INDIT fully supports Tim Berners-Lee’s concerns about Internet freedom, as outlined in an Open Letter on the 35th Anniversary of the WWW
Full text of the letter:
Open Letter: Celebrating the Web’s 35th Birthday
Tim Berners-Lee · March 12, 2024
The Original Hope
Three and a half decades ago, when I invented the WWW, its path was unimaginable. There was no roadmap to predict its evolution, it was a fascinating journey filled with unexpected opportunities and challenges. At its core was the intention to enable collaboration, compassion and creativity – what I call the 3 Cs. It was meant to be a tool for empowering humanity. The web’s first decade delivered on that promise—it decentralized content and options, creating smaller, more local communities, providing individual empowerment, and fostering vast wealth. However, over the past decade, rather than embodying these values, the web has played a role in undermining them. The consequences have become ever more widespread. From platform centralization to the AI revolution, the web serves as the foundational layer of our online ecosystem—an ecosystem that is now reshaping the geopolitical landscape, driving economic change, and impacting the lives of people around the world.
Current State
Five years after the web turned 30, I’ve outlined some of the dysfunctions caused by the dominance of a few corporations that have eroded its values and led to disintegration and harm. Now, five years later, arriving on the web’s 35th birthday, the acceleration of AI has exacerbated these concerns, showing that the web’s problems are not isolated but rather deeply intertwined with emerging technologies.
There are two clearly related issues that need to be addressed. The first is the degree of consolidation that contradicts the decentralized nature I originally envisioned. This is fragmenting the web, with each platform struggling to retain users while optimizing profit through passive content surveillance. This exploitative business model is particularly worrisome in this crucial election year that could lead to political turmoil. The second is the market for personal data that takes advantage of people by creating deep profiles that enable targeted advertising and ultimately control over the information they need.
How did this happen? Political leadership suffers from a lack of diversity to fairly redistribute public goods at the expense of capitalist forces leading to monopolization. The power that was supposed to correct this has failed, with regulatory measures being outpaced by the speed of innovation, leading to a widening gap between technological progress and effective oversight.
The future depends on our ability to simultaneously reform the current system and build a new one that truly serves the best interests of humanity. To achieve this, we must break down the current status quo, encouraging cooperation and market conditions to achieve decentralized opportunities.
Steps
To transform the status quo, we must simultaneously address its existing problems and support the efforts of those pioneers who are actively working to build a new, improved system. One that focuses on authentic consumer searches over selective business searches, thereby giving us back control over our data. New leaders must create a new decentralized web and a new more human-centered web, as was my original vision. These pioneers must emerge from across disciplines – science, politics, and applied software engineers – united in achieving a new WWW that serves and empowers us all. Examples include BlueSky or Mastodon, which do not use our personal data but manage to create, GitHub, which openly provides information and code for online collaboration, or podcasts that contribute to community knowledge. These trends are worth paying attention to, and through them we have the opportunity to reshape a digital future that prioritizes human well-being, equality, and autonomy. The time to act and embrace this transformative potential is now.
Fundamental Change
As outlined in ‘Contract for the Web‘, multiple stakeholders countries must collaborate to reform the WWW and guide the development of emerging technologies. Innovative market solutions, such as those I have highlighted, are essential to this process. Progressive legislation by governments around the world can facilitate these solutions and help govern the current system more effectively. Finally, we as citizens around the world must be engaged and demand higher standards and greater responsibility for our online experiences. It is time to confront the shortcomings of the dominant system while stimulating transformative solutions that empower individuals. This emerging system approach is viable, and the tools for control are within our reach.
Part of the solution is the protocol Solid, which provides each user with their own “‘personal online data store”, known as a POD. Still It is possible to regain control over personal data. With the protocol Solid individual users can decide how their data is managed, used and shared. This protocol has even been implemented in the region of Flanders, where every citizen now has their own POD, after Jan Jambon announced four years ago that every Fleming should have a POD. This is the future of personal data ownership and is an example of the emerging movement that will replace the current existing system.
Call to Action
Achieving this goal will not just happen, but requires our support for the leaders leading the reform – from researchers and inventors to activists. We must promote and work to change the collective consciousness of global citizens. The Web Foundation, which I founded with Rosemary Leath, will continue to support and accelerate this emerging trend and the people behind it. However, there is a need, an urgent need, for others to do the same by supporting new leadership that seeks to shift the paradigm of the modern Internet from one dictated by profit to one dictated by the needs of humanity. Only then will the online ecosystem in which we all live reach its full potential and provide the foundation for collaboration, creativity, and empathy.
Tim Berners-Lee
March 12, 2024