Media Internet Dies as Freedom Forum
The prospect of a freer, more informed society has been hijacked by lies and censorship.
W BY MATTHEW LYSIAK
hen the world wide web went public in 1991, enthusiasts pro- claimed the informa-
tion superhighway would lead to the decentralization of news and a new era of free thought and expression. However, more than three decades
later, those hopes have evaporated, with current debate focusing on how, not whether, to best censor what is said online. The path from the internet’s “Wild
West” days in the ’90s — as it was often derisively called by its skeptics — to the controlled corporate platform of today is a dramatic departure from how it was originally perceived. During a Jan. 11, 1994, gathering of
titans from industry, government, and academia dubbed the Superhighway Summit, the event’s keynote speak- er, Al Gore, channeled the optimism many felt over how the new technol- ogy would propel society into a freer and more prosperous future. “We have a dream for . . . an infor-
mation superhighway that can save lives, create jobs, and give every Amer- ican, young and old, the chance for the best education available to anyone, anywhere,” Gore told the audience. “The principle that information is
good lies at the foundation of repre- sentative democracy. Americans still believe that the best way for a nation to make political decisions is, in fact, for all citizens to have access to the information relevant to their lives and the freedom to express their conclu- sions vigorously.” Internet Society founder Anthony Rutkowski told The Washington Post
“ We have a dream for . . . an information superhighway that can save lives, create jobs, and give every American, young and old, the chance for the best education available to anyone, anywhere.”
in a February 1996 interview that “these technologies are going to pro- foundly affect the way we perceive our humanity. “We all have ideas to share and
stories to tell, and now we really can, he added. Internet news pioneer Matt
Drudge, whose website the Drudge Report usurped the foundation of the pre-1990s print and television media monopoly, shared his optimism on the potential of the internet in his June 2, 1998, speech before the National Press Club when he said before an audience of typewriter-loving journalists that the world has “entered an era vibrat- ing with the din of small voices. “The net gives as much voice to a 13-year-old computer geek like me as to a CEO or speaker of the House,” said Drudge. “We all become equal. And you would be amazed what the ordinary guy knows.” Three decades after touting the
— Al Gore
internet’s potential to reporters, Rut- kowski told Newsmax that the inter- net he had aspired to see come into fruition has failed to bloom, claiming instead it has become a “tool of disin- formation.” Tech expert Jake Denton, a
research associate at The Heritage Foundation’s Tech Policy Center, told Newsmax that the critics are right, the dream of the internet is dead: mur- dered by a handful of large tech com- panies who have monetized the space. “There was this hope in the early
days of the internet that anything was possible, that any individual could break through and become a voice, and that has been sucked away from us,” said Denton. “That future that we all hoped for
has been hijacked by this handful of large companies.” Denton says the free exchange of
ideas has been replaced by a censor- ship state working in lockstep with
MARCH 2024 | NEWSMAX 45
SIMON CARTER PETER CROWTHER©ISTOCK
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