Al Franken Quotes

As a source of innovation, an engine of our economy, and a forum for our political discourse, the Internet can only work if it's a truly level playing field. Small businesses should have the same ability to reach customers as powerful corporations. A blogger should have the same ability to find an audience as a media conglomerate.

Excellent content is available online to everyone. I like it because it's a flattening of the playing field.

We're living at a time where if you do a Google search for a 'show, review and network,' you'll get 'The New York Times' and Pete Billingsley from a town you've never heard of on the same results page. It's kind of democratizing the process so that everyone has access to a distribution system to express themselves.

Net neutrality rules ensure an equal playing field on the web for everyone, from the start-up to the tech giant.

Net neutrality is at the core of what we love about the Internet. Put simply, it allows any individual or business equal access to online services.

Right now it is illegal for a service provider to censor or block a site because they don't like it or to privilege someone who pays them extra money. So it's basically a level playing field. I think it was a great victory. It doesn't solve all the problems of our time, but I think we've gotten a much better place.

The thing which attracted me to Google and to the Internet in general is that it's a great equalizer. I've always been struck by the fact that Google search worked the same, as long as you had access to a computer with connectivity, if you're a rural kid anywhere or a professor at Stanford or Harvard.

For the private sector to flourish, special privilege must give way to equal opportunity and equal risk for all.

As Members of Congress we can now engage with our constituents via online innovations like the Huffington Post, while a small business in rural Oregon can use the Internet to find customers around the world.

If the spirit of equality means anything, it means like opportunity, and if we once lose like opportunity, we lose the only chance we have toward equality throughout the nation.

You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, “you are free to compete with all the others”, and still justly believe that you have been completely fair. Thus it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through the those gates.

We will throw the highways of commerce open on equal terms to all who use them.

Everyone must be in the same competitive situation, including on the fiscal level.

Net neutrality sounds wonky and technical but is actually quite simple. It would keep the Internet as it has always been - cable and phone companies would remain mere gateways to all sites, rather than gatekeepers determining where users can go and what innovators can offer them.

Before social media, if I, as an individual wanted to publish something to the world, unless I could get some local TV crew to interview me, or I wrote an op-ed or took out an ad, I had no voice.

People's access to social media should not permanently be restricted.

What women need are not benefits and advantages but a merit-based selection process that will allow them to automatically benefit from various opportunities.

We want more of our products going overseas, but the trick is to have a level playing field.

I want to create a platform for those people who want to come to this field. These people will face hurdles and problems that don't allow them to show their talent. So I want to make a platform that they can easily access, and then, at least, they won't be a victim of these problems.

I think what AEW has done on social media is impressive. I think the amount of interest they've garnered is impressive.

I'm all for competition; competition is good. I just want to make sure the playing field is level.

Most filmmakers looked at it as a medium to palm off sub-standard stuff. I don't look at it like that. Your TV screen, mobile screen is as relevant as a cinema hall.

I am probably biased, but I think social media is the great equalizer. It gives everyone a megaphone. Young people who might not have had the platform for exposure can now get their ideas out to a very receptive audience.

I take the time to understand my generation and what they want. Whether it's on Tumblr, Pinterest, or Twitter, I see what they are re-Vining or re-blogging and incorporate it into my YouTube channel.

We need to create a level regulatory playing field. It makes no sense for Internet giants like Google, Facebook, and Twitter to be allowed to buy newspapers while a small AM radio station is prohibited from purchasing its local paper.