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Tim Berners-Lee: we must regulate tech firms to prevent ‘weaponised’ web
Oligopolies monopolise the Internet, says the inventor of the world Wide Web, “and they are engaged in an intellectual dictatorship”.
Tim Berners-Lee: Well, blogs and websites proliferated and we could read anything we wanted, but a few Internet oligarchs turned it all upside down. Photography is by Charles Krupa
Oligopolies monopolise the Internet, says the inventor of the world Wide Web, “and they are engaged in an intellectual dictatorship”.
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“In recent years, we’ve seen conspiracy theorists take to social platforms, people spread rumors on Twitter and other accounts to stoke social tensions, outside forces intervene in elections, and criminals steal personal data collections,” Berners-Lee said in an open letter to the Internet’s 29th anniversary. “
These problems are caused entirely by the Internet oligarchs, facebook, Google and Twitter, who “control minds and opinions and can do whatever they want”.
“There were blogs and websites all over the place, and we could read anything we wanted, but a few Internet oligarchs turned it upside down. “Says the 62-year-old British computer scientist.
Like an online watchdog, these oligarchs can buy off smaller rivals, buy up new inventions and hire top talent, so that no one can compete with them. He said.
Google already dominates 87% of the world’s online searches. Facebook has 2.2 billion monthly active users, more than 20 times the number of myspace users at its peak. Together, the two (including their subsidiaries Instagram and YouTube) gobbled up 60 per cent of global digital advertising.
Although many companies are aware of the seriousness of the problem and trying to solve it, such as developing systems to eradicate fake news, bot posts and opinion manipulation, they end up “pursuing their own profits rather than the interests of society as a whole”.
“A framework of legal rules with social goals may be needed to mitigate these problems,” he said.
To align what technology does with users and society as a whole, and get technologists to take the right path, he argues, a diverse group of people — business, government, civil society, academia and the arts — need to be consulted.
Mr Berners-lee warns of “two myths” that “stifle our collective imagination” in the search for head-on solutions to online problems: “One is that advertising is the only possible business model for an online company; The other is to say it’s too late to change the way the platform works. We need to think creatively about both views, “he said.
“I want a web that reflects our aspirations and fulfills our dreams, not one that maliciously amplifies our fears and deepens the divide between people,” he said.
The letter coincides with a major milestone: 2018 is the first year half of the planet’s population will be online.
That said, there is still a wide “digital divide” that exacerbates existing inequalities: women, the poor, or those living in rural areas, or those in low-income countries, are more likely to have no Internet access.
“Not having access to the Internet today means no opportunity to learn and make money, no opportunity to access valuable services, no opportunity to participate in democratic debate,” Mr. Berners-lee said. “If we don’t make serious efforts to close this gap, the last billion people will still be offline by 2042. We’re throwing that whole generation away.”
Two years ago, the United Nations declared that “access to the Internet is a fundamental human right”, as necessary as drinking water, housing and electricity. But in many places, the cost of Internet access can be prohibitive, such as Malawi, where one gigabyte of mobile broadband can cost more than 20 percent of the average monthly income. In Zimbabwe in Africa, it’s almost forty-five percent.
In writing the letter last year, Mr. Berners-lee also called for “stronger regulation of online political propaganda,” which he said had been used “less ethically.”
Since then, representatives from Facebook, Twitter and Google have all been hauled before members of Congress to answer questions about the extent to which their platforms were used by a multi-pronged Russian operation to influence the 2016 presidential election.
All three acknowledged the fact that Russian entities had paid for ads on their websites in an effort to mislead the election. The Russians posed as American citizens to pay for Facebook ads that targeted swing states with deliberately disruptive messages. They also spend billions of dollars on advertising and spread misinformation on YouTube. It also uses a lot of bots on Twitter to help spread all kinds of fake news, fake stories.
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Since then, all three companies have announced steps to improve transparency about who is buying political ads on their platforms and what their ads are about.
Berners-lee always argued that his invention was an expression of human nature — to make the good, the evil, the beautiful, and the ugly invisible. However, his vision of “an open platform where anyone can share information, find opportunities and collaborate across geographical boundaries” is now being severely challenged by the tendency to centralise websites.
“I’m still optimistic about it, but I’m essentially the man on the cusp, the wind and the waves banging on my cheek, clutching the guardrail,” he told the Guardian newspaper in November. “We have to grit our teeth, lean against the guardrail, and don’t assume that the website alone will lead us to something beautiful.”
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Translated by SimonSong on 1 April 2018
Simon worked as site installation translator, technical translator and board document translator in Sino-British joint venture company from 1997 to 2000. From 2000 to 2003 he worked as a quality engineer and product engineer in an American company. From 2003 to 2018, worked as the technical editor of Chinese and English books in the publishing house. Simon was a Christian. He believed in Jesus.
Simon watercress home page is: www.douban.com/people/1697…