We take it for granted today, but the World Wide Web only turns 30 this March 2019. Not to be confused with the internet – a giant networking infrastructure that allows computers to connect to other computers – the web is a collection of pages and websites that can be accessed via the internet. To function, it relies on hypertext transfer protocol (http), hypertext markup language (html) and browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari etc). From the late 1960s onwards, it has grown from an emerging remote communication technology to an omnipresent medium connecting nearly 4 billion people.
From birth to adulthood
The (inter)network of networks was originally conceptualised in the 1960s to allow academic institutions and the military to communicate via computers. But it wasn’t before the invention of the World Wide Web in 1989 by English scientist working at the CERN Tim Berners-Lee that users were able to access any web pages remotely. The advent of web browsers (remember Netscape?) and search engines (remember AltaVista and Yahoo?) from the early 1990s onwards made the technology available to the general public.
The 2000s witnessed the slow emergence and explosion of Social Media platforms alongside blogging tools. The present decade has seen a real acceleration in access speed, wireless connectivity, mobile and smartphone usage. As well as that, an increased usage of the internet infrastructure (as the “internet of things”) now applies to a multitude of everyday applications such as transport, healthcare, smart homes or security.
As Tim Berners-Lee envisaged it, the web was meant to be accessible to all and could function as a public discussion forum to share information. The popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia as a free and universally accessible resource run by volunteers remains a shining example of an open and distributed web. The ability for users to set up their own websites, embed applications and multimedia, update the content and connect with their audience also owes a lot to the computer scientist’s original vision.
The web 30 years on
Now that half of the world is online and reflecting on the evolution of the original information management system, its creator warned that the web was being increasingly misused and faced a number of challenges.
In an open letter published in early March 2019, Tim Berners Lee identified “three sources of dysfunction affecting today’s web”:
- Deliberate, malicious intent, such as state-sponsored hacking and attacks, criminal behaviour, and online harassment.
- System design that creates perverse incentives where user value is sacrificed, such as ad-based revenue models that commercially reward clickbait and the viral spread of misinformation.
- Unintended negative consequences of benevolent design, such as the outraged and polarised tone and quality of online discourse.
In a veiled criticism of the Silicon Valley tech giants now dominating the web with little regard for privacy and data protection, Tim Berners Lee is calling for a new “contract for the web” which would ensure that the web remains an information system that serves all of humanity.
“Platforms and products must be designed with privacy, diversity and security in mind” says the inventor of the web. Governments and companies have a duty to protect citizen’s rights, freedom and privacy online. It is up to citizens to hold them accountable. It is also up to citizens to defend a free and open web.