Communications of the ACM
Tim Berners-Lee: I Invented the Web. Here Are Three Things We Need to Change to Save It
Over the past year, Sir Tim Berners-Lee has become increasingly worried about three new trends on the World Wide Web.
Credit: Sara Lee/The Guardian
World Wide Web pioneer Sir Tim Berners-Lee warns of three trends to be overcome in order to sustain the Web as beneficial for everyone.
He writes of a loss of individuals' control over their personal data, encouraged by many websites' current business models. Berners-Lee also says mass online surveillance and other insidious practices as a result of this trend can stifle free speech.
The second trend he notes is the proliferation of misinformation by bad actors for financial or political profit, while the third trend is a lack of transparency in political advertising online.
Berners-Lee's solutions to these challenges include scientists cooperating with Web companies to put data ownership back into users' hands, a pushback against misinformation by encouraging continued opposition by Web gatekeepers, and "more algorithmic transparency to understand how important decisions that affect our lives are being made, and perhaps a set of common principles to be followed."
From The Guardian
View Full Article
Abstracts Copyright © 2017 Information Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, USA
No entries found