Tim Berners-Lee Wants You to Create An Internet Bill of Rights

[MarlaDesat]

Tim Berners-Lee Wants You to Create An Internet Bill of Rights

The man who invented the internet has used the 25th anniversary of the World Wide Web to launch Web We Want, a campaign for global adoption of an "Internet Users' Bill of Rights".

Sir Tim Berners-Lee is a British scientist, and 25 years ago he proposed World Wide Web Foundation [http://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html], Web We Want will work to raise public education about open internet, support organizations who are fighting for an open web, and provide a small grant program that can quickly provide resources to organizations and movements.

The overarching goal of the World Wide Web Campaign is that everyone, everywhere should be able to participate in an open, universal Web. The campaign has five principles:

Affordable access to a universally available communications platform
The protection of personal user information and the right to communicate in private
Freedom of expression online and offline
Diverse, decentralized and open infrastructure
Neutral networks that don't discriminate against content or users

Berners-Lee launched the campaign with a series of interviews, including an spying potential [http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2091d4/i_am_tim_bernerslee_i_invented_the_www_25_years/] of the Xbox Kinect), the Web We Want campaign has a lot of work ahead of it.

Source: Gigaom [http://gigaom.com/2014/03/12/25-years-after-inventing-the-web-tim-berners-lee-invites-users-to-help-draft-global-bill-of-rights/]


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[LordMonty]

This needs support, a good man trying to lead a good initiative! Will keep an eye on this and hope he's as smart as he seems, as he'll need to be to pull this off to any degree.

 

[Nokturos]

We all know Al Gore invented the internet. Get this fraud out of here!

 

[Barbas]

We all know Al Gore invented the internet. Get this fraud out of here!

Indeed. The vice-presidency is the highest office in the land and it must be respected!

 

[Nimcha]

But we don't have an internet constitution. Why would we need a Bill of Rights? I find this whole initiative noble but ultimately delusional.

 

[Meinos Kaen]

But we don't have an internet constitution. Why would we need a Bill of Rights? I find this whole initiative noble but ultimately delusional.

Not to mention that any bill of rights would be violated on a daily basis by governments anyway, just hidden in more secrecy, as well as the fact that a long line of countries would never officially abide by it or support it in any way.

It might be better not to have this.

Exactly how does Governments Would Violate = BETTER not to have it?

 

[Trivun]

But we don't have an internet constitution. Why would we need a Bill of Rights? I find this whole initiative noble but ultimately delusional.

The actual term that Sir Tim used himself was 'an Internet Magna Carta' - something which was notable for NOT having any kind of constitution to back it up, but that the king at the time was still expected to abide by. The use of the term 'Bill of Rights' is basically something that has been added in by journalists to describe this in an easier to digest fashion, especially considering as a Brit Sir Tim wouldn't use that kind of term anyway, I'd imagine.

For the record, I support this 100%, but I also as a realist know it'll be a tough slog. Also, The Escapist is a bit late on this one - I first saw this on the BBC News website yesterday morning (UK time)...

 

[LordMonty]

But we don't have an internet constitution. Why would we need a Bill of Rights? I find this whole initiative noble but ultimately delusional.

Not to mention that any bill of rights would be violated on a daily basis by governments anyway, just hidden in more secrecy, as well as the fact that a long line of countries would never officially abide by it or support it in any way.

It might be better not to have this.

Exactly how does Governments Would Violate = BETTER not to have it?

Yea on this idea with Trivun, you guys are so easy with your freedoms... so we have no real freedom thus we should excpet that and surrender. The bill of human ruights works without nation so should this, its not a giant leap to expect certain personal freedoms over the internet and if governments cross those lines let the legal system have a go at inforcing where the lines of liberty really fall.

 

[Living_Brain]

I just realized something mildly sad; The "www" is on its way out, at least visually. Most sites now don't need the www in front because of how browsers work nowadays. Our kids will not recognize that familiar term.

 

[Magmarock]

Yes Yes Yes, gimmi gimmi gimmi. We need this yesterday. This bill by the sounds of it will very much gives us the net we want. This bills affect on sites such as youtube and the escapist can only be positive.

