Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee calls for drastic changes to the internet amid concerns over data privacy, hacking, misinformation

The World Wide Web, the global hyperlinked system that helped expand and transform the internet, turns 30 this year. Once the province of geeks and techies, the internet has become such a significant part of peoples’ lives, thanks to the information management structure first proposed by Tim Berners-Lee in March 1989.

But Berners-Lee, who successfully implemented that online communications system in November the same year, looks at the current state of cyberspace with both satisfaction and alarm.

While he loves the broad accessibility of information, knowledge and universal values on the internet, the 63-year-old British computer scientist is worried about a weaponised cyberspace used by governments and various unsavoury groups to carry out hacking and manipulation of elections; the dominance of powerful commercial interests to exploit the internet and people’s private data; and the spread of criminal and antisocial behaviour, including hate speech and misinformation.

“You can’t turn off the internet, so we have to change a few things about it,” Berners-Lee said in an interview with the South China Morning Post.

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Berners-Lee and the World Wide Web Foundation – an organisation he founded nine years ago – are now advocating for a new social contract for the web. This would provide general guidelines and principles for good citizenship involving governments, corporations and individuals.

He envisions this initiative as evolving into something like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Law of Sea or the Outer Space Treaty, each of which encourage people to work together and adhere to specific principles because it is in their interest to do so.

The proposed new social contract for the web will provide not only standards of conduct for people to follow, but also principles for jurisdictions to codify into laws and regulations.

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“First 20 years, life [on the web] was good and simple,” Berners-Lee said, almost ruefully. He described the changes brought by “large amounts of political and commercial pressure, and the growth of the size of the web”.

At present, a number of major technology companies greatly influence what people do and how people do things online. Social networking giant Facebook, for example, admitted last year to allowing personal data of up to 87 million users to be harvested by Cambridge Analytica, a British political consulting firm that worked for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016.

In 2014, The New York Times reported that the US National Security Agency gathered images of millions of people from web communications that it intercepts through its global surveillance operations for use in its facial recognition programmes.

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“If you control the web, that is a very powerful thing, whether you are a government or a company. You [now] have scammers and people manipulating elections, and those acquiring information illegally,” Berners-Lee said.

“You can’t just blame one government, one social network or the human spirit. Simplistic narratives risk exhausting our energy as we chase the symptoms of these problems instead of focusing on their root causes. To get this right, we will need to come together as a global web community.”

He believes an open web – like open trade – can help ensure continued innovation and competition around the world.

Balkanisation, whether in the form of countries fighting over who dominates advanced 5G mobile infrastructure or restrictions on internet access like China’s Great Firewall – will serve to greatly divide the internet and reduce its value, according to Berners-Lee.

“China is the poster child of the [online censorship] phenomenon, but it is not exclusive to China,” he said. “If you go to Ethiopia and some Middle-Eastern countries, you won’t get all the internet either. This is a serious threat.”

“People worry you have a European internet legally separated from the Americans or Chinese from Indians. If that happens, it will massively reduce the internet’s value, and have a massive impact on education and trade,” he said.

“But all these countries are competing on trade, they will find that being part of the global economic system is to be open about their communications.”

Apart from the geopolitical issues, Berners-Lee said there is plenty of work to be done on the technical side. He and other programmers have been working on an open platform called “Solid” that will enable individuals to take control and ownership of their own data. It will help make people become active players online, rather than mere consumers manipulated by the tech companies and social media networks.

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In the spirit of democracy, anyone who is technically proficient can contribute to the platform, which remains in early development, according to Berners-Lee.

“The richness of cyberspace will continue,” he said, as the Solid platform promises a much healthier dynamic between individuals and the interests of governments and corporations.

Despite the issues of the internet, the Web inventor sees plenty of things to look forward to.

“Only 50 per cent of the world is online. There is much to celebrate, but also to reflect on how far we have yet to go,” Berners-Lee said.