Mar 17, 2021 09:00:00

Web father Tim Berners-Lee claims 'we need a social network where bad things don't happen'

British computer scientist

Tim Berners-Lee is also known as the 'father of the web' for his inventor of the World Wide Web (WWW) when he was at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland. .. In an interview with British media giant The Guardian, Berners-Lee argues that he needs a 'social network that is less likely to cause bad things.'

Tim Berners-Lee:'We need social networks where bad things happen less' | Tim Berners-Lee | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/mar/15/tim-berners-lee-we-need-social-networks-where-bad-things-happen-less

Berners-Lee is said to have invented the WWW on March 12, 1989 when he was at CERN, and in the decades that followed, the WWW spread around the world and became an integral part of everyday life. .. Berners-Lee did not obtain the relevant patent for the publication of the WWW and left the subsequent development in the hands of those who use it.

The World Wide Web Foundation , founded by Berners-Lee in 2008, publishes an annual letter on March 12, 2021, which is WWW's birthday, and a new letter is also published on March 12, 2021. It was announced. Berners-Lee mentions that many talented young people are using the WWW to fight the pandemic and discrimination of the new coronavirus, while about 2.2 billion young people have a stable Internet connection. I pointed out the current situation.

Of these, Berners-Lee specifically mentions the dangers of the 'toxic Internet.' Young people in recent years have been faced with online abuse, misinformation and other dangerous content, especially minority people in terms of race, religion, sexuality, disability and gender. Berners-Lee warned that the harmful Internet had a negative impact on the minds of talented people and was plucking the buds of potential leaders.

In an interview with The Guardian, Berners-Lee pointed out that young people have a poor ability to manage the toxic Internet, making women and LGBTQ people vulnerable. To address these issues, tech companies need to build products and services that respect the rights of young people and should explain services from a youth perspective.

Berners-Lee also mentioned 'how to make bad things less likely to happen on social networks,' and said that fact-checking information on Twitter and Facebook is one way to prevent the platform from deteriorating. He added, 'Why don't you build a'community'curation system like Wikipedia, which is an encyclopedia curation system?', And the platform provides a community that prevents cultural division and deepens the understanding of diverse people. I appealed for the possibility of a system to do.

In recent years, social media has been shown to influence elections and critical political decisions, while '

filter bubbles ' where you can only see what you want to see and socializing in closed communities. It has also been pointed out that people are becoming more polarized due to the 'echo chamber effect, ' in which specific beliefs are repeatedly amplified.

Algorithms such as SNS use AI-based operations trained to maximize engagement in order to keep young people on the platform. But Berners-Lee said, 'If you train AI to maximize teenage engagement, it works well on certain aspects of social networks, but it maximizes the well-being and efficiency of teenagers. Training AI in this way gives completely different results overall, 'he said, arguing that optimization should be done with a focus on the well-being and efficiency of teenagers.

The dominance of giant tech companies is often pointed out as a problem on the modern Internet. Berners-Lee said he was in favor of the proposal to dismantle giant tech companies such as Google and Facebook. 'From Standard Oil and AT & T experience, we know that the U.S. government could dismantle large companies. There is currently a lot of debate about the dismantling of giant tech companies, and that's possible. '

In recent years, Berners-Lee has been working on the open source platform 'Solid ' to counter the centralized control of the Web by large corporations. Solid stores data such as contact books, to-do lists, calendars, music libraries, etc. in the 'Personal Online Data Store (POD)' for all users, and users control the data that allows corporate access. something like. Berners-Lee argues that this mechanism can change the current model of presenting personal information in order to enjoy the services and content provided by large companies.

'Father of the Web' Tim Berners-Lee Announces New Platform 'Solid' --GIGAZINE

Inrupt , a startup that develops Solid, is working on building a Solid-based platform with the BBC , NHS , and NatWestminster Bank, but Solid's deployment is still very limited.

When The Guardian asked about Solid deployment, Berners-Lee said Solid wasn't deploying because it's been spending more time on technical points than real apps and services. Reply. He said it would take another year or two to expand to a wider area. 'We are very positive. We are clearly building a system that is fair, constructive and empowering to our users,' said Berners-Lee, who said the development team was positive about Solid. He said he was working on it.