// BIG Security NEWS // The Web is Under An Ambitious Project Still Hopes To Save It

vijbzabyss (69)in #news • 5 years ago

Half the world is now online and 30 years of the web has resulted in such a wide range of innovations that it is difficult to list them all.

Source
And yet, in recent years, doubts have begun to emerge. Even if the web has made information more accessible, created new business models, allowed Internet users to connect and made our lives easier, some aspects are harmful to individuals.

A change of the Web's course ship in the last 4 to 5 years

Invasive digital surveillance, government-orchestrated web blackouts, misinformation and companies that make huge profits from our personal data: all these developments undermine our experience of the online world.

Forget the pretty pictures of cats and must-share memes: the contract between us and the web has become more and more Faustian.

In response to all these concerns, Tim Berners-Lee - who created the World Wide Web in 1989 - presented his project for a new deal for the Web at the end of last year, called a _ for the Web"_. This contract consists of a set of principles for the Web that describes how companies, governments individual web users should behave to keep the Web healthy.

The web is at a crucial point. More than half the world’s population remains offline, and the rate of new people getting connected is slowing. Those of us who are online are seeing our rights and freedoms threatened. We need a new Contract for the Web, with clear and tough responsibilities for those who have the power to make it better. I hope more people will join us to build the web we want,” Berners-Lee says

Behind this idea lies the fundamental idea that the Web must be considered "as a public good that builds communities rather than destroys, and bring these people together rather than divides," says Adrian Lovett, CEO of the Web Foundation, which is working to bring the project to fruition.

So where did the web go wrong?

"It has been a gradual and initially less visible turn of the ship in the last four or five years," says Lovett. Although no events were behind this project, Lovett says last year's Cambridge Analytica scandal was a defining moment.

The Contract of the Web is based on a set of nine basic principles. It calls on governments to ensure that everyone can connect to the Internet, that everyone can access it at all times, that the fundamental right to privacy is respected,...

Big consensus principles will not be enough

Companies are encouraged to make the Internet affordable and accessible to all, to respect consumers' privacy and personal data and to develop technologies that promote the best of humanity, while preventing the worst.

As for individual Internet users, they should become creators and collaborators, and fight to keep the web open.

There is a priori consensus on such principles. The Web Foundation is therefore aware that to change the current trajectory of the Web, it must go beyond that.

"We always were clear that if we stopped at these principles then it would be nothing more than nice language," Lovett acknowledges. As such, it is working on ways to make sure that the governments and companies that sign up to these commitments actually stick to them.

The Web Foundation is, therefore, trying to determine how to achieve this.

"There won't be one piece of legislation or one voluntary code, there will be a range of things that would come out of this, recognizing the breadth of the agenda and the complexity of the challenge," he says.

This could include asking governments to formally sign a promise not to block the Internet, except in very exceptional circumstances, or to advocate for new privacy regulations, or to regularly publish an accountability report that could highlight those who are making efforts to keep the Web open - and those that have gone in the other direction.

Different groups within the Web Foundation are working to develop concrete ideas from the basic principles. Half of the members of these groups come from civil society, such as non-governmental organizations and activist groups, 35% from the private sector and 15% from governments.

Technology giants are part of the problem, and part of the solution

But some of the companies supporting the Contract are large technology companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Google, often criticized for being - at the very least - partially responsible for the downward spiral the web is in.

If they got us into this mess, can they really get us out of it? Lovett argues that large technology companies must be part of the answer.

"We have to be going to where the problem is and where the power is and the means to actually do something about it. And that means getting people around a table and we're fairly unapologetic for that, but we absolutely this process should be judged by how it turns out in the coming months and years," he says.

The version of the web that many people are experiencing today is not the one that brings out the best in humanity, says Lovett - but he believes that the fundamental and historical values of the early Web continue to be supported by its users.

"I think that is something that we can shoot for," he says. "I think there is more than enough very evident energy at all levels to fix these problems, so the idea that we've gone too far and there is some unstoppable force, either in big companies or in the architecture of the web now, just doesn't seem plausible to me."

Sources : The Web Foundation, A Contract For The Web and Devex

Stay Informed, Stay Safe