In short, no. But before you write me off as an inhuman luddite, hear me out.

First of all, the Internet is valuable and its proliferation should be encouraged. It has been highly documented that the Internet encourages free speech and the political and economic empowerment of the oppressed. It helps build credibility in government and helps prevent against human rights violations. Between 2000 to 2011, the number of humans with access to the Internet increased by approximately 480%, for a total of over 2 billion Internet users. Nevertheless, about 70% of humans do not have Internet access.

There have also been several claims to the status of the Internet as a human right. Tim Burners-Lee claimed the Internet access was the equivalent to water access. A number of European countries have already declared Internet access a human right. In 2011 the UN published a report establishing Internet access as a human right, and it was fortified through a resolution earlier this year. According to a world wide survey conducted by the BBC in 2010, over 70% of people believe the Internet should be protected at the human rights level.

Human rights claims for the Internet are wrong, not because the Internet isn’t important, but because of the definition of human rights. It is a question of human rights language, not the inherent value of the Internet.

There are plenty of ways of defining human rights, but here are two predominant thoughts.

First, human rights could be said to be things that are necessary for “humanness”. I doubt that most people would consider the Internet necessary for being human (after all, humans have existed without the Internet for thousands of years). However, the bigger problem with the “humanness” view of human rights is that there is an inherent subjective definition for achieving “humanness”, and how could we possible get everyone in the world to agree on what it means to be human? Moreover, what one might consider necessary to be human in the West might not be the same in the rest of the world, so parading around claiming human rights violations could be seen as parochial Western paternalism. Vint Cerf (aka father of the Internet) has made an argument that the Internet is not a human right from this definition of human rights.

Instead, let’s opt for a more philosophically liberal view of human rights. Human rights are things that are necessary for membership in a political community. Being part of a political community means that your interests are taken into account at the level of governing institutions. Thus, human rights are things that are necessary for your interests to be taken into account. Human rights are especially urgent because their violation means that someone is governing you without justifying their actions.

What is required for membership might be different in different societies, so we avoid the parochial problems of the first definition by accepting different views of membership from society to society. For example, in the UK democracy might be necessary for membership, but in Saudi Arabia it is not. Thus, we could not say that democracy is a human right because governments can taken their population’s interests into account even without democratic institutions.

Nevertheless, there are some basic things that are absolutely necessary for membership in every society. For example, some level of free speech is necessary because otherwise one could not ask for justification in cases where government ignores its population’s interests. Some level of free assembly is necessary because how could one be part of a political community if he/she is not permitted to be in close proximity to the community? These are things that are undoubtedly human rights in themselves because they are absolutely necessary for membership.

The Internet, however, is not necessary to be a member of a political community. As mentioned above, most of the world’s population is without Internet access, but you don’t see governments and international organizations putting blame on governing institutions if they are unable to provide access. Lack of access isn’t urgent because it isn’t necessary for membership.

Of course, Internet access is extremely valuable for membership, as it helps people realize higher levels of what is necessary for membership, such as free speech and assembly. Taking away Internet access once it is already there might be considered urgent because it threatens these more basic rights, such in the case of Egypt earlier this year, but if a government can’t provide the infrastructure for Internet access then it is not urgent. Because no minimum level of Internet access is required for membership, there does not exist a human right to the Internet.

Why is this distinction so important? Despite this argument, isn’t denying the status of the Internet as a human right counterproductive?

There is currently phenomenon in human rights discussion called “human rights inflation”, which threatens to weaken the importance of human right claims. In short, human rights inflation happens when people start claiming that everything is a human right without considering the conditions under which they can really make those claims (please stop voicing your ‘human right’ to cupcakes). Human rights are especially important things, so if we start saying everything is a human right we diminish the forcefulness of human rights language because we can no longer decipher what is fundamentally important. In the long run, this could cause roadblocks for justice and progress around the world.