The man who invented the web says it’s now dysfunctional with ‘perverse’ incentives

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Tim Berners James Alexander Michie

Philippe Desmazes | AFP | Getty Images. British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee

Tim Berners-Lee is a British computer scientist, known for being the father of the World Wide Web. Established the first communication between a client and a server using the HTTP protocol in November 1989. In October 1994 he founded the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) based at MIT, to supervise and standardize the development of technologies on those that are based on the Web and that allow the functioning of the Internet.

The World Wide Web (WWW) or global computer network is a system of distribution of hypertext or hypermedia documents interconnected and accessible through the Internet. With a web browser, a user views websites composed of web pages that can contain texts, images, videos or other multimedia content, and navigates through those pages using hyperlinks.

Now, Berners-Lee, who considers himself the father of the World Wide Web, says is now dysfunctional with perverse incentives. The same one that exposed his vision of an information management system, which would become the World Wide Web, in March 1989. The project would radically transform society, since half of the world’s population was online in only three decades But in a letter published on Monday 30th marking of the anniversary website, Berners-Lee said he understands the concern that the Internet is no longer a “force for good.”

It must change for good

It is already well known that the World Wide Web was born thirty years ago. Even so, its inventor has said that in the next 30 years, it must be “changed for the better”. Likewise, Berners-Lee has expressed, “The fight for the web is one of the most important causes of our time”.

Likewise, it is necessary to mention that in the letter, Berners-Lee presented “three sources of dysfunction” that affect the web at present. The first, he said, is deliberate and malicious behavior such as hacking sponsored by the state and online harassment. Berners-Lee defended new laws to curb this behavior online and at the same time maintain the openness of the Internet.

He believes that “Governments should translate laws and regulations for the digital age”, and likewise, “They should ensure that markets remain competitive, innovative and open”.

An open website has been a fighting point for Berners-Lee. From the beginning, he chose to make the underlying code of the World Wide Web available to anyone at no charge.

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Source: Elizabeth Schulze | CNBC

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