Rebecca MacKinnon Quotes

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

Technology is neutral, but it all depends on the way we use it.

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

The Internet has crept up on us, and we need to know what it is and start looking at it. We have to decide which bits we want, which bits we don't, and how we're going to use them - and how we're going to put pressure on the people who deliver these goods to deliver what we really want.

Even with censorship, the Internet is a force for change.

It is true that authoritarian governments increasingly see the Internet as a threat in part because they see the U.S. government behind the Internet.

Like almost every major infrastructure, the Internet can be abused and its users harmed. We must, however, take great care that the cure for these ills does not do more harm than good. The benefits of the open and accessible Internet are nearly incalculable, and their loss would wreak significant social and economic damage.

Increasingly, I'm finding myself uncomfortable about how the Internet's developing, who's influencing its development, and who is not.

Every time there's a new tool, whether it's Internet or cell phones or anything else, all these things can be used for good or evil. Technology is neutral; it depends on how it's used.

The whole, 'Is the Internet a good thing or a bad thing'? We're done with that. It's just a thing. How to maximise its civic value, its public good - that's the really big challenge.

When someone at the State Department proclaims Facebook to be the most organic tool for promoting democracy the world has ever seen - that's a direct quote - it may help in the short run by getting more people onto Facebook by making it more popular with dissidents.

The internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.

There's a popular saying that the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. Desire and innovation will trump policy, the argument goes, as clever programmers circumvent controls.

The Internet requires evolved forms of governance that we haven't figured out as a planet. I'd love to help make that easier and make that possible.

The digitization of our society is a challenge that is both legislative and philosophical.

The Chinese government learnt how to manage the Internet from Western developed countries; we have not learnt enough yet.

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’re at a point in history that whether the Internet is going to evolve in a way that’s compatible with democracy and human rights is really kind of up in the air.

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

I've achieved a certain amount of success and now I'm thinking about the good things I can do.

Even if I know I shall never change the masses, never transform anything permanent, all I ask is that the good things also have their place, their refuge.

A generation of people are being radicalised by the criminalisation of information sharing.

The good news is, being a digital citizen comes naturally to many of us once we get the opportunity - human beings have been taking things apart and putting them back together throughout history.

I happen to be one of the people who believe that the Internet is a force of good, and I'm very optimistic about it.

It is important to distinguish between the power of the Internet to make the great change it can, and the limits and vulnerabilities of that change without real-time political mobilization deployed globally to protect those who venture out, especially in closed societies, into the heady new vistas it offers.