March 12, is the World Wide Web’s 29th birthday. Here’s a message from our founder and web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee on what we need to ensure that everyone has access to a web worth having.
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The web is under threat. Join us and fight for it.
Web Foundation · March 12, 2018
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Use Logic
March 12, 2018
Advertising, as practiced today, is professional lying. It is designed to limit the truth and to distract the end user with unrelated content. It gives the "celebrities" the opportunity to speak above their intellectual weight and increases the cost of products and services to feed the leaches that live off it. Advertising needs to be severely limited to factual information without all the half naked women on display. With the most successful Internet companies making their fortune on lying and obfuscation says something about our society.We also need a serious look at the current laws regarding speech. The concept of "hate speech" needs to disappear. All speech, no matter how vile or stupid, needs to be tolerated. There should be no laws against speech or any attempt to limit it in any venue. The truth will ultimately rise to the top once all the arguments are heard. Private companies should be prevented from moderating content, as they always have a political angle that aligns with their profit incentive. Once they put up a platform, it should be anything goes and let the public police the content with their rebuttals to inane posters.
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DANIEL CHESS
March 12, 2018
The web needs to change from an advertising supported model to one based on micro-payments. Furthermore it should be a human right to see all personally identifiable information held by any company. Any individual should have the right to see the file held on them by a company like axciom (the worst abuser), Google, or Facebook, and have that file completely deleted. Personally identifiable information belongs to the individual and not the company holding it.
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ML
March 12, 2018
yes! excellent point!"Advertising, as practiced today, is professional lying. It is designed to limit the truth and to distract the end user with unrelated content. It gives the "celebrities" the opportunity to speak above their intellectual weight and increases the cost of products and services to feed the leeches that live off it."
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Arjun Chatterjee
March 13, 2018
Everything sounds fine till you get to the point where you have to choose the group of people who will be the arbiters of this technology. This is basically about Donald Trump, Brexit and Hate speech. Advertising has allowed people like me in India to enjoy media on youtube which I would never even have dreamt of being able to watch a decade ago. It has allowed small time musicians, bloggers to get attention and some ad money. It has allowed people to get ahead in education with the open courseware videos online. All of this would not be possible without the ad funded web. I get that people are angry about the coverage of the EU and Trump - exposing the truths of the political system,etc. But to disparage the platforms which have brought pleasure to millions just because the powers that be have become too divisive in the last 5 years is pretty bad.I hope the nuances of this discussion is discussed in detail,otherwise we are looking at censorship. Plain and simple.
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Michele
March 12, 2018
Bravo. This is the way it should be. To work for the good of all people everywhere. And not used for some control freaks to rule the world. Humanity should have the right to web access to have the chance and choice to improve their lot in life. This is a big wide world and connecting mankind thru the internet is amazing. Balance is necessary though so people don't become like machines. That they still use their brains for what they were made for...thinking. Not to be consumed for the evils of the intented intended evil that is rampant in society in the name of Satan, devil, whatever. There is enough bad in the world naturally without having intented intended evil. I don't Believe in Satan anymore and it would be wise for the whole beautiful wide world to adopt that thinking also. Positive thinking and thoughts are never a bad thing. Working thru the web for the good of the web and mankind everywhere. I was doing my part but the intented intended evil of FB and Twitter; my perspectives do not get heard. They got censored to the point of the other day they cut me off. Ha lol. Guess it must of been about the "I don't believe in the Jabberwocky or Satan part......." Really kinda 2 Cool in a Way. But the point is my Freedom of expressing my opinions, perspectives and feelings should not be sequestered and judged by individuals who don't give a rats ass about anybody but themselves and their intented intended evil to bring out the worse in people. It is Time for a Change for the Good. Humanity deserves a chance without all the lies. The web can be a force for good again. I am all for it. Extremism with evil intent is evil. A evil the world can live without. And no I'm not a religious freak but I do Believe in the Triune GOD...I am a Truth teller and a Trendsetter. But I can not do my service to mankind if they censor my Ways. I am not rich so my monetary contributions won't be much. I have approx. $760 a month to live on. Just saying...but I will help in any way I can. I can't share this as I don't even want a FB or Twitter anymore because as soon as they realize it's me they hack my phone. It is bs. My Heart is with your effort to effect a positive change for humanity. Thank you so much. You RoCK.😎😉 The real bmwh.
