Tim Berners-Lee, the tech pioneer who invented the World Wide Web back in 1989, revealed his plans for a contract to ensure that the Internet is safe and accessible to everyone. Speaking at the Web Summit 2018 in Portugal, the British tech genius recounted how he envisaged the Internet as being a platform for sharing information, but the current use of the Internet has digressed from the initial vision that its founders had in mind almost 30 years ago.
“All kinds of things have gone wrong. We have fake news, we have problems with privacy, we have people being profiled and manipulated,” expressed Berners-Lee with concern.
The tech pioneer has invited governments, companies and citizens to fight against hate and negativity, breach of privacy and political manipulations on the Internet by creating a complete “Contract for the Web” by May 2019, the date by which half of the world’s population is expected to be online. His non-profit organization, the World Wide Web Foundation, has launched the “Contract for the Web” project as a means to make the Internet a safe, diverse, open and accessible place for everyone.
Some companies, organizations, the French government and even the Internet giants Facebook and Google, who have recently expressed their regrets about their products being harmful to the Internet community, have already backed the principles of the proposed “Contract for the Web”.
