Rebooting Internet Freedom

Ten years ago, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s landmark speech on internet freedom elevated the promotion of a free and open global internet to a key US foreign policy priority. A decade later, online freedom across the world has declined steadily—including, recently, in America. The new decade represents an opportunity to reverse this trend. But to do so, we need national leadership committed to forging a comprehensive and positive vision of the internet—one that strengthens human rights and democracy—starting right here at home. A viable model for a democracy-compatible internet must support people’s ability to hold power accountable, innovate, and take advantage of economic opportunity. Key policy elements include:

• Privacy and security. It’s imperative to protect people from being tracked by actors seeking to manipulate, threaten, control, or exploit them. Robust laws and oversight mechanisms must hold authorities accountable and prevent them from abusing surveillance power.
• Freedom of speech for open and inclusive societies. Extremists have weaponized free speech to justify behavior that threatens vulnerable populations. We need a progressive vision of free speech that strengthens other values necessary for democratic discourse.
• Competition. Antitrust laws must be strengthened and enforced in order to allow for new ideas and business models—and to check the power of a small number of globally powerful platforms whose governance structures allow CEOs to evade accountability.