Is internet access a new human right? David Sassoli eudebates the Future of Europe

Описание: It’s time to recognise internet access as a human right. At the European Parliament’s “Ideas for a new world” dialogue, Sir Tim Berners-Lee makes the case for recognising internet access as a human right and challenges the EU to make a better, safer, more empowering digital world a reality.
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President Sassoli, President von der Leyen, Professor Prodi, distinguished guests. It’s an honour to introduce a dialogue that is so important to me. Thank you for the invitation.

The moment we are in
On March 12th this year, we marked the 31st birthday of the World Wide Web. But as we reflected on all the web has become over more than three decades, we could not ignore that we were on the brink of crisis.

The day before that anniversary in March, Italy closed shops and venues across the country; Austria closed all its schools; Ireland and Sweden recorded their first deaths from coronavirus; the United Nations reported that 20% of the world’s students were already out of the classroom; and the World Health Organisation officially declared the outbreak a pandemic. All in that one day.

The seven months since have seen serious hardship here in Europe and around the world. The cost of the pandemic has been unprecedented.

And yet, as bad as it has been, imagine a crisis like this but without the web. With having access to the web, employees can work from home and keep economies afloat; governments and others are able to disseminate vital health information; families can keep in touch; students, if they are lucky, are able to keep their education intact and their dreams alive by learning online.

In this crisis, for those who have it, the web is not a luxury. It’s a lifeline.

Where it began
31 years ago, I was a software engineer at CERN in Geneva. It was there that I wrote a memo outlining an idea for what later became the World Wide Web. My boss, Mike Sendall, agreed to allow me to work on this as a skunkworks project between the serious physics projects. His original copy of the memo was found 10 years later with a handwritten comment in the margin which read: “Vague, but exciting”. I have always been grateful that he didn’t think “Exciting, but vague” or we may not all be where we are today.

In the years that followed, it became clear to me that the web should not be owned by any single individual, corporation, or government. It had to belong to everyone.

In fact, it was the expression of a set of values that are very familiar to many people in this virtual room today, and to citizens across Europe. Enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights are the rights to free expression and association, human dignity, the protection of personal data, non-discrimination and gender equality, the right to education, and the freedom to work and conduct a business.

Those very same values — universal human rights — are woven into the web. It was created with technology. But it was created FOR humanity.

The web we want
That’s why I agree with President Sassoli when he says that our discussions about the digital world must be anchored not only in technical issues but in human rights and justice. The internet is not just a technology. It is knowledge, it is opportunity, it is empowerment. It is critical to life in today’s world.

So today I want to urge you to recognise internet access as a human right; to work with me, the World Wide Web Foundation I co-founded, and citizens across Europe to ensure that the internet is safe and empowering for everyone; and to come together in support of the Contract for the Web — the first global plan of action for the web we want.

I am a technologist who cares deeply about the social implications of the technology that I and others have created. You are policymakers who care deeply about the role of technology in your constituents’ lives. The Contract for the Web is designed to create a community of people like us — with diverse perspectives and expertise — to work together to build the web we want.

Internet access as a human right
A few moments ago I asked you to imagine living through this pandemic without the web. This is in fact the reality for almost half the world.

3.5 billion people still don’t have internet access. Based on current trends, it will be later than 2050 by the time they do, far short of the UN Sustainable Development Goal to achieve universal connectivity.

Also, as it is today, men are 21% more likely to be online than women — this rises to 52% in the world’s least developed countries.

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