Tim Berners-Lee

The inventor of the world wide web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has launched a new initiative with the bold aim of transforming the web for the better, avoiding what he sees as the very real risk of it becoming a "digital dystopia".

The Contract for the Web is the work of 80 organizations and sets out a number of key principles that will help to bring global internet access while simultaneously fighting problems such as fake news, privacy invasion and political manipulation. In all, there are just nine principles underpinning the vision; three for governments, three for companies, and three for citizens.

Tim Berners-Lee is famous for inventing the world wide web, and now he's ready to take things to the next level with an ambitious open source project called Solid. Noting that the web has become "an engine of inequity and division", Berners-Lee wants to restore the power and agency of individuals online and move the balance of power away from "powerful forces who use it for their own agendas".

Solid is not a completely new venture. Berners-Lee has been working on it for some time, and it is built on the existing web as we know it. Where it differs is that "it gives every user a choice about where data is stored, which specific people and groups can access select elements, and which apps you use". This is about decentralizing the web.

Today marks the 29th anniversary of the world wide web, and as has become traditional, its inventor has penned a letter for the occasion. In it, Sir Tim Berners-Lee calls for regulation of the web to prevent it from being "weaponized".

His letter suggests that "the web is under threat," and highlights a number of problems that exist, including the digital divide, privacy, fake news and the dominance of social media. He suggests that a regulatory framework could be needed to prevent a handful of companies from "weapon[zing] the web at scale."