On the World Wide Web’s 30th birthday, our founder and web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee reflects on how the web has changed our world and what we must do to build a better web that serves all of humanity. Please share using #Web30 #ForTheWeb.
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SEBASTIAN ISMAEL GARRIDO SIMON
March 12, 2019
NO ES NECESARIO PEDIR UNA DONACIÓN , LA WEB SE DEBERÍA COBRAR A NIVEL MUNDIAL , A CADA PAÍS A CADA EMPRESA QUE IMPARTA LA INTERNET ASÍ SE GENERARÍAN MILLONES SE LO EXPLIQUE A TIM COMO CUANDO LE LLEVE LA TVOLED DEBERÍAN PAGARME COMO CREADOR INTELECTUAL POR CADA TV , PERO NO LO HACEN Y SI LO HICIERAN SERIA LO MEJOR PARA USTEDES
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Tammy
March 13, 2019
Interesting article that brings up much to discuss about the intended future of the internet. I feel often that the ‘general population’ using it do not get much say in regulating and improving it. It would be great to have polls & surveys from various categories and age groups of users. Perhaps categories such as...(segregating also by asking male/female & age groups:1. Professionals & Small Business Owner - who is online mostly for working purposes & how could their quality of work and information be improved by use of the internet.2. Stay at home, not working, general user - what purposes do they use internet for now?3. Students - from preschool to college level and how they use it (education, connecting, etc.)4. Executive level and enterprise groupAnd many more. It would be nice to know that everyone from the average person, student on up to executive has input on how we shape the future of ‘our’ internet. Thank you for spurring on much needed discussion.
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Jeff Cherniss
March 12, 2019
thank you for the opportunity to be close to future planning & development!
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Panchi Shah
March 12, 2019
Lets start by creating a rival to facebook. before it can buy the rival as well.
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Gabriel Lawrence
March 12, 2019
Google is beta testing one right now. They've abandoned Google+ (as you may have heard) but I have a friend who's beta testing for them and he's confident it will be competitive. I'm not so confident two can exist though. Look at MySpace, it was completely usurped, almost overnight, by FB. IMHO, either Google (or some other option) will hit and replace FB or it will just fall away like G+.
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mathias
March 13, 2019
One shouldn't trust Google to use our data responsibly either, because they don't. Indieweb or simular distributed solutions is the way forward.
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Vivek
March 12, 2019
Thanks for giving me this wonderful platform.Life must have been harder without the web.
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Denver F
March 12, 2019
For those who weren't alive before the Internet, life was o.k.We still had television, radio, newspapers and books. We shopped in stores and for Christmas had the JC Pennies catalog to shop with. We went to school in a building & learned a lot with 50 lbs of books-IN SHORT: WE LEARNED A LOT BY READING, WRITING & RESEARCHING A LOT
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Ken Atkinson
March 13, 2019
We even had Encyclopedias and thought that they were cool.
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Al
March 13, 2019
I remember those times fondly and we'll - things were a lot more "real" and a lot less "virtual". I can actually write quite nicely in cursive, rode my bike and skied sans helmets. We did just fine, but to be sure, there is a lot of convenience offered by the web, as well...
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Jenny Xie
March 19, 2019
Agree with you.
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Mrs GC
March 12, 2019
Vivek - life was not harder before the Web. Life was much the same as now, but with analogue technology :)I miss the hands-on learning opportunities there had to be, but I welcome the new learning opportunities that have opened up. Criminals have always used every opportunity to enrich or to hide themselves, but there is also a way in which they and their techniques are no longer anonymous. There is laughter on the Web, as well as maliciousness, and we can choose to be more actively involved in asserting the courtesies that define ladies and gentlemen in every era: the putting of someone else's feelings before their own.Religion can be measured against its Web presence, in some ways, but for myself the resources I have access to without having to spend years at university-level study, and at very little cost, have enabled my own Bible studies to dive deeply into the original languages of my 400 year old English Bible, into the Greek and Hebrew as well, and has enabled me to understand my relationship with my Living Lord much better.There will always be two sides to the Web, and a fuzzy grey area where they overlap. Every copyright-contravening video on YouTube, every unreferenced quote or simply "that looks good, I'll use it" is a statement that (1) there should be less as well as more copyright enforcement, and (2) an evidence of a personal choice that bending the rules is not the same as breaking them, and is OK for me, anyway. I have been as guilty as anyone else, and would dearly like to have a platform where I could pay one fee, and access ancient documentary programs from any and every kind of media company, as well as upto date documentaries.I cannot see how the Foundation is going to change the basic tendency of every human heart to bend rules, even knowing it's really breaking them. But they are trying to find a way between the hidden and the visible mines, and that is better than nobody doing so.I will think some more about what I've read here, and meantime, because my Lord set me the example to follow, I will try not to bend the rules even as I do.
