Textbites

"The complaint one hears against the Internet isn't that there is too little speech

"The complaint one hears against the Internet isn't that there is too little speech. Instead, the argument is that there is too much hateful or pornographic speech. Stalin manipulated the past, altering photos and just wiping people and events out of the historical record. But today, documents and photos get downloaded and stored in files all over the world. You can make corrupt copies, false copies, but you can't erase real copies now." - Manhattan Institute analyst Peter Huber, author of Orwell's Revenge

"There are fears in some countries that January 1st will bring in a telecom union-bashing charter. We want an efficient telecoms industry and accept that genuinely fair competition is no barrier to that aim. But for the customers, we also want to see guarantees of universal service at affordable prices." - Tony Young, joint general secretary of Britain's Communication Workers Union, on the liberalisation of the telecoms markets across most of the EU this year.

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