Anthony Fantano Quotes

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

I love the Internet, and I love that you can say whatever you want.

The whole freedom-of-speech thing is great. But I don't think that our Founding Fathers predicted social media when they created all of these amendments and stuff.

I should say here, because some in Washington like to dream up ways to control the Internet, that we don't need to 'control' free speech, we need to control ourselves.

The federal government seeks to control and regulate the Internet, but the last thing this Congress should be doing is trying to stifle public debate online.

I have every right to tweet.

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

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.'

In whatever number of years I have on Earth, I think that promoting the values of free expression, the openness of the Internet, that's the best use of my time.

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.

Now is the time to draw a clean, clear, bright line and say if you are engaging in speech over the Internet you do not have to check with your lawyer or your accountant. You are a free American, and you have the opportunity to engage in free speech over the Internet.

It's very difficult for governments to dominate the Internet because it's so difficult to control. People want to be free. People want to hear multiple voices. They want to make their own decisions. And people who see things will report things.

I can't think of a bigger waste of police time than chasing somebody who has said something offensive on Twitter.

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

It is not inevitable that the Internet will evolve in a manner compatible with democracy.

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 made cyberattacks easy to launch, but it has also kindled the flame of freedom.

The Internet is so big that no one can control anything, really.

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 cyberspace, once privacy is breached, it may be breached worldwide. Free speech is not restricted to a street-corner audience, a locker room, or a limited-circulation publication, but travels the world.

Cyberspace never sits still; it evolves as fast as society itself. Only if we fight to preserve our freedom of speech on the Net will we ensure our ability to keep up with both the Net and society.

Washington faces a simple choice: allow the Internet to remain as an engine of innovation, a platform for speech in even the harshest tyrannies, and a unified connection for people across the globe—or cede control of the Internet to service providers motivated by their parochial interests.

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

I think there should be regulations on social media to the degree that it negatively affects the public good.

By becoming the Twitter police we've volunteered to become the thought police: This seems indisputable, even uncontroversial.