Foreign Policy Blogs

Eternal Values or American Ideology

Secretary Clinton identified net reedom as a core value that the US will promote – and by all accounts, the various tentacles of the US government apparatus have gotten the message. The US is aggressively promoting the Freedom to Connect around the world using all the different tools at its disposal. In the State Department, there are groups dealing with this issue from both the human rights and the economic perspective.

Great, right? It is, in a lot of ways. But there’s a danger.

The U.S. ain’t universally popular around the world these days. Yep, it’s a lot better under Obama (20-point rise, anyone?) but people tend to find reasons to dislike a 700-pound gorilla in any case. If Internet freedom is identified as an ideological struggle of the US vs the World, then it – and everyone – will come out the loser.

I’m not sure that I have any grand solutions for this. Freedom to see and say what you want on the Internet is nothing more than a new twist on a very old human right, and America should fight for this. If we were the only country in the world to think so, it would still be the right thing to keep shouting about it. Sure would go a lot better if the other free societies from around the world were equally forceful in this effort. Lil help, guys?