Four out of five respondents to a study conducted by the BBC’s World Service recently stated that they consider access to the internet to be a fundamental human right, citing it as a great place to learn and also a ‘source of greater freedom’. Over half of the replies suggested that the ‘net should be free of government supervision and monitoring.
The 27,000 respondents to the poll came from 26 countries and although their responses varied according to their location, the vast majority of them did consider that internet access was a right, not a privilege. Interesting statistics from the study, however did reveal that only 16% of Chinese people, 13% of Turkish and 12% of Pakistani respondents believed that the internet should be unregulated, whereas the majority of those calling for access unsupervised by the government were from the United States, Mexico, South Korea and Nigeria.
The results from this poll have caused hot debate across the internet, especially between the increasing amounts of people who believe that their internet access should be free and also protected under the statutes of free speech, consequently unfiltered or supervised by the government and those who feel that it is not a basic right as someone always has to pay the bill for it.
Although it’s unlikely that this study will have much impact when it comes to influencing policy-makers the world over, it’s certainly interesting to see how this compares and contrasts with the RIAA’s proposal to cut music downloaders off from the web. What are your thoughts? Let us know.
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