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Chris
March 12, 2019
Well, to say something was harder or easier, one would need a point of reference. It's not like people were walking around saying, "Man, how I wish someone would invent a network of computers where we are all connected and information is globally shared. Oh, how that would vastly improve life for all!" I remember a world with no internet, no access to cell phones or personal computers. The hottest tech I owned was a calculator watch. During my childhood we thought that was cutting edge. We couldn't wait for them to come out with a Dick Tracy 2-way wrist radio. VCR's (video Cassette Recorders) were the hottest thing if you could afford home entertainment of that caliber. It seemed like every year, there's some new tech or gadget. It's funny because I hear others constantly ask, "Where would we be without cell phones? How did we even get along without one?" I tend to think we got along the same way we get along with technology that hasn't been invented yet. No one really knows what there missing until they've experienced it and it becomes deeply entrenched in our lives. I believe we're living in a great time of advancement in science and technology. While the temptation to romanticize about the advancements our current time is strong I would not, however, arrogantly boast and claim we're living in the "greatest times." Surely many others that have lived pasts technological and industrial booms have said the same thing. I think the bigger question our children may ask, "Why didn't they use that technology to get along better and make our world better?"
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Steven
March 12, 2019
My old broken unsure WindowsPhone has no hosts.txt file.So, it's not "my" phone.99% of the websites, in the first second, before my consent to anything else, send me to evil : FaceOfBouc tracking,or Twitter tracking or else.So I do not go on websites,Except the few I knows that don't do that,(Wikipedia, KorgForums, ...) and I stay reading the first lines of the search engine results which can't be from Google (except through meta-engines).I have used Bing instead, until recently,but the only time I asked for the PDF of Bing Search Query Language they didn't answer me.(it was to have more cleaver searches for saving the servers and the planet)In the mean time, I discover (through wwwFoundation) that Microsoft has given FaceDeBouc 256 millions dollars. Now I try everything else, Startpage, Gopher, DuckDuckGo, Yandex...I can't even change my phone, 100% of the phones are treaters at four times the price of mine.No box, my 2015-pc has never been connected,no updates, I'm completely scared to do that.No news, except email-lists or radio (no tv).So I'm completely alone and blind, way much than before. No way to buy something or contribute anywhere (like wwwFoundation, or Indian Law Ressources, etc)In this nightmare, I hear the voice of Tim Berners-Lee (and all the wwwFoundation behind)Now that I'm poor to the last degree, it's sound like hope. I may dream a little now.But I think I'm too old, too broken to contribute to anything, if only I could have five minutes to think about all that...Don't forget those who believe in you, but can't talk.Good luck, and may you succeed on freeing the web from evil.My heart belongs to WWWfoundationSteven, stucked in Nazi France.
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Joey Alarilla
March 12, 2019
Thank you so much, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, for inventing the World Wide Web and giving it as a gift to the world. Now it’s time for all of us to work together to take back control of the web.
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ed m
March 12, 2019
Thanks Sir Tim!
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John Hartley
March 12, 2019
Thank you. Having chosen the desk with the BBC Micro (yesterday's Raspberry PI) via the Spectrum, Amstrad, Dragon, Commodore, Amiga, Atari and everything in between, I still remember the day un the early nineties, when the box arrived with a Digital Corp workstation, a US Robotics modem and Netscape. d:-) #fora
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Nancy Rose
March 12, 2019
Thank you Sir Tim, how important your message is. I respect the intent immensely but have no idea how to implement any changes except to be aware of any random clicks. I hope you can correct misuse of the web. Its such a valuable tool and I enjoy it so.
