The genius of the internet is that because it is global and decentralized, there is more communication of information from more sources. The internet has brought us far more creativity from far more sources than ever before. And the reason is precisely because it wasn’t the information superhighway, because it was not just canonical providers of information that the rest of us passively consumed. On the internet, the providers of information are all of us. It’s everybody who posts on YouTube. It’s everybody who posts on a blog. The internet made all of us creators. That’s got some downsides. There’s a lot of misinformation out there. There’s a lot of political polarization that arguably can be traced to letting a bunch of people talk who were otherwise keeping quiet. But the internet gives us more access to information, and it gives us the tools to learn more and to try to figure out more easily what’s right and what’s not. It is the world’s access to multiple different sources of information and content that is at stake with the splintering of the internet.

     I don’t think any of my suggestions are going to get us [a] free and independent internet. It probably never existed. But the internet took off in the 1990s as an alternative to the official government-corporate information superhighway. The idea of five hundred channels of TV is a push medium with top-down control. The internet was an insurgent, decentralized, interoperable network with no one in charge. And it was a runaway success. We got the five hundred channels, but we got a lot more. I think we should fight hard not to give up the internet for an information superhighway, particularly one that’s controlled by our national governments.