Tim Berners-Lee on Blogging And The Web

neiljt writes "The BBC2 is to air an interview by Marc Lawson with Tim Berners-Lee this evening, where TBL offers his thoughts on the Read/Write web. A transcript of the interview is available from BBC News." From the article: "I feel that we need to individually work on putting good things on [the web], finding ways to protect ourselves from accidentally finding the bad stuff, and that at the end of the day, a lot of the problems of bad information out there, things that you don't like, are problems with humanity. This is humanity which is communicating over the web, just as it's communicating over so many other different media. I think it's a more complicated question we have to; first of all, make it a universal medium, and secondly we have to work to make sure that that it supports the sort of society that we want to build on top of it. "

Comments

What Question would you have asked Sir TBL?

[Ohmster]

Wish the interviewer had asked more punchy, specific questions that don't lead to general, global "we are the world" type of answers. I suppose Sir TBL did the he could under the circumstances. His best answer IMHO was to the question what would you want the web to be in thirty years: "When it's 30, I expect it to be much more stable, something that people don't talk about." Reading the interview got me thinking, what question would I have asked him? Mine would be the one I asked on my blog today "What is your most wished for Firefox feature?" * A good blogging question might have been "What's missing in the way blogging is implemented today?" * Answer to most wished for firefox feature at http://mp.blogs.com/mp/2005/08/s_4.html

Re:What Question would you have asked Sir TBL?

[Anonymous Coward]

With all due respect to TBL (and seriously, this isn't meant to disparage him in any way), why should I be concerned with his answers to general questions about the web? Certainly, it might be interesting to know where he sees his invention going and the impact it's having, but that doesn't mean his answers are particularly insightful or relevant. TBL is a computer scientist who saw interesting possibilities in a new technique called hypertext. Certainly, his speculations and subsequent implementation changed the world. But he's no more qualified to comment on the social impact of the web than anyone else.

Re:What Question would you have asked Sir TBL?

[NickFortune]

I think the interesting thing lies not in Tim's answers, but in the tenor of the questions asked.

Mark Lawson seems to have been desperate to elicit some response along the lines of

The web is a terrible, terrible place! It was supposed to be all kittens and fluffy bunnies and instead all they use it for is identity theft and pornography! It wasn't meant to be like this!.

I could almost start formulating consipiracy theories about laying groundwork for increased censorship, except that, the tenor of the questions is nothing unusual for a newsnight interview.

Respect is due to Sir Tim for keeping his head and not rising to the bait.

Still, the political nature of the questions can be seen as reflecting the increasingly politicised nature of the web. I wonder if he's in for more of this sort of flack in the future.

Re:What Question would you have asked Sir TBL?

[maxwell demon]

Indeed, a very telling question is the following:

You must reflect though on the law of unintended consequences because it wasn't remotely ever your intention when you started on this that so much of the web would be given over to sexual exhibitionists masturbating in their bedrooms with webcams. Do you ever have bad moments about that?

Now imagine someone would ask Graham Bell:

You must reflect though on the law of unintended consequences because it wasn't remotely ever your intention when you started on this that so much of the phone system would be given over to sexual exhibitionists masturbating in their bedrooms with phone sex. Do you ever have bad moments about that?

Wouldn't that just sound silly to everyone?

What the fuck is this?

[Anonymous Coward]

What the fuck does this quote mean?

I think it's a more complicated question we have to; first of all, make it a universal medium, and secondly we have to work to make sure that that it supports the sort of society that we want to build on top of it.

We already have a medium...it's called the Internet...and every standard that runs over it, be it HTTP, FTP, IRC, etc.

Who the hell is this "we" shit? Who is to determine what gets built on it? Him? The enligtened Philosopher-Kings of ancient times?

I hate to say it, but Humanity has taken over, and it ain't going back to the good ol' days of Universities, Researchers, and the Military. Get over it.

Re:What the fuck is this?

[rthille]

I think the "'we' shit" (interesting choice of nouns there, given my interpretation of the 'we' part) is _humanity_. There are certain things that 'we' (at least the majority) have decided. Things like molesting children == bad. That may not extend to all human societies but I'd bet it goes for better than 95% of humanity. Of course the definitition of children varies quite a bit, from 21yo to first menstration.

Anyway, I think TBL was saying that just like when a group of people get together and try to create a government which will support their ideals, the population of the internet needs to come together to ensure that the internet supports their ideals.

the Read/Write web?

[yecrom2]

TBL offers his thoughts on the Read/Write web

"It's very hard to have the Read part of the Read/Write web without the Write part."

What in the heck is the Read/Write Web?

The junk is hard to avoid

[genericacct]

I highly agree that sorting past what we don't want to find is a challenge still. We all know spam is a war, but we have better tools and systems now than ever before. I just wish I could search google/froogle without finding a ton of messageboard, blog, and ebay "spam". I think search technology has a lot left to do.

Excuse me?

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

finding ways to protect ourselves from accidentally finding the bad stuff

What kind of 'bad stuff' is he talking about? Child porn? Regular porn? Photos of mangled dead bodies? Opposing political views? Goatse?

Be specific.

There is a difference...

[LexNaturalis]

between having the ability to write, and having the ability to be READ. I'd love to say that my website is as popular as Slashdot, but I can't. Actually, if it were as popular as slashdot, my bandwidth would be gone in a day (so please no slashdottings!!). I think I have something useful to say, and most people who make websites (but obviously not all) think they have something useful and valuable to say. The problem is that most people live in anonymity in real life and online. Google has helped create an online prom in which prom king and prom queen are chosen based on "popularity" and not necessarily any specific quality about them. It's the same with websites... some of the most intellectually stimulating and factually sound websites I've found do not show up anywhere near the top of a Google search relating to those sites. I don't have any answers on how to fix this problem (I perceive it as a problem, anyway), but I do think something needs to be done. Oftentimes the least reliable sources are touted as truth.

Re:Lame

[Poromenos1]

He talks about that in his book, he says that he didn't make the web to make money, and that he doesn't mind that people made much money off it. At least that's what I remember, it's been a while since I read it. It's called Weaving the Web, I think.

Re:I really don't like the words "blog" and "blogg

[DogDude]

There's a huge difference between a "Writer" and a "blogger". "Writer" generally connotes some kind of skill or aptitude towards writing. Not everybody who posts intriguing details of a LAN party is a writer. In fact, most people are NOT writers. Anybody, though, can be a blogger. In fact, a "blogger" generally connotes somebody narcissistic who is NOT a writer. Stephen King, John Steinbeck, Hunter S. Thompson, and others are "writers". John224@aol.com is a "blogger".

Re:The road to sollipsism?

[linzeal]

Humanity is mostly cattle to be fed upon in times of emergency. Stirring cattle to imagination is a pointless extravagance when most of them are incable of original thought to begin with. The masses have been complained at by the elite time and again for lack of individualism but radical individualism is bedlam. Let the 40 year old father of 2 keep daydreaming he is fucking Claudia Schiffer when he bangs his 30k in plastic surgery trophy wife, drinking his canned swill in his A/C half a million dollar McMansion so that he can get up in the morning and do a job that none of us could dream doing, being middle management.