Tim Berners-Lee wants to repair the Web, 30 years later

The Internet is almost 30 years old and is used by almost half of the world's inhabitants. But recently, some have started to worry that their defects will begin to reduce the benefits.

During the first 15 years of its existence, people "were waiting for the Web to do great things," said Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the Web while working at CERN in the 1980s.

Speaking at the Summit Web Technology Conference in Lisbon, Portugal, Berners-Lee said that there was an optimistic assumption that connecting people with the Web would make us more communicative, more peaceful and more constructive.

The thought was: "If you connect people together and keep the Web free and open, then people could do good things – what could go wrong?"

"Well, in retrospect, all sorts of things have gone wrong since then," admitted Berners-Lee, before listing some of the many problems of the modern Web: false information; privacy issues; abuse of personal data; and how people can be profiled and manipulated.

Looking for a revolution

Berners-Lee is developing a new "Contract for the Web" based on a set of principles that it plans to publish in full in May 2019 – the "50/50 moment", where more than half of the World population will be online.

The contract is based on nine key principles: three for governments, businesses and citizens.

Governments should, for example, ensure that everyone can connect to the Internet, keep the entire Internet network available at all times and respect people's fundamental right to privacy.

Companies must make the Internet affordable and accessible to all, respect the privacy and personal data of consumers, and "develop technologies that support the best of humanity and defy the worst".

SEE: Guide for IT Professionals on GDPR Compliance (Free PDF)

Internet users are invited to be creators and collaborators on the Web, to create strong communities respecting civil discourse and human dignity, and to fight for the Web to remain open.

Many of these principles seem to go against the way the web is currently being treated. Many governments use it as a means of surveillance and censorship, while companies base their business models on gathering as much personal data as possible.

According to Berners-Lee, Internet users are passive consumers who come together in like-minded communities to use their creative energy to reach new groups.

In the new contract, Berners-Lee realizes that he is asking for a lot.

"Everyone is responsible for making the Web a better site in different ways," he said.

"The ad-based funding model does not have to work in the same way, nor does it need to create clickable bait." It's not necessary that the only reason you get a programming work is to divert attention. " your users are not doing what they are trying to do. We are looking for a revolution. "

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