Sir Tim Berners-Lee said at a news conference in London on Thursday that Internet access should be a human right. The World Wide Web creator also denounced the rapidly increasing Internet censorship by governments around the world and commercial manipulation of the global network.
According to the World Wide Web Foundation founded by Berners-Lee, around 38 percent of the governments do not provide free Internet access to its citizens.
The Web foundation's yearly Web Index report, which emphasized data on certain issues such as net neutrality, equality, gender-based violence, censorship and privacy on 86 countries across the globe, was released this week.
According to this year's report, the Web, which is unattainable by around 60 percent of the globe's population or nearly 4.3 billion people, is becoming less free. Additionally, 38 percent of countries with Internet access are censoring socially and politically sensitive web content, up from 32 percent in the previous year.
"It's time to recognize the Internet as a basic human right," Tim Berners-Lee said in a statement.
Tim Berners-Lee said that the Internet should be free of political and commercial discrimination and that the users' privacy and freedom should always be protected regardless of their location.
The report also found that 84 percent of the countries have weak or no laws against mass surveillance.
The web creator also dismissed Russian President Vladimir Putin's statement that the Internet was created by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from the United States.
According to Berners-Lee, the Internet was initially created due to funds coming from the U.S. government, but was further developed through academics.
"The Internet is not a CIA creation," said Tim Berners-Lee.