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British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee gave a speech about the future of the internet on Wednesday at MIT. (Photo: Belinda Lawley/Southbank Centre/Flickr/cc)
'From Utopia to Dystopia' and Back Again: Internet Pioneer Tim Berners-Lee Calls for 'New Web' That Reclaims Original Democratic Principles
He dreams of a system "in which people have complete control of their own data; applications and data are separated from each other; and a user's choice for each are separate."
May 03, 2018
As open internet advocates pressure governments and major tech companies to respect the free flow of information online and users' privacy, World Wide Web founder Tim Berners-Lee spoke Wednesday about how his creation has gone "from utopia to dystopia in 29 short years," and how it can be reimagined "to empower the hopes we had for the original web."
Noting that experts say 2018 is first year that more than half the world's population will be connected to the internet, Berners-Lee gave a lecture at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) in which he outlined the underlying principles that guided the web's development in the 1990s and proposed a more positive future than its current path suggests.
"The assumption we made in the '90s was that, if we succeed in keeping an open web and a neutral internet, there would emerge a cornucopia of constructive, collaborative things and the world would become better," Berners-Lee said. Speaking about the prevailing mindset among his colleagues at the time, he said they believed it wouldn't matter "how much junk" was out there.
"It's not email, it's not forced upon you," he said. "You only have to read what you want to read. If there's a lot of bad stuff out there, it's okay because you don't have to read it. What could go wrong?"
Like many inventions, over nearly three decades, the web has evolved in unexpected ways, which has led Berners-Lee to call for the creation of "a new web," or a reimagining of the internet as we know it so that it can live up to its founders' expectations.
Such an endeavor would entail bringing together "the brightest minds from business, technology, government, civil society, the arts, and academia" to establish a system "in which people have complete control of their own data; applications and data are separated from each other; and a user's choice for each are separate."
The overarching goal? "To build a new web which will again empower science and democracy."
"Let's re-de-centralize the web," Berners-Lee declared. "It was designed as a de-centralized system, but now everyone is on platforms like Facebook," he added, detailing how social media can be polarizing to a degree that it threatens democracy.
"We read things from narrower and narrower circles, and meet more people just like us. These people support the views we express, which validates us and makes us feel more and more sure of our opinions, and makes others seem more and more weird," he explained. "Social media maybe fun for the individual but destructive of society."
His comments build on concerns frequently raised by open internet and digital privacy rights advocates regarding how tech companies such as Facebook manage user data and try to control what information users can access--whether through charging premiums to view certain content in the absence of net neutrality protections or acting as a gatekeeper of news.
"This year we're approaching 50 percent of the world being is on the web," Berners-Lee concluded. "We have to continue fighting to keep the internet open and free."
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As open internet advocates pressure governments and major tech companies to respect the free flow of information online and users' privacy, World Wide Web founder Tim Berners-Lee spoke Wednesday about how his creation has gone "from utopia to dystopia in 29 short years," and how it can be reimagined "to empower the hopes we had for the original web."
Noting that experts say 2018 is first year that more than half the world's population will be connected to the internet, Berners-Lee gave a lecture at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) in which he outlined the underlying principles that guided the web's development in the 1990s and proposed a more positive future than its current path suggests.
"The assumption we made in the '90s was that, if we succeed in keeping an open web and a neutral internet, there would emerge a cornucopia of constructive, collaborative things and the world would become better," Berners-Lee said. Speaking about the prevailing mindset among his colleagues at the time, he said they believed it wouldn't matter "how much junk" was out there.
"It's not email, it's not forced upon you," he said. "You only have to read what you want to read. If there's a lot of bad stuff out there, it's okay because you don't have to read it. What could go wrong?"
Like many inventions, over nearly three decades, the web has evolved in unexpected ways, which has led Berners-Lee to call for the creation of "a new web," or a reimagining of the internet as we know it so that it can live up to its founders' expectations.
Such an endeavor would entail bringing together "the brightest minds from business, technology, government, civil society, the arts, and academia" to establish a system "in which people have complete control of their own data; applications and data are separated from each other; and a user's choice for each are separate."
The overarching goal? "To build a new web which will again empower science and democracy."
"Let's re-de-centralize the web," Berners-Lee declared. "It was designed as a de-centralized system, but now everyone is on platforms like Facebook," he added, detailing how social media can be polarizing to a degree that it threatens democracy.
"We read things from narrower and narrower circles, and meet more people just like us. These people support the views we express, which validates us and makes us feel more and more sure of our opinions, and makes others seem more and more weird," he explained. "Social media maybe fun for the individual but destructive of society."
