Hacker News Reader

Comment by scrollaway | Hacker News Reader

"In fact, the web is so pivotal to modern life that two months ago, the UN declared internet access a basic human right."

This doesn't sit right with me. It's certainly not being treated as one. I keep encountering "free wifi" hotspots - unencrypted, slow networks asking you to get your credit card out for more than 5 minutes of their time.

I was just in germany last week. In a public airport, the wifi was so monetized I felt like I was in the iOS port of a facebook game. Had the choice between that, or some even worse sitekiosk locked down piece of crap.

I wonder when this will change. When wifi will be as abundant and accessible as water in a city. (Although Germany is a terrible example for this - good luck getting a glass of tap water there). It's funny-sad to contrast the wonders of the internet, to the unending shithole that is internet access in 2016.

View on HN

I don't think the fact that some Internet access is crap negates this observation. Why should it have the same distribution and access qualities as water? It's a completely different thing. The right suggests that everyone should be able to reasonably take part in the Internet, not that it should be available for free everywhere and at the same quality. Almost everyone in developed countries can get access to it regularly for nearly no money. Developing countries are getting there too.

You overestimate how the "basic human right" is treated.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has 30 articles, almost every single one was and is being trampled on everyday.

Well, an alternative (and more charitable) reading is that these are negative rights.

Having the right to internet doesn't mean that someone else has a duty to provide you with a (free) internet connection, it means that forcibly preventing you from procuring an internet connection is not allowed (as opposed to, say, drugs, which you CAN be forcibly prevented from procuring).

Compare freedom of expression: Nobody can forcibly prevent you from expressing yourself, but also, nobody has a duty to enable you to express yourself.

It doesn't seem to be constituted that way according to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Internet_access

That and the increasing disdain for human rights in western civilisation, which was supposed to be leading the way. Popular attitudes started to shift on 9/11, and support for "enhanced questioning" and indefinite detention without charge or trial has done nothing but grow, since.

We are told practically every day that terrorists, paedophiles, and werewolves (I made that one up) hide behind the shield of human rights, thus threatening us all, and if you're a good citizen you don't need human rights because you've done nothing wrong.

The current government in the UK has a manifesto commitment to repeal human rights legislation, and much to the relief of terrified voters, intend to follow through on it.

http://www.theweek.co.uk/63635/human-rights-act-will-be-scra...

Going to a bathroom is a basic human right too. However, you still have to pay $ to access a public one in a lot of places. Let's fix that first.

You're right, let's forget the internet and focus on bathrooms, since they're obviously mutually exclusive... sigh.

In Germany you can just go into any bathroom and drink the water / refill your bottle there.

The public WiFi is terrible though, I agree.

Why not just pick up a €10 pay-as-you go LTE SIM? It's faster than WiFi, works nearly everywhere and is super cheap.

Setting aside the practicality issue (makes my regular number unreachable, requires ID in many countries, in an airport I probably don't have one, etc), my point was only to highlight what we currently accept as the status quo of public wifi.

That's why you stick the SIM card in your other phone, a 3G dongle or Mifi device.

Wifi in Germany is a bad example because not only is there less demand for wifi due to ubiquitous 3G/4G coverage at reasonable rates but wifi hotspot operators also face liability for the traffic they carry.

In Europe there isn't an expectation of free public wifi as everybody has a smart phone with 4G.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com