[archive] The name is Web. Semantic Web.

In light of recent developments regarding privacy, mass surveillance and AI, I decided to revive some of my old blog posts. This is a re-print of a post that has been originally published on my blog on 28th of December 2010.

A couple of weeks ago Tim Berness-Lee published a new article for Scientific American, called Long Live the Web. This provoked a number of reactions and interpretations that have been circulating around the Web. Most of them include that accusation that TimBL supposedly made about Facebook and how it is putting the Web in danger. Then, there are people saying that companies who rely on users’ online data to target them and make profit are also a danger to the Web. No matter how hard I tried I simply couldn’t find such claims in the text, and this blog post is about my own impressions about this new milestone article.

Facebook: A danger for the Web?

Facebook is indeed a walled garden, largely limiting the possibility of a user to export its data and migrate elsewhere. It is bad. True. But imagine being on a plane, where they serve you rotten food, ans show targeted commercials all over the plane. You regret ever taking this plane, and you want to switch to a different airline. Can you really do that? While you are using the airline’s service, the plane acts as a walled garden. There is no interchangeability between planes. In order to make money, Facebook needs a certain commitment from the user that he will continue to use the service. The commitment is achieved through the user data. (With planes it is even worse, as the commitment is made by user’s life directly). If you regret choosing Facebook, then you should be able to go out, join another network, but the data that you created there for the period of your life where you used it will be lost. Similar is with the plain (I’m not saying it is a good thing). You cannot get the moments you lost in RyanAir back. You can only choose more wisely next time.

Although worth of every respect, the ideal of horizontal interoperability is, in my opinion, a utopia. By horizontal interoperability, I mean key data exchange between systems that serve the same purpose. On the other hand, vertical data interoperability is a more realistic dream, as there may be a clear economic benefit of one Web system to exchange data with complementary systems. For instance, this happens when I allow a movie recommendation system to see what other movies have I liked on Facebook. Both Facebook and the movie site can benefit from this.

Again, in the actual TimBL’s article it is difficult to find the place where he accuses Facebook of anything. He does say walled gardens are bad. Some of them are even on the limit of being classified as “non Web”, but they are not putting the Web in danger. They are just showing how still young the Web is and how we still need to find ways to use it that are acceptable for all actors in both social and economic way. Facebook, even if problematic in many ways, is not putting the Web in danger. It is pushing it to its limits, expending it, experimenting — searching for a model to provide a useful service and earn money. This pushes some problems to the surface, yes. As any research does.

Accessible user data: A danger for the Web?

There is a part of the article dealing with snooping. Although clearly written, I have seen interpretations in newspaper articles saying how companies that use publicly available user data are putting the Web in danger. This is simply not true. The Web is a large information space. It is normal that there is a lot of data about all of us. The fact that the data is more easily accessible then with legacy media is a plus, not a danger. Many companies use it to provide the users with useful services (like importing contacts, etc.). This is no real danger. TimBL gives a good example of danger “Life insurance companies could discriminate against people who have looked up cardiac symptoms on the Web. Predators could use the profiles to stalk individuals.”. But in this example, the real danger is not in the fact that there is the information about your searches online. The danger is in making a conclusion that since you look for cardiac symptoms, you must be having problems. This inference is simply not sound and making it is pure stupidity. The danger is thus in not in data accessibility, but in stupidity of potential data consumers, and the power that is given to them despite their stupidity.

Stupidity is not a new problem, and certainly not a problem that has anything to do with the Web. We encounter stupidity every day in public administration. You cannot stop people from making incorrect inferences, but you can protect citizens from being victims of stupid inferences made by governments and administration. Currently people in public administration have the power to make the lives of ordinary citizens a hell, based on their (often unsound) inferences. The solution is not to stop people from sharing data about them, from being social and adapting the Web to their use. The solution is only in a true change in society and the way it distributes power. By increasing the accessibility of data online, the Web is bringing this fundamental problem of our society to our attention, and this is one of the reasons why the Web is one of the greatest discoveries ever — because of the impact it yet has to make to the society and its democratization.

It is clear from both examples (as well the rest of the TimBL’s text) that the Web has pushed the boundaries of society, and that the organization of today’s society is struggling to keep up with such a powerful tool that the citizens now have.

Apart from those two topics that made such a confusion, there are, in my opinion, some more interesting parts that give outlook for the future, and underline the truly magnificent nature of the Web:

Separation of levels

Web is not Internet. It runs on top of Internet. This has always fascinated me. It means basically, that we could plug the Web one day on top of something else (but compatible). Like some new Internet that would be run on bacteria instead of electricity. Or something totally unimaginable. Just a taught of it makes the Web so powerful.

Semantic?

10 years have passed from the original Semantic Web article, and in today’s “Web” article, the Web is just the Web. The “Semantic” has dropped off. Two possible reasons exist: (1) the Semantic Web dream is not realistic, and (2) there is no other Web then the Semantic Web. I tend to believe the reason (2) is more realistic. It is hard to imagine the Web advance without typed links, and without the possibility to link everything. Thus a bit of semantics is needed, and is an integral part of the Web vision, as the Social Web is a natural part of the Web.

The fact that the word “Semantic” is not so prominent in the text, makes me think that maybe the technical aspects of the Web and its design are less of a concern today, but the relation of the Web and the society is a true challenge for the next decade of the Web era?

Taken from web.archive.org.