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VLadimir
March 12, 2019
The WWW was created by humans, so it has all of it's has all beauties, wonders and threats which we know
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Steven
March 12, 2019
My web.When I try to send a mail to wwwFoundation, "my" phone just explode.My phone is an old broken corrupted and surely infected WPphone.·It has no hosts.txt file,so it's not "My" phone.So I have to stay out of 99% of "websites", because in the first second, long before any consent, you are redirected to FaceOfTheBouc tracking and others (twitter same evil).I can read the first lines in the search engine (which is also a treater that don't protect me of that, because it's their best mate)If I click on one result, I need half an hour to clean the phone (and it doesn't want to be cleaned, this treater. It has been conceived to keep the shit, and it's full of shit that never goes, still a few days and it will be completely unusable.)And there is no alternative, no more WPphone, except HP X3 : 1500€/$ !!!(I think about all the developers committed... that's why I don't code any more.)·No phone line, no box, my 2015pc never updated, too scared.When I learned (by wwwFoundation) that MS gifted 256 millions dollars to FaceOfTheBouc, I just understood that the "war" was over, we were lost.The web is now propriety of The Devil,"La Canaille", "Le Veau d'Or".(Why russians hackers don't kill FaceDeBouc,I don't understand)When I asked Bing for Bing Query Language public.pdf, in the purpose of making more clever searches to "save the planet", they just didn't answered me at all. You can't download this crucial document nowhere.That's my web, it's dark.So I decided to see other engines, and now I use StartPage (with Phil Zimermann(PGP) !!!! oh my God, finally a real man, like Tom Berners-Lee !), Gopher, DuckDuckGo, even Yandex and Qwant...Now that I'm poor, too old and too broken to contribute to anything,Today : 03mar19,The voice of Tim Berners-Lee and wwwFoundation tear up the nightmare,and gives us hope and dreams.Maybe I can try to rebuild music around Linux (except Android, of course).I haven't any mean of payment online,I can't buy instruments, I can't contribute anywhere (wwwFoundation, Indian Law Ressources, etc..)Think about all the peoples like me who can't talk, who can't express anything.When we ear the words of Tim Berners-Lee, it's like... music and sun.(a thought for Margrethe Vestager European Commissioner who is in the fight too, against the dragons who shits on Earth, Man and Woman.).(and also Aaron Schwarz(rip), and peoples like that)I write you like it's the last time.Thanks for the big fight.We have hope and dreams now,even if the war would be already lost, like Warren Buffett said.·Steven,from the deeps of old nazifying France nightmare.(No more escape for me, too late.)#
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Jim Van Dyke
March 12, 2019
Thank you for your contributions, including this important call to action. I believe we each need to spend more time asking how we can use the web to make the world better, rather than ask "what's in it for me?" or "look what that other person (or company, or political party) is doing wrong!"
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Gabriel Lawrence
March 12, 2019
Scams, uh ... find a way.
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Rob
March 12, 2019
Congratulations Sir Tim!It's hard to remember a time before the WWW. So much frustration and time involved in getting the correct information and doing research on just about anything. And all that paper.... so much paper.For me the web has allowed me to save time and money with the everyday chores of paying bills, dealing with utility companies, troubleshooting and fixing things from cars to refrigerators, purchasing things and connecting with work colleagues, family and friends.But above and beyond that it has been a part of my business model by helping clients add value and content about their contributions to their communities. It has allowed me to work with people in the town next door and across the globe.Thanks to all who work everyday to add content and value and attempt to make our experiences relevant and meaningful. For those of you who have never experienced the world without the WWW. Trust me, it's so much better, if you use it as the tool that it is and don't allow it to run your life, you will appreciate it for what it can be.
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Kae
March 12, 2019
Nicely put. Thank you so much for your continued dedication to making the world a better place Tim. Hopefully it inspires many others to contribute.
