Shervin Pishevar Quotes

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.

It's much easier to force intermediary communications and Internet companies such as Google to police themselves and their users than the alternatives: sending cops after everybody who attempts a risque or politically sensitive search, getting parents and teachers to do their jobs, or chasing down the origin of every offending link.

Americans' information independence is under attack, whether it's the repeal of net neutrality or the repeal of broadband privacy protections.

The argument about the need to regulate the digital space has to be weighed against freedom of expression in our society, whether we are interacting in a virtual world or in the real world where we have the growth of so-called 'safe spaces.'

Experience has shown us that attempts to control the Internet will invariably fail. We should be instructed by the failed efforts of China to regulate political content, the efforts of America to regulate Internet gambling, or the efforts of Australia to regulate certain speech. By its very nature, the Internet will always resist such controls.

If you want to amplify the data that you have, you need media, you need lawyers, you need the judiciary. Especially when governments try to shut down a particular website or when litigating on an issue.

Social media companies like Twitter and Facebook get to decide whether or not you get pertinent information about national security issues in your country.

Twitter is growing up, expanding into other countries, and recognizing that the Internet is contrary to what people hoped; the government does reach into the Internet.

In China, the problem is that with the system of censorship that's now in place, the user doesn't know to what extent, why, and under what authority there's been censorship. There's no way of appealing. There's no due process.

I think we should not control the Internet.

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

Unfortunately, opponents of online speech have decided to punish our changing technological world.

Crackdowns on Internet content make clear the need for an anonymized Web. Now, someone just needs to implement it.

We need to codify our values and build consensus around what we want from a free society and a free Internet. We need to put into law protections for our privacy and our right to speak and assemble.

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.

The user in China wants the same thing that any Internet user wants - privacy in conversations, maximum access to information, and the ability to speak their minds online.

I think that the people who are trying to shut down WikiLeaks are going to have to accept this as a fact of reality that cryptography allows you to do this kind of thing.

While the Internet can't be controlled 100 percent, it's possible for governments to filter content and discourage people from organizing.

Even in democratic society, we don't have good answers how to balance the need for security on one hand and the protection of free speech on the other in our digital networks.

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.

Technology companies must constantly weigh ethical decisions: Where should Facebook set its privacy defaults, and should it tolerate glimpses of nudity? Should Twitter close accounts that seem sympathetic to terrorists? How should Google handle sex and violence, or defamatory articles?

The Internet's distinct configuration may have facilitated anonymous threats, copyright infringement, and cyberattacks, but it has also kindled the flame of freedom in ways that the framers of the American constitution would appreciate - the Federalist papers were famously authored pseudonymously.

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

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