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The man who invented the web says it's now dysfunctional with 'perverse' incentives
Thirty years ago, the World Wide Web was born.
But over the next 30 years, it needs to be "changed for the better," according to its inventor.
British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee laid out his vision for an information management system, which would become the World Wide Web, in March 1989. The blueprint would radically transform society as half the world's population went online in just three decades. But in a letter published Monday marking the web's 30th anniversary, Berners-Lee said he understands concerns that the internet is no longer a "force for good."
"The fight for the web is one of the most important causes of our time," Berners-Lee said.
[...]An open web has been a sticking point for Berners-Lee. From the outset, he chose to make the underlying code of the World Wide Web available to anyone without a fee.
Berners-Lee said the system has since been designed with "perverse" incentives, which he sees as the second source of dysfunction in the web today. He singled out ad-based revenue models, used by many tech giants like Google and Facebook, that reward "clickbait and the viral spread of misinformation."
[...]"Companies must do more to ensure their pursuit of short-term profit is not at the expense of human rights, democracy, scientific fact or public safety," he said in the letter Monday.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday March 13 2019, @05:01PM (2 children)
Sites that publish the results of original investigative journalism need a way to fund said journalism. The usual suspects: NYT, WSJ, WaPo, NBC News, CBS News...
Gab, a microblog host that competes with Twitter, offers a "pro" subscription for $60 per year billed quarterly through Bitcoin [gab.com].
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday March 13 2019, @05:19PM (1 child)
The last thing that was keeping me on Cable TV was CNN. I quit watching CNN in mid 2013 out of pure disgust. Then I was able to get rid of Cable TV completely.
I would probably pay for something resembling a cable news channel. (And maybe I already even do without realizing.)
Switching topic:
What did it with CNN was two things:
1. They didn't cover SOPA one bit. Until . . . the big internet blackout when they could no longer ignore it. And they said they hadn't covered it because that was the wishes of their ownership. But that wasn't quite enough to push me over the edge.
2. Snowden. CNN didn't even make a pretense of being objective as if there might be more than one point of view. I gave it a chance. It was clear they were deliberately favoring the government. I was at that point done forever with them.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14 2019, @02:42PM
CNN is biased and not objective in its reporting? Say it ain't so!!! /s
All the network news and cable news channels have the same problem today. They are all highly biased and not objective. They are all crap. And millions of people are watching them and allowing themselves to be told what to think. People need to wake up just like you did.