His comments build on concerns frequently raised by open internet and digital privacy rights advocates regarding how tech companies such as Facebook manage user data and try to control what information users can access--whether through charging premiums to view certain content in the absence of net neutrality protections or acting as a gatekeeper of news.
"This year we're approaching 50 percent of the world being is on the web," Berners-Lee concluded. "We have to continue fighting to keep the internet open and free."
As open internet advocates pressure governments and major tech companies to respect the free flow of information online and users' privacy, World Wide Web founder Tim Berners-Lee spoke Wednesday about how his creation has gone "from utopia to dystopia in 29 short years," and how it can be reimagined "to empower the hopes we had for the original web."
Noting that experts say 2018 is first year that more than half the world's population will be connected to the internet, Berners-Lee gave a lecture at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) in which he outlined the underlying principles that guided the web's development in the 1990s and proposed a more positive future than its current path suggests.
"The assumption we made in the '90s was that, if we succeed in keeping an open web and a neutral internet, there would emerge a cornucopia of constructive, collaborative things and the world would become better," Berners-Lee said. Speaking about the prevailing mindset among his colleagues at the time, he said they believed it wouldn't matter "how much junk" was out there.
"It's not email, it's not forced upon you," he said. "You only have to read what you want to read. If there's a lot of bad stuff out there, it's okay because you don't have to read it. What could go wrong?"
Like many inventions, over nearly three decades, the web has evolved in unexpected ways, which has led Berners-Lee to call for the creation of "a new web," or a reimagining of the internet as we know it so that it can live up to its founders' expectations.
Such an endeavor would entail bringing together "the brightest minds from business, technology, government, civil society, the arts, and academia" to establish a system "in which people have complete control of their own data; applications and data are separated from each other; and a user's choice for each are separate."
The overarching goal? "To build a new web which will again empower science and democracy."
"Let's re-de-centralize the web," Berners-Lee declared. "It was designed as a de-centralized system, but now everyone is on platforms like Facebook," he added, detailing how social media can be polarizing to a degree that it threatens democracy.
"We read things from narrower and narrower circles, and meet more people just like us. These people support the views we express, which validates us and makes us feel more and more sure of our opinions, and makes others seem more and more weird," he explained. "Social media maybe fun for the individual but destructive of society."
His comments build on concerns frequently raised by open internet and digital privacy rights advocates regarding how tech companies such as Facebook manage user data and try to control what information users can access--whether through charging premiums to view certain content in the absence of net neutrality protections or acting as a gatekeeper of news.
"This year we're approaching 50 percent of the world being is on the web," Berners-Lee concluded. "We have to continue fighting to keep the internet open and free."
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LATEST NEWS
Analysis Shows Big Corporations Are Using Trump Trade Chaos as 'Cover' to Jack Up Prices
"While Trump's tariffs continue to cause economic upheaval, corporations are exploiting the chaos and working families are left to foot the bill," said one analyst.
Jul 29, 2025
The effects of U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs are winding their way through the American economy, and a new piece of analysis claims that corporate America is using them as "cover" to further jack up prices.
Progressive advocacy group Groundwork Collaborative issued a new report on Tuesday that uses corporate executives' own words to show how many firms are taking advantage of the tariff situation by using it as an all-purpose justification for price increases. The report found many of these executives' admissions through quarterly earnings calls in which they discussed plans to increase costs even if their inputs were not being significantly affected by the tariffs.
Among others, the report cited a statement made earlier this year by Aaron Jagdfeld, the CEO of power generation products manufacturer Generac Power Systems, who said on an earnings call that "even if we have metals that weren't impacted directly by tariffs, the indirect effect of tariffs is that it gives steel producers and the mills and other fabricators... great cover for increased pricing in some cases."
Another executive quoted in the report was Matthew Stevenson, the CEO of auto parts manufacturer Holley, who said that "in the marketplace we have seen price increases well in excess of what we put out into the market" and added that "we've seen increases as high as 30% or more on some categories from some competitors."
Thomas Robertson, the CFO of footwear company Rocky Brands, flat-out said during an earnings call that his company planned to raise prices even as Trump had backed off his most strident trade-war threats with China.
"We certainly welcome a reduction in the Chinese tariffs, but we'll be announcing a price increase here regardless of any changes of the Chinese tariffs over the next week or two to go into effect in June," he said.
While the report names and shames corporations for price increases, Groundwork Collaborative executive director Lindsay Owens did not absolve Trump of responsibility for the situation.
"President Trump's turbulent trade policy has created a perfect storm of market chaos, giving corporations a golden opportunity to jack up prices, pad profit margins, and fleece Americans simply because they can," said Owens. "While Trump's tariffs continue to cause economic upheaval, corporations are exploiting the chaos and working families are left to foot the bill."
