From the Wall Street Journal (link):
Despite its claims to special status as the guardian angel of unfettered expression, the Internet industry’s commercial success–and indeed that of the Internet itself–depends crucially on including in its mantras a commitment to protecting the ideas of private markets and free trade, ideas equally responsible for the long-running success of the Western tradition, which gave us the Internet. It would be naive to think it is going to be possible to fence off Internet speech from attempts by governments and activists to impair markets and trade. Maybe the Google Foundation could pitch a penny or two into that fight.
The Internet in its relative infancy is like a child exercising new freedom primarily through challenges to orderly systems–old retailing models, old media, old privacy rights, old libel standards, even old notions of parental control. Some of the pushed, notably governments with statutory power, are going to push back. Part of this process of challenge and progress, then, will have to include rediscovering and redefending some very old Western ideas and values. Free speech is one, but it is not the only one.
