On: How to Save the Web

[gtirloni]

TL;DR Tim Bernes-Lee wants governments and companies to sign a "Contract for the Web" document outlining a set of principles about the Internet.

"Berners-Lee said the full terms of the contract would be agreed in the coming months, with the objective to finalize it in May 2019 - the 50/50 moment when more than half of the world's population will be online for the first time."

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-portugal-websummit-berner...

[simonh → gtirloni]

Thanks for the succinct sumary, even having read the article it provides a good starting point for discussion in it's content.

This is the bit I'm worried about, alongside Tim's reference to fake news earlier in the article:

>They make it clear that individual citizens have a responsibility to act with compassion and challenge negative behavior they wouldn’t tolerate offline

'They' being governments and institutions, who Tim want to make responsible for policing free speech. If this isn't going to be a horrible, apocalyptically bad mistake "acting with compassion" and "negative behavior" had better be very carefully defined.

The Economist published an article earlier this year by an Ahmadi Muslim arguing that Geert Wilders' cartoon contest for depictions of Mohamed should be banned. I can undertand abhorrence to such an abusive stunt, but as I pointed out in a comment on the article, Ahmadiyas themselves have been persecuted in Pakistan of 'insulting Mohamed' because their beliefs about him contradict Sunni teachings. When one person's religious belief is another person's heresy, you have to be very careful about how you go about 'challenging negative behaviour'. Bear in mind the governments Tim wants to enlist in doing this include Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, etc, etc.

Fake news is a devilishly difficult thing to define, as is negative behaviour. Tread softly Tim!