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Daniel Ordaz
March 12, 2019
30 so soon? It seems just like yesterday that we had to print and fax a document to be ahead of the mail (regular old fashion postal service) and now we think nothing of it.I wonder how many users today understand the difference between the Internet and the www...
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Greg Zen
March 12, 2019
I recently wrote an essay that you might enjoy as a compliment to this evolution of where we go next. It can be found on Medium by searching "the Human Startup" by Greg Zen. Enjoy and feel free to reach out.
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Shay
March 12, 2019
What a momentous occasion! I don't know where we would have been without the web, and thank you for your thoughtful considerations on its current challenges and our future.
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AV
March 12, 2019
Here's a concept on how to improve the web:educatism.home.blogJust a couple of thoughts.. Let me know what you guys think
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Mejd
March 12, 2019
if can you add arabic language its good
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Ralf Lippold
March 12, 2019
I remember very well the days in late summer 1995 when I got my first email address the University of Bamberg. Gopher was the "hot" thing back then, and some sort of early-stage World Wide Web.Glad to be right with the WWW right from the beginning as my then university in Dresden very much promoted the use of digital communication, and I was thrilled to connect with the world, first while writing on my thesis, afterwards for research, and later on for work. In the beginning, the Web was populated by scientists and curious people who used it in largely the social sense. This did not last too long until the marketers found the value of the Web and flooded it with push messages, and people who expressed their personal views under the mask of fake profiles. Time to bring back the WWW to what it originally was intended: a place to collaborate across boundaries of time, space, and cultures :-)
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Paul Henckeel
March 12, 2019
I'm very humbled that you chose to end the 30h tour in Nigeria. I hope you get to stay there a little longer to see the rural area too. Organisations like Fantsuam.org are working on expanding internet access to rural communities. Many things are happening in Nigeria with internet.
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Blondie
March 12, 2019
Not any mention of blockchain project that are trying to solve big world wide web issues ( centralization, privacy infringement and Ddos attack) ?Ill tell just one...https://www.elastos.org/
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GILBERTO CHONA
March 12, 2019
You can'st always "web" want you want, but if you try sometimes...
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Duncan Taylor
March 12, 2019
News headline 12 03 2019After 30 years Web in downward plunge says Sir Tim Berners-LeeData breaches, hacking and misinformation threaten his brilliant creationThe vision was a free and open web would empower users, rather than reduce them to simply consumers…You conceived an environment, a blank template, where every kind is empoweredAs such, it reflects the human conditionYou created an unruly childBorn of love and ideals, but who can predict our children’s path?We nurture care teach and let loose…Like over-heated atoms they collide, fuse, disjoin – but always with the chance of creating unknown elements of staggering beautyFor countless millions we share contact, music, art, love and values we hold dearAs we, who would not have met, lie entwinedSharing the Sunday papers self, and together, absorbedSir Tim… take heart
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Ricardo Beatriz Farias
March 12, 2019
I know some methods to see the future at this world, I watch some movies and I have some hacks at all my www info like you wrote .. I'm selling the proofs I'm great grandson of Valentin Gomez Farias.
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Jim Melton
March 13, 2019
Full disclosure: I know Tim personally.Tim is exactly right in this speech. He's identified the factors that will destroy one of humanity's greatest resources, and suggested how to approach the avoidance of catastrophe. Tim may not always be right (sorry, Tim!), but he is a very smart, very thoughtful guy. Please pay attention!!
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Edgardo Valentino D. Olaes
March 13, 2019
Without the spider's ingenuity and architectural wisdom in building its trap-house that produced from its body, known as the web, designers of radio-TV stations' NETwork, and website functioner as World Wide Web (invented by Sir Berners-Lee), the usefulness of such inventions will not be possible.-Edgardo Valentino D. Olaes (12 March 2019)
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Sikamoff
March 13, 2019
Сэр Тим Бернерс-Ли... Хотите сделать лучше Мир Интернета, локализуйте его. Единственный способ решить эту проблему, локализовать Интернет. Мы уже делаем это, теперь Ваша очередь...
