Eric Balfour Quotes

Technology and social media have brought power back to the people.

Whenever a technology enables people to organize at a pace that wasn't before possible, new kinds of politics emerge.

People having the power to express themselves at scale is a new kind of force in the world — a Fifth Estate alongside the other power structures of society. People no longer have to rely on traditional gatekeepers in politics or media to make their voices heard, and that has important consequences.

Everyone has a voice. I mean, that's the good side to the Internet Age and social media. Obviously, there's negatives to it, but I think that the fact that everyone has a voice now is a tool that we can use for good.

We have entered an era vibrating with the din of small voices. Every citizen can be a reporter, can take on the powers that be.

The great thing about social media was how it gave a voice to voiceless people.

I think the Internet is having an impact in very diverse ways anchored around amplifying voice, from enabling what I like to refer to as micro-activism.

Because of the rush of human knowledge, because of the digital revolution, I have a voice, and I do not need to scream.

In many ways, people growing up with the Web and now the Semantic Web take the power at their fingertips for granted.

The Internet was crucial for our success. It is a great thing. It is a big democracy because people can choose what they like.

The notion of the Internet as a force of political and social revolution is not a new one. As far back as the early 1990s, in the early days of the World Wide Web, there were technologists and writers arguing forcefully that the Internet was destined to become the most important tool for cultural change in human history.

Now an audience of more than 1 billion people is only a click away from every voice online, and remarkable stories and content can gain flash audiences as people share via social networks, blogs and e-mail. This radically equalizes the power relationship between, say, a blogger and a multibillion dollar corporation.

Countries that have the Internet already are not going to turn it off. And so the power of freedom, the power of ideas will spread, and it will change those societies in very dramatic ways.

Congress may not get the Internet, but the Internet doesn't get Congress, either.

Politics have been changed forever because of people. The Internet is one of the tools that has helped. And it isn't just politics. The new networked dynamics that are now possible with these new forms of communication are also changing the way people engage as consumers that demand more social value from corporations.

The Internet has empowered us. It has empowered you, it has empowered me, and it has empowered some other guys as well.

The intersection of political analysis and Internet theory is a busy crossroad of cliche, where familiar rhetorical vehicles - decentralized authority, emergent leadership, empowered grass roots - create a ceaseless buzz.

Once a citizen feels he is not powerless, he can aspire for more change. ... First, the Web democratized commerce, and then it democratized media, and now it is democratizing democracy.

Web 2.0 is a grand utopian movement. It worships the creative amateur: the self-taught filmmaker, the dorm-room musician, the unpublished writer. It suggests that everyone--even the most poorly educated and inarticulate amongst us--can and should use digital media to express and realize themselves. Web 2.0 "empowers" our creativity, it "democratizes" media, it "levels the playing field" between experts and amateurs. The enemy of Web 2.0 is "elitist" traditional media.

To me, Microsoft is about empowerment... we are the original democratizing force, putting a PC in every home and every desk.

Personal and mobile computing, long-distance communications, energy storage, and air travel are just a few of the things that have been democratized by technology, creating new possibilities for billions of people.

The inexorable rise of the Internet and the citizen journalist presents us all with challenges for the future.

Now I know we have the power to incite change through the Internet - keep sharing our stories, our dreams, and our struggles.

Now is a time where social media allows people to be heard on a different level. Everyone is using their voice.

At Facebook, we're inspired by technologies that have revolutionized how people spread and consume information. We often talk about inventions like the printing press and the television - by simply making communication more efficient, they led to a complete transformation of many important parts of society. They gave more people a voice. They encouraged progress. They changed the way society was organized. They brought us closer together.