I participated in a fireside chat last week at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit in which I was interviewed by the talented Lebanese journalist Raghida Dergham. Raghida writes a well-read weekly column in Al Hayat and is a close follower of political developments across the Arab world. Thus I should have been on notice that our scheduled discussion on the future of media could not ignore the remarkable changes taking place across the region.

During a wide-ranging discussion of the future of media (not an unfamiliar theme to the readers of this blog) and the role of social media in the popular uprisings sweeping the region I stated that I believed that access to the internet was now a basic human right. By this I did not mean to imply that governments should not regulate noxious material such as child pornography or hate speech on the internet nor that all societies regardless of their current state of development needed to provide free universal internet access immediately but simply that citizens would not stand to be deprived of the basic information and connectivity they needed to function as participating members of modern societies. Thus President Mubarak’s clumsy attempt to shutdown the internet in Egypt only fanned the flames of the popular rebellion.

I am not so naiive or optimistic to think that the online tools provided by Twitter and Facebook can in the short-run protect individuals from the guns and tear gas of a totalitarian state. However over time suppression of the internet will undermine the legitimacy of any government and sow the seeds of its downfall. I also have the 160-year history of Reuters News as a guide. There have been brief periods when governments have sought to punish the company for adhering to our Trust Principles and reporting the truth. However over the longer-term by sticking to our convictions we have earned the trust of the societies in which we operate. So too the internet will triumph. Not thanks to a single publisher no matter how respected but via the loud and competing voices of a multitude of self-publishers.

Fighting the tide of history is always a losing bet.