Barlow was an intimate participant in the early days of personal computers and then, the web. What he brought to this cultural genesis was a faithful demand that human rights and freedom translate to this seemingly cold just-discovered territory. He huge out with hackers, hippies, politicians, and NSA spooks to understand and prophesize. Barlow had a unique ability to take that understanding of the often-times dense technological landscape, and explain it with such clarity and honest passion that it inspired the non-technical. He didn’t just get the details of technology; he got the bug: the love, the appreciation, and the promise that technology could help the world become a better place for everyone to live. Barlow believed the Internet should be a place of creativity and freedom. He had big thoughts and presented them with his big personality.
Some have accused Barlow of being naive, and as trying to transplant hippie utopian ideals into the incompatible sphere of the internet that birthed from military infrastructure, fostered by misfits, and now consumed by corporations and conglomerates. Perhaps. But it seemed Barlow knew the vastness of possible outcomes but chose to continue to fight for the positive potential. It is often the bravest of us that are labeled naive.
After meeting Lotus 1-2-3’s Mitch Kapor on The Well in the late 80s, John Perry Barlow co-founded The Electronic Freedom Foundation, an organization whose aim is to preserve human rights in-between all those zeroes and ones that now swirl through everyone’s Internet connections. The EFF has defended against law enforcement overreach in pursuit of computer hackers, the right to publish and distribute encryption, and anti-privacy actions by both government and business. It will be through the EFF that Barlow’s journey for a better Internet, and therefore a better world, will continue.
Without John Perry Barlow’s outspoken and unflinching influence, the Internet would be a different place. Without his enduring ideals, we would not have as clear a picture of how far we have to go to reach the promise of the Internet and what this world-changing revolution can accomplish for the betterment of humankind.
