Submitted via IRC for FatPhil
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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14 2019, @07:18PM (1 child)
You mean he has to follow the law? Yea, I think it's impossible to get around that, if you want to do business. Although Bahnhof in Sweden does respond in an entertaining and juvenile way.
Swedish ISP Protests ‘Site Blocking’ by Blocking Rightsholders Website Too [torrentfreak.com]
ISP Shows How to Unblock The Pirate Bay (and Other Sites) [torrentfreak.com]
ISP Provides Free VPN to Protect Customer Privacy [torrentfreak.com]
I'm looking forward to see the response to this:
ISP Faces ‘Net Neutrality’ Investigation For Pirate Site Blocking Retaliation [torrentfreak.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @01:09AM
Yeah, that's why we need to circumvent the ISP, so we don't have to think about the law. Nobody has any right to interfere with communications. We just need the tech.