Shropshire Star

The web at 30 – how it has changed our world

Thirty years ago today, Sir Tim Berners-Lee first came up with the idea for the world wide web – and it has shaped our lives ever since.

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It wasn’t quite ‘could do better’, but it was hardly a ringing endorsement.

When a young computer scientist outlined his proposal for sharing information through a system of interconnected devices, his boss returned the paper with his thoughts written on the cover: “Vague, but exciting.”

It is 30 years today since Tim Berners–Lee outlined his vision for the world wide web, but not even he envisaged the impact it would have on society.

Ninety per cent of adults in the UK used the internet last year, and there are few industries in the world that have not been touched in some way.

But while boss Mike Sendall’s response was somewhat lukewarm, he saw enough in Berners-Lee’s vision to allocate his protege time to work on the project. By late 1990, Berners-Lee had put his first web page on the open internet.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee

At the time, Berners-Lee was working at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), and identified a need for scientists to be able to share their research on a central database.

In 1991, he opened the new web community to people outside of CERN, and it was at this point he realised the huge potential of offering free access to anyone, anywhere in the world.

But while his invention has put millions of people in touch with one another and given us access to information which would once have seen inconceivable, it has also unleashed a dark side which troubles Berners-Lee.

He says the web has created opportunities for good but has also “given a voice to those who spread hatred, and made all kinds of crime easier to commit”.

He is also unhappy at how giving people a platform for free debate has led to “the outraged and polarised tone and quality of online discourse”.

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“The thinking was, if you connect people together, and keep the web free and open, then people could do good things,” he said last year. “What could go wrong? Well, looking back, all kinds of things have gone wrong since.”

The conduct of web giants Facebook, Twitter and Google, has come under scrutiny in recent years over data privacy issues and the rising spread of malicious content.

Sir Tim – he was knighted in 2004 for services to the global development of the internet – was greatly troubled by the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the now-defunct company harvested the data of 87 million Facebook users.

He is due to publish his “contract for the web” – a code of ethics for internet use – in May this year, the ‘50-50 moment’ when more than half the world’s population are expected to be online.

Ninety per cent of Britons used the worldwide web last year – but it has led to the creation of powerful monopolies such as Google

“Governments must translate laws and regulations for the digital age,” he says in an open letter written to mark today’s anniversary.

“They must ensure markets remain competitive, innovative and open. And they have a responsibility to protect people’s rights and freedoms online. We need open web champions within government – civil servants and elected officials who will take action when private sector interests threaten the public good.

“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. Platforms and products must be designed with privacy, diversity and security in mind.

“And most important of all, citizens must hold companies and governments accountable for the commitments they make, and demand that both respect the web as a global community with citizens at its heart.

“If we don’t elect politicians who defend a free and open web, if we don’t do our part to foster constructive healthy conversations online, if we continue to click consent without demanding our data rights be respected, we walk away from our responsibility to put these issues on the priority agenda of our governments.”

While few would argue with these high-minded sentiments, it may be easier said than done convincing companies that make money out of the web, particularly given the level of cut-throat competition that the internet has created.

But Berners-Lee remains hopeful: “If we give up on building a better web now, then the web will not have failed us – we will have failed the web.”

Control

Aged 63, he is now working on a new platform called Solid, which he hopes will break the stranglehold of the web giants and give individuals control over their data – work which gives him hope for the future.

“There are people working in the lab trying to imagine how the web could be different,” he says. “How society on the web could look different. What could happen if we give people privacy and we give people control of their data.

“It’s under the radar, but working on it in a way puts back some of the optimism and excitement that the ‘fake news’ takes out.”

And although the web has made some people exceedingly wealthy, Berners-Lee’s is not one of them, probably in part down to his idealistic vision of providing free access for all.

“I’m still not a gazillionaire,” he says. “But that’s fine, otherwise the web wouldn’t have existed.”

Although Mike Sendall will always be remembered for his caution about the web, Berners-Lee says he was never anything other than totally supportive of his work.

Sadly, Sendall died in 1999 – and never saw just how exciting the web would become.