs, gather news, participate in politics, receive education, connect with health-care systems, and engage in basic financial services. (Coin and paper money, one of those few technologies mentioned in the US Constitution, will fade in importance in coming decades, outmoded by mobile banking.) Rules that will empower and enable more and more people to tap into the full promise of human existence, while not simultaneously undercutting and diminishing that promise, are being made possible by technological advances, but they will not actually come to be if leaders do not act to create them -- if governments leave it to the happenstance of progress to sort out tensions among the modern ingredients of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The conversation about necessary action is already coming too late. The longer it takes to kick into high gear, the longer humans will continue hurtling toward a new economic and social reality. Simultaneously, there will be much slower progress toward ensuring that the gains this reality brings are not offset by the tragedy of too few people benefiting or by the planet’s gradual but irreversible degradation.