The Groundwork Collaborative report was released on the same day that consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble announced that it would be raising prices on roughly one-quarter of its products due to Trump's tariffs. As reported by CNBC, the company said during its quarterly earnings call that it expects "mid-single-digit price increases" on a wide range of products over the next quarter to help offset what it projects to be a $1 billion hit from the tariffs levied against major trading partners such as Canada and China.
A report by the Tax Foundation on Monday estimated that the Trump tariffs would affect 75% of all food imported from other countries, which would add even more burden to American consumers. What's particularly troubling about the food tariffs, the Tax Foundation explained, is that they will fall on products such as bananas and coffee that are simply not capable of being grown on a mass scale in the United States.
"In 2024, the U.S. imported about $221 billion in food products, 74% of which ($163 billion) faced the Trump tariffs," wrote the Tax Foundation. "While these imports currently face tariff rates ranging from 10% to 30%, they will exceed 30% for some countries if the reciprocal tariffs go into effect on August 1. The top five exporters of food products to the U.S., in order, are Mexico, Canada, the E.U., Brazil, and China, accounting for 62% of total U.S. food imports."
'Worst-Case Scenario of Famine' Unfolding in Gaza: IPC Report
"An entirely man-made famine," said one United Nations expert. "The threshold of famine has been reached with widespread starvation and malnutrition across the war-torn enclave including among children."
Jul 29, 2025
The latest alert on Gaza from the world's leading authority on starvation and malnutrition is not a warning of what could come in the besieged enclave, where Israel is still blocking nearly all humanitarian aid, but of the "worst-case scenario" that has already taken hold.
"Famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip," said the Integrated Phase Food Security Classification (IPC), which ranks food security levels on a scale of 1 to 5, in its Tuesday analysis.
Since the IPC's analysis in May, in which it projected that half a million Palestinians in Gaza would reach Phase 5—Catastrophe, defined as an "extreme lack of food"—by September, Israel's bombardments and ground operations have intensified, and people's access to food across the enclave has continued to be "alarmingly erratic and extremely perilous," said the IPC, with more than 1,000 people killed while trying to access food and humanitarian aid.
Between May and July, the proportion of households facing extreme hunger has doubled in Gaza, said the IPC, and the food consumption threshold for famine "has already been passed for most areas of the Gaza Strip." One in three people in Gaza are now going days at a time without consuming any food.
At least 147 people have died from starvation, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
In May, the IPC projected that malnutrition would soon reach critical levels in the governorates of North Gaza, Gaza, and Rafah, with more than 70,000 children under age 5 and 17,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women facing acute malnutrition—and said all of Gaza was facing "a risk of famine."
Tuesday's report, said the International Rescue Committee, was "a devastating but entirely predictable confirmation of what the IRC and the wider humanitarian community have long warned: Israel's restrictions on aid have created the conditions for famine, and the window to prevent mass death is rapidly closing."
More than 20,000 children have been admitted to health centers for treatment for acute malnutrition, with more than 3,000 facing severe malnourishment—the effects of which, said the IRC, can be "lifelong and irreversible" in children who survive.
At least 16 children under 5 have died from starvation since July 17, said the IPC—representing a "rapid increase" in hunger-related deaths that is unlikely to slow down without an end to Israel's blockade and a major ramp-up in the distribution of humanitarian aid—which is currently sitting in thousands of trucks just outside the enclave, as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said Tuesday.
"The worst-case scenario of famine is now happening in Gaza according to the leading world experts," said Philippe Lazzarini, the UNRWA commissioner-general, whose agency has provided aid and services to Palestinians in Gaza for decades. "An entirely man-made famine. The threshold of famine has been reached with widespread starvation and malnutrition across the war-torn enclave including among children. More than 100 people have died due to hunger in the past few weeks alone. The only way to reverse this catastrophe is to flood Gaza with a massive scale up of aid."
An estimated 62,000 metric tons of staple food—not including fresh foods like vegetables and meat—is required to enter Gaza each month to cover the basic needs of the population. In May and June, only 19,900-37,800 metric tons of food entered the enclave. That includes food provided by the U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, where Israeli soldiers have reported that they were directed to shoot at Palestinian civilians trying to access aid.
"People are starving not because food is unavailable, but because access is blocked, local agrifood systems have collapsed, and families can no longer sustain even the most basic livelihoods," said U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization Director-General Qu Dongyu. "We urgently need safe and sustained humanitarian access and immediate support to restore local food production and livelihoods—this is the only way to prevent further loss of life. The right to food is a basic human right."
