Alexandra Elbakyan Quotes

Calling China's online censorship system a 'Great Firewall' is increasingly trendy, but misleading. All walls, being the creation of engineers, can be breached with the right tools.

There is no country on Earth where Internet and telecommunications companies do not face at least some pressure from governments to do things that would potentially infringe on users' rights to free expression and privacy.

We have to go see Bill Gates and a lot of different people that really understand what's happening. We have to talk to them, maybe in certain areas, closing that Internet up in some way. Somebody will say, 'Oh, freedom of speech, freedom of speech.' These are foolish people. We have a lot of foolish people.

Many companies restrict Internet activity so heavily that it makes it difficult for people to do online research. The most obvious example? Checking the Facebook profile of someone you just interviewed.

Allowing a handful of broadband carriers to determine what people see and do online would fundamentally undermine the features that have made the Internet such a success, and could permanently compromise the Internet as a platform for the free exchange of information, commerce, and ideas.

In the wake of the Internet getting shut down in Egypt - something that also happened in Xinjiang - I know that there are groups working on ways to help people get online when domestic networks get shut down. This could also be of use to some people in China.

Like it or not, Google and the Chinese government are stuck in a tense, long-term relationship, and can look forward to more high-stakes shadow-boxing in the netherworld of the world's most elaborate system of censorship.

Whether or not the U.S. government funds circumvention tools, or who exactly it funds and with what amount, it is clear that Internet users in China and elsewhere are seeking out and creating their own ad hoc solutions to access the uncensored global Internet.

The Internet's distinct configuration may have made cyberattacks easy to launch, but it has also kindled the flame of freedom.

Some ISPs are blocking all BitTorrent traffic, because BitTorrent can be used to share files in a piratical way. Hollywood lobbying groups are trying to pass laws which would force ISPs to block or degrade BitTorrent traffic, too. Personally, I think this is like closing down freeways because a bank robber could use them to get away.

There are websites that any government wants to block. The truth about the Internet is that it's extremely hard to block anything - extremely hard. You'll never get perfect blocking.

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.

For Ghana to suggest that they will turn off the Internet, in addition to other countries that have done it like Uganda, Zimbabwe, DRC, Burundi, Chad and others, that's worrying.

While the Internet is censored in China, the censorship is allowing a level of speech to take place that's unprecedented.

Is any blogger out there saying anything—do they deserve First Amendment protection? These are the issues of our times.

Without network neutrality, cable and phone companies could stifle innovation.

Political oppositionary activity on the Russian Internet caused the government to pass laws limiting both service operators and users. As a result, the Russian tech environment became much less liberal, losing freedom as one of its competitive advantages.

I do not want to give the state and the authorities the right to ban things on the Internet - no ifs.

We all have an interest in an open Internet.

We have asked the government to start some discussions with us about how we can operate an unfiltered search engine in China, and failing that, we will have to shut it down, but - or do something else.

Both Republicans and Democrats championed a structure that allowed the 'application layer' of Internet architecture to be free from government intervention, apart from occasional Federal Trade Commission activity.

The legend of a cable company trying to break the Internet makes scary bedtime stories for children of telecom geeks, but it is not reality.

I'm against the SOPA act, and Imgur, as a company, is against it.

Censorship is a really big deal, but online you don't have anything. You have slightly more freedom.

I think net neutrality needs to be explored in a broader sense.