Tim Berners-Lee says we can still save the web
The World Wide Web is 30 years old tomorrow. A day earlier, its founder, English engineer and computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee, first proposed the system that would become the WWW on March 11th, 1989. To acknowledge the anniversary, he’s revisited his ideas about the internet in a new letter published today.
Berners-Lee admits that the internet now has a lot of problems. Users are plagued by online harassment, state-sponsored hacks, and other criminal behavior. Ad-based revenue models reward clickbait, while there is a constant viral spread of fake news. And even though they can be rewarding, social media platforms have also become home to political outrage and polarizing conversations.
Still, Berners-Lee is hopeful about humans’ and...