“I wanted the web to serve humanity. It’s not too late to live up to that promise,” Tim Berners-Lee writes in an Op-Ed for The New York Times:
I had hoped that 30 years from its creation, we would be using the web foremost for the purpose of serving humanity. Projects like Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap and the world of open source software are the kinds of constructive tools that I hoped would flow from the web.
However, the reality is much more complex. Communities are being ripped apart as prejudice, hate and disinformation are peddled online. Scammers use the web to steal identities, stalkers use it to harass and intimidate their victims, and bad actors subvert democracy using clever digital tactics.
The web needs radical intervention from all those who have power over its future: governments that can legislate and regulate; companies that design products; civil society groups and activists who hold the powerful to account; and every single web user who interacts with others online.
We have to overcome the stalemate that has characterized previous attempts to solve the problems facing the web. Governments must stop blaming platforms for inaction, and companies must become more constructive in shaping future regulation — not just opposing it.
I’m introducing a new approach to overcome that stalemate — the Contract for the Web.
MacDailyNews Take: The “Contract for the Web” contains nine principles, three each for governments, companies, and citizens. Apple is conspicuously not listed among its many supporters which include: Google, Microsoft, Facebook, DuckDuckGo, the EFF, the World Wide Web Foundation, and many more. Find out more at: https://contractfortheweb.org