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Mike de Sousa
March 13, 2019
Hi Sir Tim, thank you for your continuing efforts to make the web a better place.Enjoy 'With' in celebration of the web's thirtieth celebration:http://100artworks.today/With.htmlAs with everything I make, the web provides the means to share, freely and for all.Kind Regards,Mike[there is no need to publish this here if viewed of as inappropriate because of the link. I simply wanted to ensure Sir Tim had the opportunity of enjoying the content I made for the thirtieth anniversary of the web as it did not seem to appear on your digital channels as I was informed it might have been]
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Tammy
March 13, 2019
Great article that we should all pay attention to if we want a voice in shaping the internet of future.It would be great if the ‘general population’ had more say in the regulations & freedoms of the internet to come. I feel often these things are either decided by a small group or committee that often appeals to the global governments of Nations.Wouldn’t it be great if we could involve the wider population and categorize (even via polls perhaps) into groups by sex, age & categories such as:1. Professionals & Small Businesses2. Executives & Larger Corporations3. Stay at home (non working) individuals 4. Students (from preschool through College)And many more categories...It would be nice to know that a wider group of users could help shape the internet ‘laws’ of our future.Thank you for making us think on this important topic Sir Tim.
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ALAMGIR
March 13, 2019
Vehicle tracking system is modern technology. It safe our vehicle, also we looking our vehicle. If you go unknown place, then GPS is best friend for find any location and safety.
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Simon Thompson
March 13, 2019
Hi Sir Tim, thank you for creating the world wide web. Speed of communication is now at its fastest. Information is now freely available (if you have access to the Internet). I support you in your endeavours to make the www. accessible to all. We should also think about cleaning the web up and removing all the the clutter that has been accumulated! There are now 4 websites to every person on the planet. Let's delete some and gain some clarity!
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Rich
March 13, 2019
Having been online since 1999, I feel the web has become a perverse collection of marketers disguised as do gooders. How I long for the days when web pages were all text and even animated gifs that talk about the topics we care about without the need to sell something. I hope there would be a separate network that would be purely non-commercial. Just a thought.
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Murray Cowell
March 14, 2019
It's interesting that the three "sources of dysfunction" don't include data harvesting and invasion of privacy through continuous spying by large corporations. Although no 2 alludes to these issues, and they are referred to later, it's almost as an afterthought. Protecting people from these behaviours should be a higher priority than, say, outraged discourse.
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Serge C
March 14, 2019
Thank you, Tim and The Web.
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Michael
March 14, 2019
Hello, Tim! Thank you for the Internet :-) I’m from Russia, how you know internet unite people around the world.I think in that way: we need to create an Open Net and Close Nets. In Open Net will be not any laws without law about the absence of any censorship. And in the Close Nets everyone who create one will can make any rules which he want and he will be protected by the Univeral Declaration of Human Rights. That would be such a good idea IMO.
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Traian Muntean
March 15, 2019
Privacy is one of the fundamental human rights as stated for years by major international organisations and it stands as a basis of democracy. 30 years ago the Web proposal was a tremendous and innovatory free communication framework on the existing basic "internet" networking. Today we have all together to conciliate freedom of communication and services access offered by the historical goals of the Web with fundamental human rights as to preserving privacy on future Internet.A moratory framework for technical specifications and design in order to prove compatibility of privacy with freedom of communication and networking services on Internet shall be a priority goal of the scientific community. Fundamental tools (e.g. cryptographic) exist for such a goal.This framework shall not cover only personal data protection by service providers and operators but also associated protocols, services and apps interfaces for preserving privacy on social media networks and inter-networking exchanges under direct control of the users whenever required. Nowadays, the need for such a standard framework is obvious (i.e. threats, theft and trade and other illicit uses of personal data often "sorrily lost" on a worldwide scale...)To set-up an international task force on privacy protection on Internet could be a first mandatory step towards a future Internet of freedom and democracy!
