The creator of the internet is worried it has turned into a monster for you

On the 28th anniversary of the day, Sir Tim Berners-Lee put his proposal in for what would become the world wide web the creator has aired his worries.

His original vision of creating a platform that makes communication easier and creating a new global community has happened it has come at a cost.  In a letter sent to the world, Sir Tim Berners-Lee has outlined the major areas of concern for those that use the internet and how everyone can do their part to fix it. His main areas of concern are:

Your Personal Data
Mr Berners-Lee wrote of your data, “As our data is then held in proprietary silos, out of sight to us, we lose out on the benefits we could realise if we had direct control over this data, and chose when and with whom to share it. What’s more, we often do not have any way of feeding back to companies what data we’d rather not share – especially with third parties – the T&Cs are all or nothing.” 

Misinformation or “fake news”
It is a popular term that has come from less than prestigious “news sources” spreading false information to sway political opinions. Mr Berners-Lee wrote the concern is “those with bad intentions can game the system to spread misinformation for financial or political gain.”

Online political advertising
Mr Berners-Lee wrote, “Political advertising online has rapidly become a sophisticated industry. The fact that most people get their information from just a few platforms and the increasing sophistication of algorithms drawing upon rich pools of personal data means that political campaigns are now building individual adverts targeted directly at users”

He believes that the road to fixing the problem won’t be easy that by demanding the sites you use to protect your information and pressuring the government to punish those that don’t it can improve the internet.

He concluded, “I may have invented the web, but all of you have helped to create what it is today. All the blogs, posts, tweets, photos, videos, applications, web pages and more represent the contributions of millions of you around the world building our online community.”

What do you think of what he said?  Are these major areas of concern for you?