Rebecca MacKinnon Internet Quotations

The potential for the abuse of power through digital networks - upon which we the people now depend for nearly everything, including our politics - is one of the most insidious threats to democracy in the Internet age.

Most people who use the Internet seem take its nature and characteristics for granted, like we take air and water for granted.

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.

The critical question is: How do we ensure that the Internet develops in a way that is compatible with democracy?

Whether or not the U.S. government funds circumvention tools, or who exactly it funds and with what amount, it is clear that Internet users in China and elsewhere are seeking out and creating their own ad hoc solutions to access the uncensored global Internet.

What role did the Internet play in the Egyptian Revolution? People will be arguing about the answer to that question for decades if not centuries.

We must all rise to the challenge to demonstrate that security and prosperity in the Internet age are not only compatible with liberty, they ultimately depend on it.

Bottom line is, it's good they're in China. . . . But there's a lot more they can do when it comes to thinking through the human rights implications of their business practices. If high-tech companies are serious about doing the right thing, they can join together and lobby for more transparency and accountability in the way in which Chinese officialdom deals with Internet services.

Thanks to the Internet in general and social media in particular, the Chinese people now have a mechanism to hold authorities accountable for wrongdoing - at least sometimes - without any actual political or legal reforms having taken place. Major political power struggles and scandals are no longer kept within elite circles.

Despite the Obama administration's proclaimed commitment to global Internet freedom, the executive branch is not transparent about the types and capabilities of surveillance technologies it is sourcing and purchasing - or about what other governments are purchasing the same technology.

Defending a free and open global Internet requires a broad-based global movement with the stamina to engage in endless - and often highly technical - national and international policy battles.

In Britain, a 'block list' of harmful Web sites, used by all the major Internet Service Providers, is maintained by a private foundation with little transparency and no judicial or government oversight of the list.

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

Internet companies created the social-media tools that fueled the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street insurgencies, and that have helped political candidates rally grass-roots support.

A number of countries, including Russia and China, have put forward proposals to regulate aspects of the Internet like 'crime' and 'security' that are currently unregulated at the global level due to lack of international consensus over what those terms actually mean or over how to balance enforcement with the protection of citizens' rights.

After Secretary Clinton announced in January 2010 that Internet freedom would be a major pillar of U.S. foreign policy, the State Department decided to take what Clinton calls a 'venture capital' approach to the funding of tools, research, public information projects, and training.

The Chinese government clearly sees Internet and mobile innovation as a major driver of its global economic competitiveness going forward.

It is time to stop debating whether the Internet is an effective tool for political expression and instead to address the much more urgent question of how digital technology can be structured, governed, and used to maximize the good and minimize the evil.

Google's entire business model and its planning for the future are banking on an open and free Internet. And it will not succeed if the Internet becomes overly balkanized.

If high-tech companies are serious about doing the right thing, they can join together and lobby for more transparency and accountability in the way in which Chinese officialdom deals with Internet services.