Dear Common Scientist,
My path to believing the internet is a human right was a windy one. It started a month into working for a small health company. I kid you not, Russian hackers penetrated the organization’s computers and deployed ransomware, software that locked us out of our email and other important files. A young, reasonably tech literate team member, I soon became responsible for coordinating IT contractors, cybersecurity lawyers, and insurance agents to get the company back on its feet. This baptism by fire resulted in my promotion to IT Manager, a role which I stepped away from in early 2022 to tutor math and science and explore other opportunities.
Just prior to my departure from the health company, articles started to emerge online describing a novel infectious disease in Wuhan, China. I was curious enough to follow the learnings spreading in the news and on social media. I had no idea how rapidly the world was about to change in response to the disease, COVID-19, so I still flew to Los Angeles, California, from my home state of Minnesota to camp on Catalina Island. My friend Chuck picked me up from the airport in LA on a Thursday and we headed to the early Friday morning ferry the next day. On the boat to Catalina, occasionally, we checked our phones to read or watch the latest COVID-19 updates. We were not truly gripped until the United States – European travel ban went into effect that weekend, the ferry declared it would stop heading to the mainland that Sunday, cutting our visit short, and LA locked down that Monday. I ordered an Uber to the airport Monday afternoon with a few finger clicks. The driver had been driving all day, and I was his second or third passenger. The streets were empty.
I came down with respiratory symptoms and self-isolated fourteen days on my return to Minnesota. The time physically alone but connected to others by text, voice and video chat made me appreciate my internet access all the more. With such access and IT experience, I supported the tutoring agency I was working for transition to virtual learning. Also during those fourteen days, I learned that seniors homes were shutting down visitations, yet low-income seniors in particular lacked the internet access I did to be able to connect with friends and family online. After a few emails, phone and video calls, I founded a partnership between Gifts for Seniors – Twin Cities and Twin Cities Rotaract, which coordinated the donation of 153 tablets to low-resourced senior homes. These experiences pushed me to think deeply about the role the internet plays in today’s age, especially during crises.
The internet has generated billionaires, symbols of the internet’s power (Table 1).
| Billionaire | 2022 Net Worth (Forbes) | How’d the internet help them? |
| Bill Gates | $129B | Gates co-founded Microsoft Corporation, which produces software that is incredibly valuable thanks to the internet. |
| Elon Musk | $219B | Musk sold Zip2, an internet company he co-founded, earning millions of dollars in the process. He invested these earnings into his business empire of today. |
Table 1. A couple billionaires.
Billionaires, whether you like them or not, have wealth that shapes our world thanks to the internet. With funds earned from Microsoft, Bill and his now ex-wife Melinda founded the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) in 2000. The largest charitable foundation in the US, the BMGF is a nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity. The nonprofit has distributed $61B in grants since its inception. Recognizing the benefits of the internet, the BMGF partners with North American libraries to give free internet access to millions. Yet, four billion people still do not have internet access.
A digital divide exists between those that can tap into the sum of human knowledge and those that cannot. In the US, according to a study the Interactive Advertising Bureau commissioned, the internet has created more than 17 million jobs, including 200,000 full-time jobs in the online creator economy. Personally, I perform all my data science and tutoring work via the internet. Meanwhile, rural people especially are left out of the growth in opportunity afforded by the internet, but connecting such persons to the internet results in greater access to health information and increased social connection.
Furthermore, the proceeding sample of educational offerings available at no-cost to internet users is evidence of the extraordinary educational disadvantage those without internet are beset by. No-cost language class provider Duolingo teaches 19 distinct languages to 120 million users worldwide. Donation supported Wikipedia has more than 6 million articles in English that average 255 million pageviews per day. Also, as of this writing, the YouTube Channel Yoga with Adrienne has 644 health and wellness videos available at no-cost to its 11.1 million subscribers – I watch one almost daily.
Last and not least, the internet spurs activism by social media (e.g. social media played a part in the Arab uprisings a.k.a. The Arab Spring). Evidence of the internet as a threat to autocracies can be seen in autocratic leaders or governments shutting down social media or the internet entirely to quell protests (There were at least 50 documented internet shutdowns globally just between January and May 2021). Protests are forms of self-expression that ensure the people’s voice is recognized by the state. The internet seems a precursor to protesting, a most democratic action, and as such should be considered a human right.
Unambiguously, the internet is a human right. In 2016, the United Nations (UN) declared the internet a human right by an addition to Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, Article 19 is “soft” in that it has no enforcement power. Those without the internet are falling further behind with each new blog article, YouTube video, or algorithm enhancement. We must act now to create a legal framework from which goals to get closer to the internet for all are enforceable. I am no lawyer. In my mind though, one way this could be accomplished in the US at least is with the addition of internet access to our Bill of Rights. Until then, I will do my best in my work and otherwise to connect others to the wondrous possibilities the internet affords.
Sincerely,
Aidan
