Mahathir Mohamad Quotes

The Internet's distinct configuration may have facilitated anonymous threats, copyright infringement, and cyberattacks, but it has also kindled the flame of freedom in ways that the framers of the American constitution would appreciate - the Federalist papers were famously authored pseudonymously.

The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.

I should say here, because some in Washington like to dream up ways to control the Internet, that we don't need to 'control' free speech, we need to control ourselves.

As long as a government can come and shoot you, you can't jump on the Internet to freedom.

The Internet, as a First Amendment medium, hinges on free expression, and that means free advertising.

I think we should not control the Internet.

It's much easier to force intermediary communications and Internet companies such as Google to police themselves and their users than the alternatives: sending cops after everybody who attempts a risque or politically sensitive search, getting parents and teachers to do their jobs, or chasing down the origin of every offending link.

History is rife with examples of governments taking actions to 'protect' their citizens from harm by controlling access to information and inhibiting freedom of expression and other freedoms outlined in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We must make sure, collectively, that the Internet avoids a similar fate.

The early idealists and companies and governments have all assumed that the Internet will bring freedom. Yet China proves that this is not the case.

Unfortunately, opponents of online speech have decided to punish our changing technological world.

There is clearly a constituency that appreciates the message that Google is sending, that it finds the Chinese government's attitude to the Internet and censorship unacceptable.

Now is the time to draw a clean, clear, bright line and say if you are engaging in speech over the Internet you do not have to check with your lawyer or your accountant. You are a free American, and you have the opportunity to engage in free speech over the Internet.

Reclassification is the best way to for us to preserve the Internet as an unfettered tool for communication and the sharing of ideas.

The thing I have come to find astonishing is that people from all political sides routinely say that the Internet has to be the model of free speech and freedom.

The user in China wants the same thing that any Internet user wants - privacy in conversations, maximum access to information, and the ability to speak their minds online.

Information on the Internet must be as free as in the newspapers.

In Russia, they do not generally block the Internet and directly censor websites.

Both the American people and nations that censor the internet should understand that our government is committed to helping promote internet freedom.

The Internet in China is fully open and the Chinese Government manages the Internet according to the law. As for what you can and cannot watch, watch what you can watch, and don’t watch what you cannot watch.

People who believe in freedom of expression have spent several centuries fighting against censorship, in whatever form. We have to be certain the 'Net' doesn't become the site for technological book burning.

Net Neutrality is Internet freedom.

A free and open Internet is a despot's worst enemy.

There's a fundamental difference between people who want to see the Internet and say - 'Let's lobotomize and censor parts of it because we need to control it' - and those like us who see the Internet as a method of growing the economy and innovating in front of the world. And we have to actually reconcile those two positions. And we believe that it is much better to protect this crown jewel of civilization, which is the ability for us to communicate and express our ideas freely, than to try to lobotomize it.

The important thing to remember with the Internet is that there are large companies that have an interest in controlling how information flows in it. They're very effective at lobbying Congress, and that pattern has locked down other communication media in the past. And it will happen again unless we do something about it.

Whether it's Baidu or Chinese versions of YouTube or Sina or Sohu, Chinese Internet sites are getting daily directives from the government telling them what kinds of content they cannot allow on their site and what they need to delete.