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A. William Kleinebecker
March 12, 2018
Some ideas.... Net Neutrality applied to Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, etc.? GDRP applied/enforced at the presentation level and implemented in an SDN network controller? Have W3C (or ICANN) establish a personal data mart for users to police the use of their private data following GDRP guidelines with a value exchange and consent with each transfer of personal data even among service providers.The California state government is trying to reinstate Net Neutrality for its citizens. Some of its companies named in this letter have spoken out in favor of Net Neutrality. Are they hypocrites? California has the corporate headquarters (for now) of the people building the technology (5G Wireless, Network slicing) for the world's next Internet... Sir Berniers-Lee heads W3C.https://webfoundation.org/2018/03/web-birthday-29/
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Jose
March 15, 2018
Where is the solution to everyone have free access for everything?Sounds crazy words?We live on this planet and it is supposed to be..... All Happy! Yes, We need Freedom to Live.... to Be Happy, always?Everyone has the right..... to have food, house, clothes, etc., etc. Why is not possible everyone living in Peace and Harmony, on this Planet?PS - This is my comment here.... hope this can help to find a solution for our planet to be Happy, for everyone!Michele - How can we be "free" from companies that supply us what we need? ;-)
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Willem
March 12, 2018
While the brightest minds are are assembling, this is what all of us can do right now:- Don't use Facebook, Google and similar platforms funded by advertising and involved in data surveillance. There is a life without them!- Don't use browsers that are made for data surveillance like Chrome and Edge.- Embrace paid- and donation-funded services.- Distrust anything that claims to be free. The word has a different meaning on the Internet.- Only use products and services based on open standards. Yes, you will have to explain many friends why you're not on WhatsApp.- Learn your kids to make well considered choices about the apps they use.
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Michael
March 12, 2018
you say embace paid and donation services .. well with the "weaponised" web of today I don't feel safe putting credit card details into a browser (and now even trust in the browser itself is pretty shakey - 2 browsers is too few and guess what "upstream" probably knows what you looked at)and "distrust everything free" is yet again missing something importantnot everything is created purely for profit.as someone who has been running a site for events since 1994 now finding it hard to see how it can even continue that us a big problem.yes its free to use, always was.. but I don't earn a living from it,I started it because it looked like a fun thing to try and something others might find useful.Seeing that people did actually use it made it worthwhile keeping it going sure its not billions of users but by 2000 and for another decade or so with stats generated from sesrver logs showing 15000 or so unique ips turning up every day it was used by a lot more people than I would have ever dreamed back in 1994 (not here to advertise so not posting link)ok thats not billions and it never made money .. but it still exists (just barely atm)- Those people pusing that view that money is the only motivation that exists cannot explain that. what I'm getting at is please don't forget the people that make things becouse its interesting or might be fun to try .. if there had been none of that there would have been pretty much nothing else either.Don;t forget the sheer enthusasm that brought millions of people to the internet before it was even considered acceptable to conduct commercial activity though much of that network of networks.an enthusiam which I also shared like so many others sparked by seeing discussion on usenet at uni in the late 80s.and those hobbyist networks extending the reach of the internet into the community in the early 90s before there were commercial isps. (and many of whom that later led to employment that wasn't imagined when they started tinkering)ok maybe I'm old and that last sentence might be before the web as such but please don't suggest locking out things that people do without any immediate plan to make money. It frightens me that thar now hobbyist has almost become a dirty word and its worrying that the diversity that made the internet (and the web) so attactective to so many people in the first place is now inder threat.if that gets trampled to death under the increasingly adversorial politics, monopoly-building, knee-jerk leglislation, trade wars, and all sirts of sleaze taking advantage of the mess then most of what all those people are bickering about will be lost on all sides of any of it. if people can;t feel free to express an idea without fear theres no freedom of speech let alone anything "social" or fun. if this keeps up for much longer a lot of people will probably just pull the plug (literally) and create whatever else they can to fill the gap.. I think they call that "fragmentation" .. unless we see some sane balance return its probably inevitableif even someone like me now has fear where not so long ago there was a sense of excitement and possibilities surely thats a sign.if diversity and freedom of expression are locked out, the outcome of most of those disputes will not benefit any "side" .. EVERYONE will lose.whats needed is to restore some kind of sane balance .. and it wasn't so bad a decade or so ago compared to now. sure, it wasn't perfect .. but does anyone really think the current mess is better?its really a worrying sign if even somone like me starts to think theres no future in anything I have done for decades (including paid work - having worked at an isp for nearly two decades - will I need to look for a new career path? - and with such thoughts anything that looks possible being only so because the creative parts could be done as far away as possible from any network cable)I hope that drives home the message I'm trying to convery here.I just hope it isn't too late to somehow restore some kind of balance that human beings can actually live with!
