It’s Time to Build the Private Web

By Nico Sell
Daily Dot
Aug. 11, 2015

The establishment of the U.S. Postal Service was one of the most visionary civil liberties ideas of its time. It was deeply rooted in George Washington’s belief that a strong state and society can only exist if every citizen has access to uncensored information and can freely communicate, away from the government’s prying eyes.

The Postal Act of 1792 led to the founding of the modern post office and established free speech and a right to private communications, going as far as imposing the death penalty for robbing mail service personnel. The newly established post office was envisioned to be the antipode of the crown post operated by the British government, which frequently opened and censored correspondence.

Today, society needs to breathe new life into Washington’s idea of censorship-free communications by providing these basic rights to all 3 billion people already connected to the Web, and to those who will be coming online in the next decade. We need to collectively balance our global Web to ensure the Internet remains a platform for free speech and uncensored information, where privacy and real human connection enable strong social discourse and economic prosperity.

I call that space the Private Web.

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