What the First Amendment really means

The open Internet is our First Amendment brought to life. It is a democratic ideal. Anyone and everyone can publicly express themselves to the entire world or the world that matters to them. But as we know, belief in the First Amendment means accepting that there will be expression that each and every one of us might find in our own way deeply uncomfortable.

Today we have a cacophony of voices and a fragmentation of audiences. It challenges our incumbent institutions who will want to go back in time to a golden age they remember which may or may not have been so golden. It challenges our politics. It challenges our understanding of who we are and how we perceive each other.

Today we don’t just consume media. We live within the media. It is an extraordinarily different world. It is incumbent on us to understand the new questions and find the new answers. How do we find our unifying principles? How do our institutions, including the press, evolve to address these challenges and the new world we live in?

The answers will be hard to find. It is crucial we find them.