How to Fix What Has Gone Wrong With the Internet
The internet was meant to make the world a less centralised place, but the opposite has happened. Ludwig Siegele explains why it matters, and what can be done about it.
Has the internet failed? Sitting in his office at Christ Church, an Oxford college, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, has his answer ready: “I wouldn’t say the internet has failed with a capital F, but it has failed to deliver the positive, constructive society many of us had hoped for.”
Two decades ago he would have scoffed at the idea that the internet and the web would do anything but make this planet a better place. In his autobiography written in the late 1990s, “Weaving the Web”, he concluded: “The experience of seeing the web take off by the grassroots effort of thousands gives me tremendous hope that…we can collectively make our world what we want.”
Until a few years ago most users, asked what they thought of the internet, would have rattled off a list of the things they love about it — that it lets them stay in touch with friends, provides instant access to a huge range of information, sparks innovation, even helps undermine authoritarian regimes. And in some ways it has been a tremendous success. Just…
