Vint Cerf knows the internet. He co-created it in its baby military form, and he nows serves as Google’s “Internet Evangelist”. You might be surprised, then, when he says the internet isn’t a human right — but he’s correct.
Cerf’s spiel, the entirety of which is worth reading at the New York Times, boils down to this: Human rights are things fundamental to our wellbeing as humans. Things that allow us not only to survive, but to flourish as a species: clean water, not being raped, expressing our thoughts without reprisal. These rights can be chiselled in stone and would make as much sense 500 years ago as 500 years from now. Why? They have nothing to do with tech — though that doesn’t mean tech’s not part of the picture:
Technology is an enabler of rights, not a right itself… It is a mistake to place any particular technology in this exalted category, since over time we will end up valuing the wrong things. For example, at one time if you didn’t have a horse it was hard to make a living. But the important right in that case was the right to make a living, not the right to a horse. Today, if I were granted a right to have a horse, I’m not sure where I would put it.
This is spot on. The internet is currently an indispensable part of enabling free speech — but it’s not free speech itself. Someday, there will be no internet, because we’ll be using something better. So to look back and see that we once enshrined it on the same plane as life, liberty and the pursuit of a bunch of nice things will be pretty embarrassing.
This doesn’t mean give up on making the internet great and accessible, says Cerf:
Improving the internet is just one means, albeit an important one, by which to improve the human condition. It must be done with an appreciation for the civil and human rights that deserve protection – without pretending that access itself is such a right.
It’s a matter of priorities. Let’s worry about people who are literally starving before we worry about getting them Twitter so they can talk about it. [NYT]
light487
Friday, January 6, 2012 at 8:42 AM“Things that allow us not only to survive, but to flourish as a species”
Things that allow us.. that enable us.. to not only survive but also flourish as a species.
“Technology is an enabler of rights, not a right itself”
Technological “things” are things that enable us.. allow us.. to flourish as a species.
I understand that he is talking about the principles behind the “rights” and that ights are not “things” that can be sold or bought in real terms. However, this explanation contradicts itself.
Just because we might have the “right” to own a horse, does not mean we all need to own one, it just means that we have the right to do so. Again, I understand the point.. they are just poor analogies.
“The internet is currently an indispensable part of enabling free speech ”
Well no.. it’s not indispensable. You would still have free speech without the internet. That is the point you are making of course but the point I am making is that the internet, or the horse, are tools that enable those rights to “flourish”.. to maintain their relevancy in the modern age. And that is the key to maintaining human rights really.. that of “relevancy”. Without the internet, the relevancy in the modern age of globally connected market places, news outlets, politcal landscapes and so on would be diminished.
I am
light487
Friday, January 6, 2012 at 8:43 AMNot sure where that “I am” at the bottom came from.. but I forgot to add my smileys to this post :)
:) :) :) :) :) :)
There.. better :)
Thertrius
Friday, January 6, 2012 at 9:16 AMi wish i was this cool!
John
Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 2:29 AMIs that a joke? Because light487 isn’t cool at all.
Thertrius
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 10:14 AMsarcasm was included.
z3d
Friday, January 6, 2012 at 9:34 AMI put it in the same category as school. you can succeed without it but you pay a significant social and educational penalty. if he’s saying school isn’t a right then he’s just arguing semantics.
EMH
Friday, January 6, 2012 at 10:22 AMPerhaps, on the other hand, if Internet access was a human right, we could stop thinking about the technicalities behind it and get on with conidering only content.
In any case, whom should we trust to determine what should be a right and what not? If the internet is not considered as a human right then no-one will ever have a satisfactory answer to this question. Access to content will then suffer and censorship will be built into the system. Censorship is already far to much in evidence on the internet.
Reana
Friday, January 6, 2012 at 11:21 AMSomeone tell that to the rural dwellers in Australia, and then explain to them that fibre to their homes is prohibitively expensive compared to the main cities.
Franz
Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 10:16 AM“Human rights are things fundamental to our wellbeing as humans. Things that allow us not only to survive, but to flourish as a species: clean water, not being raped, expressing our thoughts without reprisal.”
WRONG. These are luxuries, luxuries the human race has made for itself. Luxuries that we still have due to the on going maintaining of a somewhat safe, civilized society that started a many years ago. Can’t believe people are so wrong in the head not to understand this.
The right to suicide, now there’s a REAL human right.
And as for rape, look at the animal world, (example) Lions rape each other all the time, it’s how they flourish, and sometime in our past, the human race flourished because of rape, men and women didn’t sit around and have a nice discussion or go on a date, there were little or no words spoken at all, the male just grabbed the female and did the deed. Nowadays we have a nice civil society, but the history of the human race must not be denied or censored.
I’m not saying those ‘human rights’ are incorrect, I’m saying those ‘human rights’ are not ‘human rights’ at all. They’re a set of base rules the human race has set forth after declaring itself supreme and superior to the human in it’s original form.
We now have a world where being human isn’t good enough (example, nudity = banned), and these ‘human rights’ are actually declaring us superhuman. In other words, the first humans had to make do with dirty water and basic rules of survival, but that just simply isn’t good enough for us modern humans, we’re better than that. That’s what the human race starting saying some hundred years ago.
Sorry for the dribble but I hate lies.
Pete
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 10:52 AMI disagree franz. What you are saying is that the only human right is the right to do whatever you please the only other possibility here (by your definition) is some set of divine rules handed down by a creator which early humans lived by and now so must we. Human rights are exactly what you said they aren’t “A set of base rules the human race has set forth” as for the superior part? evolution and history have taught us and allowed us to define those base rules and we will continue to define those base rules until such time as we are gone from this world.