Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Information on the Internet must be as free as in the newspapers.
We need a multi-stakeholder approach to Internet governance, not vested interests in making citizens pay for formerly free services or restrictions to their capacity to share information.
The Internet has been seen in the West as the quintessential expression of the free exchange of ideas and information, untrammeled by government interference and increasingly global in reach. But the Chinese government has shown that the Internet can be successfully filtered and controlled.
The rise of a ubiquitous Internet, along with 24-hour news channels has, in some sense, had the opposite effect from what many might have hoped such free and open access to information would have had. It has instead provided free and open access, without the traditional media filters, to a barrage of disinformation.
For Americans, with the advent of the U.S. invention of the Internet, free speech is not just open dissemination of ideas and information. It includes limitless instant access to those ideas and the ability to choose and search from among virtually unlimited sources. It is also the backbone of free enterprise and a vibrant global economy.