If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It

Today, roughly two billion people use the Internet, but that number is expected to more than double to five billion over the next 20 years, said Vice President Joe Biden at the London Conference on Cyberspace Tuesday. “Most of them will live in countries and regions that are now under represented online,” said Biden. “And, the next generation of Internet users has the potential to transform cyberspace in ways we can only imagine.” As such, it will take a joint, global effort to protect against the dangers in cyberspace, although Biden acknowledged the importance of ensuring the benefits of cyberspace are still widely available. “The United States stands behind the current approach, which harnesses the best of governments and private sector and civil society to manage the technical evolution of the Internet in real time. This public-private collaboration has kept the Internet up and running all over the world,” said Biden. “We have an expression in our country: ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ It would be misguided, in our view, to break with the system that has worked so well for so long.” (Biden speech)