Kamal Haasan Quotes

I sincerely believe blogging can save America.

We have entered an era vibrating with the din of small voices. Every citizen can be a reporter, can take on the powers that be.

Technology and social media have brought power back to the people.

We have to take our democracy back. We cannot leave it to Facebook or Snapchat or anyone else. We have to take democracy back and renew it. Society is about people and not about technology.

What I was excited about was the opportunity for punters to be part of politics. The whole idea was to allow the voices of people outside this weirdo palace of Westminster to be heard. I thought the whole social media thing might be really positive.

At least in the West, politicians, corporations and media moguls can no longer take for granted their power to control the public discourse - and have it go unchallenged.

Governments can no longer control 100 percent of the story. Time and geographical boundaries disappear. In places like China and all over the Middle East, social-media outlets are being used to expose and hold accountable public officials that don't want to be held accountable for corruption and human rights abuses.

The amazing thing about technology is that people have power. We are seeing it all the time in that innocuous people you would never know are having their voices heard because of this ability and technology we have.

The Egyptian Revolution makes it clear, if anybody was in doubt, that digital technologies are going to play a powerful role in the future of global politics.

Nowadays you don't need to be a senator or a CEO or a celebrity to have a voice in the media, and if you happen to be a senator, a CEO or a celebrity, you have a thousand people each with their own respective audiences to hold you accountable.

The advantage of the internet is that it has taken away the charade of politics. China has heard of democracy and people know about certain concepts they wouldn't have previously.

Censorship is saying: 'I'm the one who says the last sentence. Whatever you say, the conclusion is mine.' But the internet is like a tree that is growing. The people will always have the last word - even if someone has a very weak, quiet voice. Such power will collapse because of a whisper.

Politics in America is moving from representative politics to interactive politics.

People having the power to express themselves at scale is a new kind of force in the world — a Fifth Estate alongside the other power structures of society. People no longer have to rely on traditional gatekeepers in politics or media to make their voices heard, and that has important consequences.

The great thing about social media was how it gave a voice to voiceless people.

The worst and the best that the internet ever did was give everybody a voice.

Social media has created a historical shift from the historically powerful to the historically powerless. Now everyone has a voice.

In a democracy you [politicians] have to let the press and the people give you crap.

It would be a mistake to attribute to the Communist Party complete control over Chinese nationalism today. With the emergence of the Internet, cell phones, and text messaging, popular nationalists in China are increasingly able to act independently of the state.

There were no bubbles before there were media.

We’re going to use the Internet to keep up with our friends and let them know what we are doing. They’re going to use it to decide what kind of government they’re going to have.

In the democratic countries generally, the great body of citizens are refusing to wait until negotiations are over or policies are acted upon or even determined. They demand to know what is going on and to have an opportunity to express their opinions at all stages of diplomatic proceedings…. public opinion will be increasingly not merely the ultimate judge but an immediate and active force in negotiation.

We've had enough of the generals and movie stars. We want to hear about the ordinary people.

The Arab Spring is kind of a perfect model for how people are going to use technology to act collectively in their own interest in the future. There's never been a revolution that was coordinated by social media to the degree that the Arab Spring was.

I am all for everyone having a voice; I just don't think everyone has earned the microphone. And that's what the Internet has done.