Online freedom under threat

I hope we will use the Net to cross barriers and connect cultures.—Tim Berners-Lee

On November 23, British inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, warned that “Internet surveillance by British and US spying agencies has posed a threat to online freedom and the future of democracy.”

Describing the activities by the US and UK spying agencies as “dysfunctional and unaccountable,” Berners-Lee spoke of the importance of protecting whistle-blowers like Edward Snowden.

If you started using the Internet within the last 20 years, you probably haven’t heard much about Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the World Wide Web.

In March 1989, Tim Berners-Lee submitted a proposal to his boss at CERN for a new kind of “information management” system. His boss called it “vague but interesting,”

According to the Internet Hall of Fame (IHF), over the next few years, the proposal spawned the Hypertext Transfer Protocol—HTTP, the basis for the World Wide Web.

“The major concern is always that some large organization gets to control the Net, whether it’s a country or a corporation,” Berners-Lee says.

“But over the last few years, the public in general have become much more aware of this issue. I used to feel I was alone in a void saying: ‘You have to make sure no one controls the Internet.’ But not anymore.”

The activity on the Internet that depends on the Web we now take for granted. One can’t help wondering what the Internet would be like today without Microsoft or Apple software dependence on the Web.

The Web has taken the use of the Internet from plain black and white text to an impressive mixture of graphics and text. The Web enables users to find documents on the Internet that contain a variety of formats, not only photos and graphics, but also audio and video.

Because the Web is so convenient for one to get the information one wants, it has become an indispensable friend to many users.

We can use it to connect every single person on Earth, giving people the ability, as users and contributors, to improve their lives and communities.

Think of the search tools, like Yahoo and Google, and the video programs as well as the social networking attraction of millions of users.

Berners-Lee’s invention has advanced the means and tools of communication more than anything since the invention of the Gutenberg press.

Comments from Tim Berners-Lee that reflect some of his distinctive thoughts about the Web provide a worthy tribute:

In many ways, people growing up with the Web . . . take the power at their fingertips for granted.

There was a time when people felt the Internet was another world, but now people realise it’s a tool that we use in this world.

When something is such a creative medium as the Web, the limits to it are our imagination.

The amount of control you have over somebody if you can monitor Internet activity is amazing.

I’ve had thank-you emails from people whose lives have been saved by information on a medical Website or who have found the love of their life on a dating Website.

The Web as I envisaged it, we have not seen yet. The future is still so much bigger than the past.

Without doubt, the Berners-Lee invention of the World Wide Web was the most consequential development in human communication since Gutenberg invented the printing press almost 600 years ago. Let’s keep it free.

Paul Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. He’s a weekly Op-Ed columnist for the GULF DAILY NEWS . Dr. Balles is also Editorial Consultant for Red House Marketing and a regular contributor to Bahrain This Month.