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The Internet treats censorship as a malfunction and routes around it.
John Perry Barlow
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The internet inherently resists censorship by finding ways to bypass restrictions.

This quote by John Perry Barlow emphasizes the resilient nature of the internet against attempts at censorship. It suggests that rather than being hindered by restrictions, the technology and the community will adapt and find alternative pathways to ensure freedom of information and expression.

Themes

InternetCensorshipFreedomInformationResistance

In practice

Example use cases

This quote is perfect for a presentation on online freedom of speech.

More from John Perry Barlow

With the development of the Internet...we are in the middle of the most transforming technological event since the capture of fire. I used to think that it was just the biggest thing since Gutenberg, but now I think you have to go back farther.
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The Internet may well disempower the nation state, but at the same time, it also strengthens certain specific state functions - like surveillance. As a political entity, it doesn't empower the nation sate. It creates the availability of much more data than the digestive system of the nation state could possibly assimilate.
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If all ideas have to be bought, then you have an intellectually regressive system that will assure you have a highly knowledgeable elite and an ignorant mass.
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Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal, our governance will emerge.
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The Internet amplifies power in all respects. It can grossly exaggerate the power of the individual.
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I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.
John Perry BarlowRead

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