Internet and Communications
Abstract
The Internet is humanity’s currently dominant technologically-enabled means of communication. It provides unprecedented options for exercising and frustrating human rights. To understand how human rights are promoted and threatened in our digital world, one thus needs to understand how the Internet affects them. Internet access has become so important for people that it has been argued it should itself be recognized as a human right. This chapter provides an overview of the Internet’s beneficial and detrimental effects on human rights as well as some considerations for and against a human right to Internet access. Understanding how the Internet affects human rights is essential for comprehending the moral significance of this medium, which is so much more than an optional technology of convenience.