Jared Cohen Quotes

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

It is true that authoritarian governments increasingly see the Internet as a threat in part because they see the U.S. government behind the Internet.

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.

There are many cases of activists having their Facebook pages and accounts deactivated at critical times, when they are right in the middle of a campaign or organising a demonstration.

I study how governments seek to stifle and control online dissent.

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

The Internet is uncontrollable. And if the Internet is uncontrollable, freedom will win. It’s as simple as that

Online censorship, mass and targeted surveillance and data collection, digital attacks on civil society and repression resulting from online expression force individuals around the world to seek security to hold opinions without interference and seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds. Many seek to protect their security through encryption, the scrambling of data so only intended recipients may access it

Information technology is a formidable enabler of freedoms. For example, it lowers barriers to freedom of expression and allows people to get a better grasp of their lives. It should not be used to reduce the freedom of people.

The Internet treats censorship as a malfunction and routes around it.

Even with censorship, the Internet is a force for change.

So I decided the only place I can speak to the world is from outside Israel.

Let me start with Yahoo. As we meet today, a Chinese citizen who had the courage to speak his mind on the Internet is in prison because Yahoo chose to share his name and address with the Chinese Government.

Intellectuals try to keep going. But their situation is very difficult. Those who have had the courage to voice their opposition have often paid a very high price.

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.

Break up the printing presses and you break up rebellion.

There are a lot of people that think the Internet is going to bring information and democracy and pluralism in China just by existing.

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.

Disclosure and transparency are the currency of the Internet, and they are at odds with authoritarianism.

Well, take the evolution of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It began as hackers' rights. Then it became general civil liberties of everybody - government stay away.

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

Young Egyptians, gazing through the windows of the Internet, have gained a keener sense than many of their elders of the freedoms and opportunities they lack. They have found in social media a way to interact and share ideas, bypassing, in virtual space, the restrictions placed on physical freedom of assembly.

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

The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.

A simple way to determine whether the right to dissent in a particular society is being upheld is to apply the town square test: Can a person walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm? If he can, then that person is living in a free society. If not, it's a fear society.