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Mala Mukherjee Suess
March 12, 2018
What we need to focus on is gl
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Mala Mukherjee Suess
March 12, 2018
What we need to focus on is media and digital competency education for children. Even in the richest countries girls are falling back in tech education. Every child should know about the concepts behind technology and learn to use, apply and develop technology for true innovation. We must shift away from self expression to innovation. Ten thousand interchangeable beauty tutorials rivalling each other on Youtube are good from an advertising perspective but not really a great step forward for humanity... The shift in the workforce through digitalization will either toss whole populations into abject poverty (everything a human does can be done better by machines, even psychotherapy and nursing which are being introduced now in Switzerland and Japan) or transform the very fibre of our society. I work in technology for Big Corporations and HR/Systems/Blind people for 25 years now, am a mom and am a media educator pro bono in Switzerland.
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eric
March 12, 2018
Just make each web server owner legally responsible for content passing across it. Changes the way hardware is deployed but gives legal recourse to damaged parties.
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Voor
March 12, 2018
Internet can be compared with human history/future.I can imagine long long time ago lets say Adam and Eve 2 persons having to deal with each other.Those 2 people must come to an agreement if it would only be to stay alive.First child borne.The world was still the world.Compare first smiley.The tribe grows to 3 (odd number) people and agreements would be more easy to make.The tribe grows to 4 (even number) people and agreements would be more difficult to make.The tribe grows to 5 more easy, but requires more talking.To 6 not easy and much more talking and again agreements more difficult.To 7 less easy lots of talking8 only talking.Compare early days of Internet.9 to 10 dictatorship will arrive.10 to 20 the first war and dictatorship will be confirmed.Compare Internet years ago growing and Napster killed.Dictatorship provides an easy way of living.100 to 200 people want to decide for their own and first rebellion.Compare P2P arrival and piracy.1000 to 2000 people have to re-find their selves.10.000 to 20.000 democracy will be invented.100.000 to 200.000 opportunist and war arrives again (WWW World Wide War).1.000.000.000 to 1....... the world gets smaller.Compare Internet to day search and abandon illegality (read unwanted by the rich).17.000.000.000 The world is small and democracy will be questioned no equality.Compare Internet as it is ahead of us.Free world and free Internet?Equality? Dictatorship?Robots will tell but don't expect the best.
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ACHRAF SELLAM
March 13, 2018
Dear Sir. Tim Berners-Lee,I think [Digital Gender Divide] starts by giving the opportunity for women who are most concerned by this question the chance to have her own computer. [Making the web working for people] means a lot of work for engineers in order to setup the network around the Earth and more education for them in order to understand the network better and easily. [Bringing more voices to the debate] means for me to promote Social Networks in the Internet like Facebook Company. But, in the web 29th birthday I would like to remember that we need pen and book, first. If we cannot know how to write or to read, then we will not use the computer properly. Pen and Book are the alliance for affordable Internet, which meant a lot at early time of the network in general: This the web of Half-World.Thank you,ACHRAF SELLAM
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bobneurone
March 13, 2018
I have to agree that education is a pre-requisite to be able to access media such as internet and get benefits from it. books and pen, masters and classrooms are the fundamental educational needs. digital divide is just one aspect of social divide around the world which includes others such as health, housing and food divides.
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Fraser Liscumb
March 13, 2018
Like all things in life to have value; you need a negative and positive side to create something of value to the community. Has too much of a good thing ends up to be a bad thing and to much of a bad thing require the community to come together to fix it. In the best interest of all; not just a privileged few. The Web is growing and like anything created by man is coming to its point in life where it will need to be considered by the government as essential service just like water, electricity, infrastructure is required and the key to the dilemma on advertising and profit-driven is using a sustainable Blockchain technology. it retain the incentive but remove the greed.
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Yani Haigh
March 13, 2018
"[Bringing more voices to the debate] means for me to promote Social Networks in the Internet like Facebook Company."Promote Facebook? I'm on my 6th 30 day ban in 6 months. What did I do? I did Facebook Live from a protest in Australia to save Ahed Tamimi from jail. I'm sorry but FB has become an advertising spy platform with a gold pipe to Mossad. Everyone who cases about human rights in Palestine and made statements on this has suffered blocks and account deletion. On my last trip to Palestine, was a waited for my Jewish girlfriend to arrive, she was held up experiencing hand rape at BG airport, then deported and reported to Interpol and Homeland Security as a potential terrorist. All the result of participating in discussions on FB.Is there the web you want to promote? I'd suggest we need to act and become independent of the control matrix of major companies and look to social media solutions like Diaspora, Hubzilla and Friendica... get back to where we started with Open Source Projects and decentralized networks.
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Arek
March 13, 2018
In terms of financing, there is only one way to change it - force telecoms companies to pay royalties to creators on revenues related to customer fees for Internet access.But even more important is the total surveillance and centralization of the network.You have to finally get rid of DNS and central domain management, which allows governments to block them, take over, etc.
