The world wide web is one of the most astonishing inventions in human history, and Sir Tim Berners-Lee is justifiably proud of his creation. Now used by 5.5bn people, the web has become an indispensable technology for global connectivity and creativity that has been seamlessly woven into our lives. It is hard to imagine how we would function without access to more than 1bn websites, search engines, ecommerce, social networks, podcasts and — Berners-Lee’s favourite online resource — Wikipedia.
Whatever his accomplishments, the British inventor is also acutely anxious about the social ills that have mushroomed online — most notably the erosion of institutional trust, political polarisation and the mental health crisis afflicting the young. To his credit, the 70-year-old Berners-Lee is still fighting to preserve the web’s original promise, which, he argues, has been despoiled by malign users, rapacious corporations and authoritarian governments.