The importance of fundamental human rights to us humans can't be overemphasized, as it goes on to ensure our freedom, protect us from injustice, and also ensure equality, dignity, and justice in our society. We've got loads of fundamental human rights, such as the right to life, the right to freedom of speech and expression, the right to freedom of religion, the right to education, and several others. And recently there has been a clamour that the right to access the internet should be included as one of the fundamental human rights, but should that be the case or not, in this article I'll be stating my opinion on this subject matter.
We're presently in the 21st century, and one of the notable things and innovations that has become widely accepted is the internet. Our world literally revolves around it, and it's one of the fastest ways to get firsthand information about anything whatsoever. Having access to the internet plays a significant role in our lives, and if we're to look at some of its benefits, we won't have a choice but to agree that, of a truth, it should be considered one of the fundamental human rights that we mustn't be in any way restricted from accessing.
The importance of access to internet in this present age and time can never be overstated, from it vast capacity to improve education and learning, to it capability to aid communication and connectivity, not forgetting it's been a great source of entertainment and leisure, great medium to get value information regarding career and business opportunities, health and wellness, help and safety information that can be a live safer, to access to government services and information and many others to name but a few, all of these things in the past depends on physical presence in different places that can be time consuming, but with access to the internet, must can now be access from out finger tip anywhere we find ourselves.
The internet, although sometimes it can be a pain in the ass, but then we can't restrict people from accessing it because we have the capacity to do so. We've seen how the internet has helped a lot of people, being a medium where you can easily get valuable information in diverse ways. I remember a few months ago one of the children of someone in my street got lost during their travel to another state, and while they've searched tirelessly for him without success, someone close to them was surfing through the internet when they came across the video of the boy being displayed on the page of someone who found him and asked to call certain numbers or visit their location to retrieve their boy. Now imagine how they didn't see the boy for weeks despite using the police, and the case was solved easily all thanks to the internet.
These news and several others are why access to the internet should be one of the fundamental human rights, and I strongly agree with the need to have this included in our world, because we've seems in how politicians try to hide the truth by shutting down the internet during elections, countries such as Uganda(2016), Congo(2018), Cameroon(2018), Myanmar(2020) and several others did this during the election to prevent citizens from exposing their corrupt practices on the internet for the world to see, This is a violation, and I think having access to the internet included in the fundamental human rights will cement this right and prevent such from happening again or other reasons why the internet is shut down to conceal evidence.
However, even though I agree with the fact that access to the internet should be included in fundamental human rights, I think it'll greatly help if some caution is put on the right, especially for underage students in school, because if the right were to be made general even to underage students, then parents might not have the right to instate some parental guidance and restrictions on sites they can access, and it'll also lead to examination malpractice if students are allowed to use it during exams, so at least for these two mediums, the right should have a clause.
All photos are taken and edited on canva.
