Today is the World Wide Web’s 30th birthday, and its father has some serious concerns about his brainchild.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, – “the Father of the World Wide Web” – published an open letter on the World Wide Web Foundation website (an organization he also founded), in which he reflected on how far the web has come, and how far it has yet to go.
In the letter, Berners-Lee called the “fight” for the web “one of the most important causes of our time.”
“And while the web has created opportunity, given marginalised groups a voice, and made our daily lives easier, it has also created opportunity for scammers, given a voice to those who spread hatred, and made all kinds of crime easier to commit,” he wrote.
There are several problems that are infecting the web.
Berners-Lee outlined three “sources of dysfunction” that are impacting the web:
- Deliberate, malicious intent, such as state-sponsored hacking and attacks, criminal behaviour, and online harassment.
- System design that creates perverse incentives where user value is sacrificed, such as ad-based revenue models that commercially reward clickbait and the viral spread of misinformation.
- Unintended negative consequences of benevolent design, such as the outraged and polarised tone and quality of online discourse.
While the first category is impossible to eradicate completely, we can create both laws and code to minimize this behaviour, just as we have always done offline. The second category requires us to redesign systems in a way that change incentives. And the final category calls for research to understand existing systems and model possible new ones or tweak those we already have. (source)
“Now too, as the web reshapes our world, we have a responsibility to make sure it is recognised as a human right and built for the public good,” Berners-Lee wrote.
Two big projects seek to improve the Web in various ways.
Last year, Berners-Lee launched two major efforts to improve the web. The first is the Contract for the Web, which he says will make the web more trustworthy and less susceptible to some of today’s problems. That project involves participation from governments, companies, and citizens. The other is a platform called Solid, which gives users control over their data.
Under the contract’s sweeping, broad ambition, governments are supposed to make sure everyone can connect to the internet, to keep it available and to respect privacy. Companies are to make the internet affordable, respect privacy and develop technology that will put people — and the “public good” — first. Citizens are to create and to cooperate and respect “civil discourse,” among other things. (source)
At a Web@30 conference at CERN today, Berners-Lee said it was important to find a balance between oversight and freedom, but acknowledged it will be difficult to determine how to do that.
“Where is the balance between leaving the tech companies to do the right thing and regulating them? Where is the balance between freedom of speech and hate speech?” he said.
Exploitation of our private data is also a huge problem and needs to be addressed.
Data protection is a big concern for Berners-Lee. “You should have complete control of your data. It’s not oil. It’s not a commodity,” he explained.
When it comes to personal data, “you should not be able to sell it for money,” he said, “because it’s a right”.
Berners-Lee, who last year launched a development platform called “Solid” aimed at giving users control of their data, described a frightening future if we do not rise to the challenge of privacy protection.
“There is a possible future you can imagine (in which) your browser keeps track of everything that you buy,” he said.
In this scenario, “your browser actually has more information then Amazon does”, he said, warning against complacency in expecting no harm will come from this loss of control over one’s own data.
“We shouldn’t assume that the world is going to stay like it is,” he said.
People needed to do more to protect themselves and their data and not to simply expect that governments will look out for their best interests, he argued. (source)
In his letter, Berners-Lee explained that improving the web won’t be quick or easy, but is worth the effort:
Against the backdrop of news stories about how the web is misused, it’s understandable that many people feel afraid and unsure if the web is really a force for good. But given how much the web has changed in the past 30 years, it would be defeatist and unimaginative to assume that the web as we know it can’t be changed for the better in the next 30. If we give up on building a better web now, then the web will not have failed us. We will have failed the web. (source)
“It’s our journey from digital adolescence to a more mature, responsible and inclusive future,” he wrote.
What do you think about the state of the World Wide Web?
Do you think the web has more pros than cons? Do you think the situation will get better or worse over time? And, what do you think about the plans Berners-Lee has to improve the web?
About the Author
Dagny Taggart is the pseudonym of an experienced journalist who needs to maintain anonymity to keep her job in the public eye. Dagny is non-partisan and aims to expose the half-truths, misrepresentations, and blatant lies of the MSM.
Who is John Galt?
I can remember a time when there was no World Wide Web, and we got all our information from the newspapers or the big three TV “news” networks. All three networks said the same thing, and it was 100% garbage. They did their level best to brainwash us into not trusting our own good sense, and the evidence of our own eyes and the protest against their foulness and rot from deep in our souls. No, we were told, we must ignore all that, and believe whatever our TV tells us to believe. “And that’s the way it was”, they would tell us every night.
Only, it WASN’T; not at all. And now we can think for ourselves more freely than we have in decades, and we can find like minded souls like we do here, and realize that we are not alone. You want to know why so many of the hate filled bigot “progressives” are shrieking their hatred so loudly and so often? Its because they know they’re DONE, son! They’ve lost their grip on us. We are free from them! All they have now is bitterness and bile and lame attempts at gaslighting, trying to make us believe that “all millennials want socialism” or “Facebook would never censor anyone” or whatever trash they’re peddling today.
WE are free, and we are never going back.
Y’know, it all sounds good — except for the glaring fact that everything proposed by Berners-Lee is ALSO social planning and engineering!
Right on, that each individual has exclusive right to his own information, and should be able to sell it if he so chooses, and has an inalienable right to whatever profit he gets from the sale.
BUT: Logically, if you’re going to host a platform for people to communicate on, it’s none of your business what that communication consists of. Even if it’s “hate,” “hatred,” “hateful.” Oh, BOO-HOO.
Otherwise, be honest and state up front exactly where you stand politically and what you clearly, definitionally — spelled out in excruciatingly plain, straightforward language — what you will and will not allow on your platform, and have a screening registry to winnow out those who shouldn’t be there. Have moderators who will strictly adhere ONLY to those Terms of Service, and NOT AI algorithms, and tell potential users up front to expect their posts to be moderated and deleted if they don’t honor their positional claims at registration.
It’s NOT that hard. Unless you don’t want to pay people, and then perhaps you either shouldn’t offer a social platform, or be honest enough to let all people have their right to free expression, no matter what.
After all, there’s no theater to jokingly shout “Fire!” in online.
Freedom MEANS dealing with what is not pleasant, and making the choice to engage with it OR NOT. It’s not up to government to make sure you are insulated from “hate.” Not even in your kids’ case. It’s up to YOU to make sure your kid isn’t either receiving such bullying or giving it, and taking steps to correct any such problems, even if that means getting your kid OFF the Web until such things have passed or he/she is mature enough and can handle it competently.
The only one responsible for your feelings is you.
Time to stop expecting either “government” or “social media platform hosts/owners” to police others and their thinking so you don’t have to.
As this situation of stupidly “censoring” things certain powerful people don’t like should amply demonstrate, this infantile idea has dangerous and deadly consequences.
If you want to take advantage of all the good things the Web has given us, then buck up, kiddo, and realize that there are ALSO bad things and bad people in this world, and you must deal with them or go hide yourself from life.
And you should keep in mind: wherever you hide yourself instead of dealing rationally and maturely with bad things and bad people, you allow those very entities to grow and metastasize. And they WILL find you or your loved ones, and they WILL deal with you according to THEIR desires.
For an object lesson, please look up and learn about the Holodomor. Please find, free, in pdf form, downloadable to your computer so you can read it at your leisure, online, Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn’s documentation of the realities of this outcome, The Gulag Archipelago.
They didn’t think it would happen to them, either.
Either you control your own life, or others will, and not to your profit.