The Web Needs Independence

Tim Berners-Lee said, "Now, 25 years on, Web users are realizing they need human rights on the Web ... We need independence of the Web for democracy, we need independence of the Web to be able to support the press, we need independence of the Web in general. It's becoming very important to sort out all that." If spying is one threat, Berners Lee believes censorship is another. He recalls the situation in Egypt, where the Internet was cut off at the height of anti-government protests in January 2011. "For a lot of people that was the first time they realized you could turn it off, and they asked themselves, who could turn it off for me?" he says, adding that "turning off the Internet is more or less a signal that the regime does not trust its citizens and that the regime is on the way out." The Web We Want campaign will rely on mass mobilization across industries, nations and activist bodies to succeed, but Berners-Lee is confident of fostering a spirit of cooperation. He has seen it before and considers it the Web's greatest accomplishment. The webs needs to be free for web development, application development, and all the users. On the other hand, this brings up the question of anonymity. Can we really have people having saying whatever without taking responsibility for it? When does it cross a line?