 

[Andrew_C]

He didn't invent the Internet you idiots. He invented the World Wide Web, which is part of the Internet. The Internet started as a DARPA project in the late 70's. And Al Gore was co-sponsor of just one of many funding bills for it in the 70's 80's and 90's

Do some basic research. Even Wackypedia gets that right.

EDIt spleng

 

[RoonMian]

I would already be content with those five points. But those five points are already being pissed away right now... -_-

And please, nobody tell Big_Willie_Styles about this thread...

 

[Hammartroll]

But we don't have an internet constitution. Why would we need a Bill of Rights? I find this whole initiative noble but ultimately delusional.

Not to mention that any bill of rights would be violated on a daily basis by governments anyway, just hidden in more secrecy, as well as the fact that a long line of countries would never officially abide by it or support it in any way.

It might be better not to have this.

No constitution, or any law, would hold any value if the public at large didn't feel the ideas they represented were worth keeping. The luxuries prevented by them would gradually be retaken by tyrants, as there is always a motivation among tyrants to do, and without any motivation among the public to stop them a constitution will simply be a piece of paper.

A constitution acts as nothing more than a red line who's crossing deserves severe retribution lest a people see the deterioration of a state of society they agreed, at least at one time, they wanted to preserve.

This internet bill of rights is a good thing if only to plant the idea of internet freedom in peoples minds.


At a protest, a cry could go out: "but that goes against the Internet Bill of Rights!"
And a head of state could reply: "I do not recognize the Internet Bill of Rights, it bears no value."
To which the crowd in unison replies: "IT DOES TO US!"
and thus it must be recognized

 

[Saulkar]

Give us some sugar baby. We need something like this combined with greater public awareness to preserve one of humanities most powerful tools.

 

[Strazdas]

Neutral networks that don't discriminate against content or users

See, we got a problem here. Because im sure he will say no to sites selling children pornography or helping people find hitmen - thus discriminating against content and users.

The internet was known to be actually free at one point, but then the government got its hands in it and now its "Free as long as you obey to our rules".

 

[FalloutJack]

I would already be content with those five points. But those five points are already being pissed away right now... -_-

And please, nobody tell Big_Willie_Styles about this thread...

Uhhh...Big Willie was banned. Can I direct your call to some other highly-vocal user with unpopular opinions?

OT: Someone go tell the guy to hit all the big service providers with big sticks until they get rid of unnecessary data-caps for their service. I got friends who can't look at a wiki page - A WIKI PAGE - when they want sometimes.

 

[RoonMian]

I would already be content with those five points. But those five points are already being pissed away right now... -_-

And please, nobody tell Big_Willie_Styles about this thread...

Uhhh...Big Willie was banned. Can I direct your call to some other highly-vocal user with unpopular opinions?

OT: Someone go tell the guy to hit all the big service providers with big sticks until they get rid of unnecessary data-caps for their service. I got friends who can't look at a wiki page - A WIKI PAGE - when they want sometimes.

I have no problems with unpopular opinions. I just have problems with people straight up lieing or twisting facts. For example saying that not being able to look at wiki pages because wikipedia doesn't pay up for bandwidth was "net neutrality" because the invisible hand of the market.

That is what I have a problem with.

 

[FalloutJack]

I would already be content with those five points. But those five points are already being pissed away right now... -_-

And please, nobody tell Big_Willie_Styles about this thread...

Uhhh...Big Willie was banned. Can I direct your call to some other highly-vocal user with unpopular opinions?

OT: Someone go tell the guy to hit all the big service providers with big sticks until they get rid of unnecessary data-caps for their service. I got friends who can't look at a wiki page - A WIKI PAGE - when they want sometimes.

I have no problems with unpopular opinions. I just have problems with people straight up lieing or twisting facts. For example saying that not being able to look at wiki pages because wikipedia doesn't pay up for bandwidth was "net neutrality" because the invisible hand of the market.

That is what I have a problem with.

*Unsure if that was a dig at me*

Could I get some clarification on that?

I simply heard from a friend of mine that his Verizon service had a data-cap and that, for instance, when he's running high on it that he can't look into youtube videos, wiki pages, and other things. And then, I learned that other people I know had similar problems, because other providers were starting to do same.