Barack Obama - Remarks on Net Neutrality at the U.S.-Africa Business Forum lyrics

Well, this is an important issue for all the heads of state and government not just in Africa but around the world. The reason the Internet is so powerful is because it's open. My daughters, 16 and 13, they can access information from anyplace in the world. They can learn about a particular discipline instantaneously, in ways that when I was their age -- first of all, I wasn't as motivated as they are. I was lazier than them. They do much better in school than I did. But the world is at their fingertips. And what facilitates that, and what has facilitated the incredible value that's been built by companies like Google and Facebook and so many others, all the applications that you find on your smartphone, is that there are not restrictions, there are not barriers to entry for new companies who have a good idea to use this platform that is open to create value. And it is very important I think that we maintain that. Now, I know that there's a tension in some countries -- their attitude is we don't necessarily want all this information flowing because it can end up also being used as a tool for political organizing, it can be used as a tool to criticize the government, and so maybe we'd prefer a system that is more closed. I think that is a self-defeating attitude. Over the long term, because of technology, information, knowledge, transparency is inevitable. And that's true here in the United States; it's true everywhere. And so what we should be doing is trying to maintain an open Internet, trying to keep a process whereby any talented person who has an idea can suddenly use the Internet to disperse information. There are going to be occasional tensions involved in terms of us monitoring the use of the Internet for terrorist networks or criminal enterprises or human trafficking. But we can do that in ways that are compatible with maintaining an open Internet. And this raises the broader question that I mentioned earlier, which is Africa needs capital; in some cases, Africa needs technical a**istance; Africa certainly needs access to markets. But perhaps the biggest thing that Africa is going to need to unleash even more the potential that's already there and the growth that's already taking place is laws and regulations and structures that empower individuals and are not simply designed to control or empower those at the very top. And the Internet is one example. You've got to have a system and sets of laws that encourage entrepreneurship, but that's also true when it comes to a whole host of issues. It's true when it comes to how hard is it to get a business permit when a new startup like yours wants to establish itself. .... There are two issues -- net neutrality -- in the United States, one of the issues around net neutrality is whether you are creating different rates or charges for different content providers. That's the big controversy here. You have big, wealthy media companies who might be willing to pay more but then also charge more for more spectrum, more bandwidth on the Internet so they can stream movies faster or what have you. And I personally -- the position of my administration, as well as I think a lot of companies here is you don't want to start getting a differentiation in how accessible the Internet is to various users. You want to leave it open so that the next Google or the next Facebook can succeed. There's another problem, though -- there are other countries -- and I think this is what you were alluding to -- that feel comfortable with the idea of controlling and censoring Internet content in their home countries, and setting up rules and laws about what can or cannot be on the Internet. And I think that that not only is going to inhibit entrepreneurs who are creating value on the Internet; I think it's also going to inhibit the growth of the country generally, because closed societies that are not open to new ideas, eventually they fall behind. Eventually, they miss out on the future because they're so locked into trying to maintain the past.