Jonathan Zittrain Quotes

Well, part of the thing is, like, what's the difference between censorship and social responsibility? I sometimes find that the whole censorship argument is used as a way for people to avoid the fact that they're like.

People can defame anyone they like, people can write anything they like. But non-accountability is a part of modern Indian culture.

Moral cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds is as dangerous to this country as irresponsible talk.

If you say something that undermines the stability of the country, then you have to be held accountable.

I want to be able to speak freely about what I believe. There's a lot of people who would actually like to be able to do that but, for whatever reason, they can't.

There is no danger is letting people have their say. ... There is a danger when you try to stop them from saying it.

The following [addition to the Bill of Rights] would have pleased me: The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or otherwise to publish anything but false facts affecting injuriously the life, liberty or reputation of others, or affecting the peace of the [United States] with foreign nations.

I'm not on Twitter for abuse. I don't think anyone's gotten on Twitter so that they can be abused, but people do go on Twitter to abuse people. When that becomes clear then Twitter has a moral duty to shut those people down when they see that somebody is there solely for the purpose of abusing others. Yeah you have free speech, but what you don't have is the right to wield your speech like a cudgel to somebody who has done nothing to earn it.

I'm very much against the anonymity of bloggers and social media. I just hate it and I think it's really cowardly.

Think 'free speech,' not 'free beer.'

The only people who have never had a problem with me speaking in their venues are independent bookstores and libraries. Universities and humanities councils have canceled me, but never an independent bookstore.

I forget, is freedom of speech when it's legal to say what you want or is it when it has no consequences for some reason?

It is amazing how many people act as if the right to free speech includes the right to be free of criticism for what you say - which means that other people should not have the same right to free speech that they claim for themselves.

When politicians and politically minded people pay too much attention to literature, it is a bad sign - a bad sign mostly for literature. But it is also a bad sign when they don't want to hear the word mentioned.

Everything I give, pretty much, is public. Not every donor wants to - or is willing to get the kind of abuse and attacks that we do, or death threats, so they're not willing to have their names out. I think the other side is pushing for that because they want to intimidate people so they won't oppose it.

Freedom of speech implies the world isn’t defined. It is meaningful when people are allowed to see the world their way.

One of the problems of not allowing the American people to read what bin Laden has said is that in October 2001 just after the war began in Afghanistan, he gave a speech that had two parts to it.

You can never talk religion on network TV. It makes too many people angry. You can talk about sex.

By going on the defensive. [...] libertarians are, inadvertently, conceding that speech should be policed for propriety, and that those who violate standards set by the PC set are somehow defective on those grounds alone and deserve to be purged from "polite" company.

If somebody accuses you in a story of being a crook, you can demand that they prove it. But if a comic says it and you protest, people say, 'What's the matter, you can't take a joke?

What really worries me is that those who are in positions of power are not really affected by what we are writing. In the moral dialogue you want to start, you really want to involve the leaders. People ask me: "Why were you so bold as to publish A Man of the People? How did you think the Government was going to take it? You didn't know there was going to be a coup?" I said rather flippantly that nobody was going to read it anyway, so I wasn't likely to be fired from my official position. It's a distressing thought that we cannot engage our leaders in the kind of moral debate we need.

No one is murdered in Hungary and there are no illegal arrests, but people have begun again, when they talk to you in a public place looking around to see who's listening. You see that in Slovakia, you're beginning to see that in Poland.

You can't speak openly about everything.

Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right.

There was a time in South Africa that people would put flaming tires around peoples' necks if they dis-sented. And in some ways the fear is that you will be necklaced here, you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck. Now it is that fear that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions... And again, I am humbled to say, I do not except myself from this criticism.