As international outrage has grown over the images of starving Palestinians in recent days—with even the U.S. corporate media and Democratic establishment finally speaking out against Israel's blocking of humanitarian aid—Israel has paused some fighting and allowed airdrops of food, which aid groups have condemned as a "grotesque distraction" that will provide nowhere near the aid that's needed.
"Israel's genocide has thrown Gaza into the final chaotic stages of a full-blown human catastrophe," said Bushra Khalidi, policy lead for Oxfam in the occupied Palestinian territories. "Airdrops, and brief pauses for relative crumbs of aid, is nowhere near enough to prevent human death at an unimaginable scale. We need urgent forceful diplomacy and whatever restrictive measures are necessary in order to achieve an immediate and unconditional cease-fire, break Israel's siege, and allow humanitarian aid to flow freely and safely throughout Gaza."
As Common Dreams reported Monday, Republican leaders in the U.S. including President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) have shown no signs that they will act on the new data in the IPC report; both continued to dismiss the international condemnation of Israel's blockade in Gaza, repeating debunked claims that Hamas is to blame for the starvation of Palestinians.
The U.S. has continued to provide the Israel Defense Forces with support despite its own laws stating that the U.S. cannot send military aid to countries that block humanitarian aid.
Khalidi said the IPC's new warning of "an unfolding famine—one created entirely by Israel's murderous siege—must finally rouse the international community to act with a clarity and resolve that has so far been beyond it."
"World leaders have been variously divided, complicit, uncaring, and collectively ineffectual in stopping Israel's campaign of erasure," said Khalidi. "In failing to protect the Palestinian people, they have no more excuses left. Ending Israel's genocide of Gaza is a test not only of our world order but of our collective humanity."
Netherlands Bans Two Israeli Cabinet Ministers Who 'Called for Ethnic Cleansing' in Gaza
As mass starvation in Gaza reaches horrific new levels, European governments are attempting to pressure Israel to stop blocking humanitarian aid.
Jul 29, 2025
As Israel's starvation campaign in Gaza accelerates, the Netherlands has banned two far-right Israeli ministers from entering the country after they "repeatedly incited violence against the Palestinian population," and "called for ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip."
The officials—National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—are both members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition, and they have called for Palestinians to be forced out of Gaza in order to make room for Israeli settlers.
In a letter sent to Dutch lawmakers Monday evening, Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp declared the two ministers "persona non grata," adding that "the war in Gaza must stop."
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reports that one in three people in Gaza is going multiple days at a time without eating. Meanwhile, acute malnutrition rates have quadrupled over the past month to the point where nearly 1 in 5 children is at risk of death from hunger.
"People are starving not because food is unavailable, but because access is blocked, local agrifood systems have collapsed, and families can no longer sustain even the most basic livelihoods," said Qu Dongyu, the director-general of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Israel said it allowed 120 aid trucks to enter the strip on Sunday. But according to U.N. aid chief Tom Fletcher, that is "a drop in the ocean" compared to what the population needs to survive.
As starvation in Gaza approached what a U.N.-backed report described Monday as the "worst case scenario," Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have doubled down on calls for maximum torment.
After Netanyahu announced that Israel would allow a meager trickle of aid into the strip following international outcry, Ben-Gvir described Netanyahu as "morally bankrupt" for allowing any food into the strip.
"I think at this stage, the only thing you should be sending to Gaza is shells," Ben-Gvir said. "To bomb, conquer, encourage emigration, and win the war."
Last week, at a conference in the Israeli parliament with far-right Jewish settlers, Smotrich discussed plans "to relocate Gazans to other countries," which he said "will serve as a means of facilitating the settlement of the strip" by Jewish Israelis.
In May, Smotrich said, "Within a few months, we will be able to declare that we have won. Gaza will be totally destroyed," and spoke of "concentrating" its civilians in preparation for their mass exodus from the strip.
"They will be totally despairing, understanding that there is no hope and nothing to look for in Gaza, and will be looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places," he added.
The Netherlands is not the first country to attempt to punish the far-right ministers.
Earlier this month, Slovenia became the first nation to ban Smotrich and Ben-Gvir from entry, citing their incitement of "extreme violence and serious violations of the human rights of Palestinians" with "their genocidal statements."
The United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Norway have also imposed financial sanctions on the two men.
On Tuesday, the European Commission proposed partially suspending Israel from the $100 million Horizon research program, citing the Gaza famine.
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said that unless Israel complies with agreements to allow humanitarian aid access, he would support banning Israel from the prestigious research program and potentially take other "national measures to increase the pressure."
"The government's goal is crystal clear," Schoof said. "The people of Gaza must be given immediate, unfettered, safe access to humanitarian aid."
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