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Kelly Curtis
March 14, 2018
Create a platform where you can ask everyone in the world questions. Answers are tallied and everyone can see how they do/compare/count. And millions of people could vote (make their voices count) all the time. Amazon, Facebook, and Google know - how many people searched that subject and all its correlating key words. But they don't tell us what they know. We never really get a total count of how everyone feels on a particular subject. They will use that data to sell us appropriate ads or modify their algorithms on us. Be we don't get to use that data - it's not saved for public access. So we can't use that info to collaborate or work together online - and see the same results, discussions, over and over. To keep moving forward. Building (block) chains of user created identity verification could be established. We could start to claim our opinion. Our ideas, our thoughts. Then a small step to claiming real online property. Bottom line is that owning one's data - is sort of the key to achieving certain rights online. Which are translating to real life rights. Could we own our votes, by verifying our identify? And start owning little blocks of our data (later - music, art, etc). What is really representative of public opinion in a digital age?
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Ahmed
March 16, 2018
happy birthday www. but why not turkish language?
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Web Foundation
March 16, 2018
Hi Ahmed. Thanks for the birthday wishes! As a non-profit with limit resources, we had to select a small number of languages for translation and chose French, Spanish and Portuguese because they cover a large number of countries in which we work. Someone kindly volunteered to translate the letter into Swedish and so we were able to include that too. We have had offers of translations in other languages so we may be able to add more soon. I hope that answers your question.- Calum
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Dimitri
March 23, 2018
When Boeing made new twice fuel effective jets air flights not become cheaper - but airlines become twice richer. Same with the internet but much much worst. Bernard Lee is a naive scientist released an evil out if the bottle.
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Francois
March 24, 2018
I'm longing for a blockchain-based social network that will enable users to backtrack why they see a particular post, because of their friendship network, as advertising and who paid how much for it, or any underlying algorithmic reason. Expose the funding, you regain control as Eliott Ness did with the Chicago mafia...
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Whats How
March 29, 2018
जब तक आप उस बिंदु तक नहीं पहुंचते हैं, जहां तक आपको इस समूह के लोगों का समूह चुनना पड़ता है जो इस तकनीक के आर्बिटर्स होंगे। यह मूल रूप से डोनाल्ड ट्रम्प, ब्रेक्सिट और नफरत भाषण के बारे में है। विज्ञापन ने मुझे यूट्यूब पर मीडिया का आनंद लेने के लिए भारत में मेरे जैसे लोगों को अनुमति दी है, जिसे मैंने कभी भी एक दशक पहले देखने में सक्षम होने का सपना नहीं देखा था।- राजनीतिक प्रणाली की सच्चाई को उजागर करते हैं, आदि। लेकिन जिन प्लेटफार्मों ने लाखों लोगों को खुशी दी है, उनसे निराश करने के लिए, क्योंकि पिछले 5 वर्षों में जो शक्तियां बहुत विभाजित हैं, वे बहुत खराब हैं। मुझे उम्मीद है कि इस चर्चा की बारीकियों पर विस्तार से चर्चा की गई है, अन्यथा हम सेंसरशिप पर विचार कर रहे हैं। सादा और सरल। इसमें छोटे समय के संगीतकारों, ब्लॉगर्स को ध्यान देने और कुछ विज्ञापन पैसा देने की अनुमति है। इसने लोगों को ओपन कोर्सवेयर वीडियो के साथ शिक्षा में आगे बढ़ने की इजाजत दी है। विज्ञापन वित्त पोषित वेब के बिना यह सब संभव नहीं होगा मुझे लगता है कि लोग ईयू और ट्रम्प के कवरेज के बारे में गुस्से में हैं
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Fernando Bacelar
November 8, 2018
"Share the Web": make an effort to expand the web around you: community, city, country and world level. share a router, a ISP, create new tech, donate... Close the digital gap.
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Chris Maden
March 12, 2019
I agree with most of the comments above. What started as a medium for democratising facts has ended up becoming a weapon for disseminating gossip, banter and lies. It's sad that so many of these lies are so uncritically accepted by so many people.However, I am not convinced that the advertising model of many (but not all) internet giants - although it makes an easy target - is to blame. The places we used to go for facts were newspapers and academia. Journalism and academic research have always had biases built in, but their respective ethos of fact-checking and peer-review, though not flawless, were (like democracy itself) the least bad solutions we had.Journalism's ethos of fact-checking has now been so eroded by commercial pressures as to be close to meaningless, and academic journals are too expensive for most people to afford. These institutional failures create the space for the advertising-based model of the internet to succeed. Until newspapers are willing to pay journalists to check facts, and until large publishers can be made to release their chokehold on academic journals, technological fixes will not help the internet regain its truth.By the way, blockchain folk: spare a thought for the vast amount of electricity that this technology uses over and above the already staggering amount that IT consumes, and that most of that electricity is made by burning coal.
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