Today, I ran across this article featuring the thoughts of Tim Berners-Lee, the guy that really did “invent the Internet” as we know it. The article is Tim Berners-Lee: we must regulate tech firms to prevent ‘weaponized’ web. The gist of it is that the big players now dominating the web have grown so large and through that hegemony, are now able to significantly control what you see and hear, contrary to the ideas that Berners-Lee envisioned when creating the web, an “open platform that allows anyone to share information, access opportunities and collaborate across geographical boundaries”.
Up to this point, I’ve been working on an overblown article dealing with this theme. Now, it seems like a better tactic to present this in parts and it seems good to hitch my thoughts to this article. I’ll detail issues like problematic paywalls, overbearing apps, paid license to control and manipulate, and a chokehold on infrastructure. More facets may follow. For now, I’ll just add a few thoughts to the excellent content of the Berners-Lee article.
Regulation is a dirty word in the conservative world and certainly in the libertarian world. Why might regulation be a good idea in this instance? To illustrate a possible reason, imagine a world where the web has become the twenty-first century equivalent to the three channel TV world that we lived in up until about the 1970s; a world where 95%+ of all information is delivered by the Internet but only a few global payers dominate all of that access. They don’t have to block alternate news when they can effectively bury it so deep it can never be found. Perhaps alternate media such as print and radio is driven out of business due to collapsed advertising revenue. We’re not there yet, but each of these details represents a particular trend already well established. If you’re familiar with game strategies for the game Monopoly, you may know that if you hold certain key positions, you only have to wait for another 15-20 times around the board before you can cash in. You take some loses, but over time, you rack up more wins until the competition is crushed. It’s math. It’s into this scenario that we may want to rethink the goals and implications of regulation as it applies to the web.
Solon, Olivia. (2018). Tim Berners-Lee: we must regulate tech firms to prevent ‘weaponized’ web. The Guardian.com. Retrieved: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/11/tim-berners-lee-tech-companies-regulations