A few weeks ago, an interesting article appeared in ComputerWorld magazine. It detailed the relationship between two companies in the late 1990s – Earthlink and Apple Inc. The latter had Steve Jobs returning as head honcho, and he was keen to install every one of his new iMac computers with a modem. And Earthlink boss Sky Dayton was keen to connect those Macs to the internet. After the meetings between the two CEOs, Earthlink became the default internet provider for Macs. A short-lived relationship, but it was a significant one.
Times have changed, of course. Today, Apple is, well, we all know what Apple is. You can see by these Earthlink reviews that it is still one of the most renowned internet providers in America, although it arguably doesn’t get the credit it deserves as being a pioneering company back in the 1990s.
But, as the writer for ComputerWorld points out, the interesting thing about those meetings is not what came after, but the fact that very few people recognized what the internet would become, with some even dismissing it as a “fad”. But, back then, could even visionaries like Jobs really understand what the internet would become?
5 Years Since UN Resolution
It’s approaching the five-year anniversary of the UN making a non-binding resolution condemning countries that intentionally disrupt citizens’ internet access. Due to the fact that this was linked to the freedom of expression provisions contained within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 19), some media reports have misinterpreted this to say that the UN declared internet access to be a basic human right. It didn’t, and it isn’t, although some believe it should be.
But in recent years, the idea of universal internet access has become a cause célèbre. In the UK, the Labour Party has made it an election promise to install free high-speed broadband in every home by 2030. The year 2030 is also on former Labour leader Tony Blair’s mind, whose Institute for Global Change has made the plea for bridging the digital divide, what it calls The Progressive Case for Universal Internet Access.
Getting everyone on the planet access to the internet is universally accepted as a good thing. But there is a genuine question as to whether it should be a priority. Or, to put it in a better way, there is a question as to whether it should be the priority. One statistic that is often thrown up to make that argument is that more people have access to the (mobile) internet than have access to a working toilet or clean water.
Around 60% of the world is online
As of January 2021, there are an estimated 4.66 billion internet users around the world – approximately 60% of the world’s population is online. But, as per that UN resolution, you wonder whether that stat is misleading. How many of that 60% have access to disrupted, i.e., restricted, internet? China, for example, has 65.2% of its massive population on the internet, but we know that its government has a lot of control over what its citizens can and can’t see.
Meanwhile, the UAE has 99% of its population connected to the internet. But in the latest “Freedom On the Net” rating, the country gets a score of 29/100 – putting it in the “Not Free” category. Kenya, meanwhile, has a much lower penetration rate (around 44%), but it gets a much better “Partly Free” rating of 69% from the Freedom On the Net index. So is it better to be an internet user in Kenya or the UAE?
In a recent thinkpiece, Merten Reglitz, a Lecturer for Global Ethics at Birmingham University, called for the internet to be free in two ways. First, he says, it should be free in the sense of being “unmonitored, uncensored, uninterrupted”. Secondly, it should be free in the sense that governments should fund internet access as part of minimum welfare benefits; Reglitz points to an example in Germany.
We aren’t going to debate the ethics and problems of “uncensored” internet, but it’s interesting that Reglitz believes the second goal to be deliverable. He acknowledges the challenges for governments in low-income countries, but rightly points to the huge changes in the affordability of connections provided by mass mobile internet coverage.
In the end, the challenge will likely be met by public and private spending. We saw, for example, how Facebook led a campaign to roll out free internet in some parts of Africa. But some wondered whether this was philanthropy or marketing for the social media giant? For some, it did not matter as the ends justified the means.
Perhaps, we should conclude with Tony Blair’s words: “We’ve lost our way on this in recent years, but an open and connected world will be the lifeblood for our future growth. It’s time that we make it a reality. ”. Is that really possible by 2030, as Blair contends? Probably not. But the strides we have made over the last few years are impressive, even if internet penetration does not always equate to internet freedom.