The Web at 20!

An article we had to read online for Comm entitled, "The Web at 20" described and showed how the world wide web had changed and grown since its genesis in 1990. One of the most prominent arguments I found in the article was that the author Tim Berners- Lee pointed out just how central the Internet is in our lives.

The Internet, as he says, is OURS. At first, I thought that was a weird thing to say and an even harder concept to grasp.  However, he is right. Since its creation, the Internet has become one of the most 'free' and most accessible mediums in the world. It is open to just about anyone and everyone, and it is shaped by what we want it to be. I feel like that is such power.  We are able to communicate like no one had ever imagined before. He expressed the need to keep the web free of restrictions and undesirable influence, he even says that the web has become an ideal democracy. The possibilities of the web are endless, just like the ideal for societies were at one time.  And yet we take it for granted, as Berners -Lee put it, we treat it like electricity, and we expect it to be there and bend to our will when we want it to. 

But the web is in danger...

And that might be the scariest thing that any of us, all over the world will experience. Control, filters, censors he says threaten the way the Internet is and applies to us all, and I agree.

For once in our history, our whole history of the world, we have finally found something that enhances our cooperation, and formulates a foundation of peace. People from all over the world can disagree about beliefs or culture, but we can all use the Internet and through it, we have sense of being 'one' and actually live together in some sort of harmony. We not speak the same languages or have much in common, but the web brings us together in a hodge podge. 

We must remember that the web will always be what we make it, all of us. Not just politicians, not just business owners, or officials, but common people as well.


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