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SleepingDog
March 16, 2019
I have a question about two related aspects of web quality: provenance (where data and information come from, are processed, indicators of reliability) and declarative semantic markup (what claims are made about content).So for example, if a news item turns out to be a corporate press release, there should be an automated way of:1) tracking that news item (even if slightly amended) back to its source;2) determining what kind of content the page's markup claimed the story was.Clearly, if the markup claimed it was a news article and perhaps gave a misleading author, and the provenance checks uncovered the real source, then that page might be treated differently from a page considered to be genuine news (lower in search rankings, removed from news tab of searching engines and news feeds, highlighted with warnings in browsers and so forth).To avoid this, deception would favour poor or presentation-only markup that made no claim.Should poor or presentation-only markup therefore be considered suspect?
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Kal Toth
July 24, 2019
I agree with both Traian Muntean and Sleeping Dog but from different perspectives. Privacy protection is a human right that should be protected by the web. But truth also needs to preserved. A web designed to reliably achieve anonymity would maximize privacy but decrease truthfulness (like someone shouting crazy ideas in a crowd or in a dark alley). In contrast, a web that reliably and accurately bound people to what they post would tend to improve truthfulness since they would be held accountable by critical reviewer would likewise be accountable for what they say in response. Ideally, people need to be able to decide when to be anonymous and when to declare their opinions and principles. The web needs to be able to achieve these goals simultaneously. Observers/reviewers should not be able to intercept private posts and conversations; they should be able disregard information that is weakly attributed, or not attributed at all; and and they should be able to accept posts that are reliably attributed to real persons at face value - accepting, rejecting, or uncommitted according to their druthers. How can this be achieved?
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@Darric_PL
March 16, 2019
God bless the free World Wide Web! Thank you for creating this truly amazing source of knowledge and connecting all of mankind to each other for the first time in our species existence.. it's truly remarkable.. #HappyBDayWWW #WWW
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Darric
March 16, 2019
God bless the free World Wide Web! Thank you for creating this truly amazing source of knowledge and connecting all of mankind to each other for the first time in our species existence.. it's truly remarkable.. #HappyBDayWWW #WWW
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jenny xie
March 19, 2019
Vivek - life was not harder before the Web. Life was much the same as now, but with analogue technology :)I miss the hands-on learning opportunities there had to be, but I welcome the new learning opportunities that have opened up. --------- say too well. Yes, web let people's life more convenience. But no web , people still live very well, sometimes, also live happier.
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geeeeeeek
March 26, 2019
Continuous innovation is the only way to avoid the Internet being torn
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Thomas Hansen
June 1, 2019
Well, one suggestion is to give the Web the same type of protection that churches and cathedrals have, by declaring it to be a "Holy Object".Read more about my suggestion here; https://gaiasoul.com/2019/06/01/turning-the-web-into-a-holy-object/
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Sumitsingh72
July 5, 2019
This post is very informative on this topic Thank you for sharing this post with us.
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Marie Laken
July 26, 2019
Hi. My husband and I run an eco farm near London and run events for families where there is REAL community and face to face interaction.Personally, I use the internet as little as possible whilst respecting it could have had a BENEVELONT use,as Sir Berners-Lee wanted.Creativity is a wonderful thing, but sometimes creating things without putting it into a REAL contextmeans, and seriously measuring its influence before we 'set it lose' (see the Eliza Project - ? Weisenbaum)means, we can create things that on the surface seem good, but with human weaknesses of greedand a desire to make a name for ourselves, can ENSLAVE to the created object.This you can see and we hear about everyday, where people are unable to detach from their 'phones. This isaddiction and is not healthy, particularly for the young who have limited knowledge and experienceto deal with its power wisely. So I do hope the Web can be re-created. It might be a good idea for Sir B-Lee to consider the AmishMennonite tradition of taking the wheels off tractors so that the eldest member of their communityto join in gathering the harvest.Wishing you all well and praying for the restoration of wholeness, fun and sanity for our world.
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MLA Web Designs
September 27, 2019
Thank you so much for sharing a great article. Keep up the great work!
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Devika
February 18, 2021
Good
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Dai Software
October 20, 2021
very interesting , good job and thanks for sharing such a good information.meal kit delivery app development
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