‘It’s not too late to fix it’: web inventor Tim Berners-Lee says he is in a ‘battle for the soul’ of the internet
www.theguardian.com
Founder of the world wide web says commercialisation means the net has been ‘optimised for nastiness’, but collaboration and compassion can prevail

When Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the world wide web in 1989, his vision was clear: it would used by everyone, filled with everything and, crucially, it would be free.

Today, the British computer scientist’s creation is regularly used by 5.5 billion people – and bears little resemblance to the democratic force for humanity he intended.

In Australia to promote his book, This is for Everyone, Berners-Lee is reflecting on what his invention has become – and how he and a community of collaborators can put the power of the web back into the hands of its users.

Berners-Lee describes his excitement in the earliest years of the web as “uncontainable”. Approaching 40 years on, a rebellion is brewing among himself and a community of like-minded activists and developers.

“We can fix the internet … It’s not too late,” he writes, describing his mission as a “battle for the soul of the web”.

Berners-Lee traces the first corruption of the web to the commercialisation of the domain name system, which he believes would have served web users better had it been managed by a nonprofit in the public interest. Instead, he says, in the 1990s the .com space was pounced on by “charlatans”.

  • lennybird@lemmy.worldEnglish
    10·
    2 hours ago

    So I was tuning into this guy another person testifying to Congress the other day by the name of Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath. Supposed neuroscientist, etc. Testifying to the effects of digital learning, pads, etc.

    Something just rubbed me the wrong way about him. Especially when you see the likes of Ted Cruz talking him up.

    Dude is heavily pushed by Moms for Liberty and “The Free Press” which we all know is a right-wing propaganda wing that gave us none other than Bari Weiss.

    I think the play here may be that they want to isolate children from the broader world and being exposed to other viewpoints. My gut instinct is that they’re trying to construct the framework to justify isolationism and promote a Christo-Fascist society.

    I say this as someone who thanks the internet (especially in earlier decades) for changing multiple generations of my family from rural conservative Republican to progressive-left. The same reason they attack publicly-funded news like NPR or PBS, or Big Bird and Mr. Rogers.

    These things teach critical-thinking and kindness and make fearmongering less effective.