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John Nichols: People around world oppose limiting Internet freedom

John Nichols  —  5/07/2008 9:41 am

Back 220 years ago, the founders of the American experiment determined that, for the project they imagined to succeed, citizens would need to know what their government was doing. So they amended the Constitution to include a muscular freedom of the press protection.

Sixty years ago, in the aftermath of World War II, the authors of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirmed that all citizens of all countries have a right to "receive and impart information and ideas through any media."

Freedom of the press, the vision for a postwar world declared, was essential to all other freedoms.

To mark International Press Freedom Day last Saturday, the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland worked with research centers around the world to poll 18,122 people in 20 nations to determine the level of support for press freedom.

The good news is that recognition of the value of a free press crosses borders. In particular, there is broad opposition to limiting Internet freedom.

The bad news is that 27 percent of Americans say the government has the right to censor news and ideas. Americans are more supportive of freedom of the press than Iranians or the Chinese, but more inclined toward censorship than Peruvians and Poles.

Most troubling figure: 22 percent of Americans believe our media should be less free.

Most hopeful figure: 25 percent of Americans believe our media should be more free.

John Nichols  —  5/07/2008 9:41 am