Is Internet access a basic human right?

(Screengrab from Facebook protest page)

Egyptian authorities disabled the country's Internet access last week. While democracy, human rights, and poor governance have been demonstrators' main grievances, the government's decision (and ability) to keep the citizens off the Web seemed to embody the sum of Egyptians' complaints and discontent.

The restricted Internet access prompted The Post's Monica Hesse to ask, "Has society reached the point at which Internet access is a basic human right?"

(In Finland, Internet access is a human right).

Hesse acknowledged that the question might sound ludicrous on its face, but spoke to experts who concluded that yes, internet access is a human right:

As says Chris Csikszentmihalyi, the director of the Center for Future Civic Media at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: "The point is not that the Internet has become sacred. The point is that human rights have always been sacred.

So the question is? Is internet access a human right? If internet access is a human right, do you think access to social networks is also a right?

TweetUse the hashtag, #InternetRights to tell us what you think on Twitter.

Over the weekend we asked what people thought. Here are a few of their responses: