Tim Berners-Lee, the father of the Internet, has long bemoaned how major tech companies have been monopolising the web and governments have been censoring it.
Now, he's launched a campaign to free the web, holding major groups to certain etiquette online.
Tim Berners-Lee - Reuters
As part of his #ForTheWeb campaign, Berners-Lee is persuading governments, companies, and individuals to sign a 'Contract for the Web'. It stipulates a set of basic principles that signatories need to adhere to in order to preserve the freedom of the Internet.
Berners-Lee who built the predecessor to the Internet back in 1989, says he's noticed things going wrong with his vision for the world wide web, but he's retained a sense of optimism. That is, until the recent instances of social media data leaks, fake news problems and online hate speech have shattered it entirely. He's not sitting back and whining though, he's trying to actively bring about change.
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Berners-Lee says he wants to rebuild trust online, and make Internet access universally fair and affordable. "The web is at a crucial point," Berners-Lee said in a speech at the Web Summit conference in Lisbon on Monday. "We need a new Contract for the Web, with clear and tough responsibilities for those who have the power to make it better."
File photo - Reuters
So far, he's received at least some level of endorsement from more than 50 organizations, including France's government, Internet Sans Frontieres and major companies like Google and Facebook. They've agreed to the starting principles, and the full set of terms will be agreed upon in the coming months.
Berners-Lee expects to finalize the contract by May 2019, when experts say will be the tipping point that more than half the world's population will be online for the first time.