Net Neutrality: A Struggle For Human Rights
The fight for Net Neutrality isn’t just a battle against companies trying to take over the Internet.
It’s also a struggle for human rights.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights stipulates that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights,” that human rights are to be enjoyed “without distinction of any kind such as race, color or sex.”
And that includes the “right to freedom of opinion and expression.”
The open Internet has given people around the world the freedom to hold opinions and express themselves without interference. It has allowed individuals the right to seek, receive and impart information, which has in turn facilitated social change, as happened with the Arab Spring revolutions of 2011.
But if FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s plan to allow discrimination online is adopted, it would curb our right to communicate freely.