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Is Internet access a human right? amarcnn | July 14, 2011 at 1:20 pm | Categories: Human Rights, Internet, Technology | URL: http://wp.me/p1bJgh-28N

Editor's Note: Jan Chipchase is Executive Creative Director of Global Insights at frog, a global innovation firm. This post is part of the Global Innovation Showcase created by the New America Foundation and the Global Public Square.

We're halfway done with 2011, a year marked by remarkable, revolutionary uprisings in the Middle East -- uprisings facilitated and documented on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media.

When the governments in Egypt and Syria tried to control the flow of information from citizens by blocking Internet access and other forms of communication, the worldwide perception of these acts was that they were sinister and cruel. People were silenced. It was as if their vocal chords were cut; it was as if we, outside the Middle East, were blinded.

Was the impact so dramatic because today Internet access has reached the status of a basic need – like clean water or electricity?

The United Nations, in fact, recently declared that disconnecting people from the Internet is a violation of human rights. And if connectivity is a human right, how do we help make the Internet more accessible to everyone – from those in the throes of a revolution, to fellow citizens back home? What is our responsibility to bridge the digital divide? Read more of this post

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