Don't mess with the people's internet

The protests in Egypt and elsewhere show the power of the internet as a force for freedom

I've spent some time reporting in the Middle East and what I noticed most about the Egyptian people was how cosmopolitan and cultured they are. They are hardly the same as the jaded, war-torn faces that we see on TV of people living in the less hospitable regions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Egypt has a thriving business community full of educated, well-rounded and amiable people.

So when the now ex-president, Hosni Mubarak, cut off internet access for the entire country, as well as blocked their bank accounts, I knew he was asking for trouble. I mean, how would we react if Cameron and Clegg tried to shut down the internet here? Of course, it could never happen here because our political leaders could never wield such power, plus resistance in the UK to any such measure would be too huge, or so I would hope.

Of course, the reason Egypt is still in turmoil is down to a lot more than the former regime's insane internet blackout. It is basically the story of a leader who took too many liberties with his people, and his desperate move to block internet access was just yet another in a long line of repressive measures.

But what happened in Egypt shows that the value of the internet to society cannot be underestimated.

In the working world, Egyptian businesses were hit hard by Mubarak's online clampdown. They could not trade, research, communicate, distribute, manage, count costs or forecast anywhere near as effectively as they used to. The cost to Egypt's economy of having no internet was about £11m per day.

In the political world, the move only served to further stoke the flames of protest against the president's authoritarian regime - an uprising that is estimated to have cost the country at least £192m a day.

The huge backlash from the Egyptian people brings the internet's importance to society into sharp focus. In most places where the internet has reached, it has helped to foster both freedom of speech and freedom of expression. It has become imperative to education, and who can argue that communication lines are not improved hugely by the web?

Reading about the events in Egypt serves as a reminder of the problems that we have in the UK, and also internationally, with digital inclusion.

It is time our own governments recognised that access to the internet should be a fundamental right in an advanced digital economy. And I would also argue that true freedom cannot exist without a free internet.

Dawinderpal Sahota is senior reporter at Computing