Posted on 09/15/2008 12:31:36 AM PDT by ConservativeJen
The internet needs a way to help people separate rumour from real science, says the creator of the World Wide Web.
Talking to BBC News Sir Tim Berners-Lee said he was increasingly worried about the way the web has been used to spread disinformation.
Sir Tim was speaking in advance of an announcement about a Foundation he has helped create that he hopes will improve the World Wide Web.
Sir Tim talked to the BBC in the week in which Cern, where he did his pioneering work on the web, turned on the Large Hadron Collider for the first time.
The use of the web to spread fears that flicking the switch on the LHC could create a Black Hole that could swallow up the Earth particularly concerned him, he said. In a similar vein was the spread of rumours that the MMR vaccine given to children in Britain was harmful.
Sir Tim told BBC News that there needed to be new systems that would give websites a label for trustworthiness once they had been proved reliable sources.
"On the web the thinking of cults can spread very rapidly and suddenly a cult which was 12 people who had some deep personal issues suddenly find a formula which is very believable," he said. "A sort of conspiracy theory of sorts and which you can imagine spreading to thousands of people and being deeply damaging."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
They didn't need the Internet to spread that falshood.
But no worries about the MSM spreading disinformation via traditional outlets. Nope, nothing to worry about there.
It was my understanding that the web was a contrivance of the U.S. military and science centers throughout the U.S. This reference to Cern is the second in the last week that I have seen claim that efforts there developed the WWW. Is that a new cock and bull contrivance, or are they right?
It’s called the MARKETPLACE of ideas.
Is anyone surprised the eurotrash want the same central planning for the internet they want to apply to everything else in their command-and-control model of the world?
“Seems harmless-but remember, the European news sources are ‘shocked’ that Sarah Palin called BS on ‘Global Warming’-I see the potential for them to use this in an attempt to shut down the debunkers of the ‘Global Warming’ scam”
Thats what I thought when I read the story. Shut down websites of debunkers so that only the so-called “truth” about gw is allowed on the web.
Interesting.......Stalin and Mao were also worried about people being simply too dumb to distinguish between freedom and tyranny......so they installed a system that could control freedom of information, ha ha!
The Internet was a contrivance of the U.S. defense agencies - DARPA. The WWW came much later. Sir Tim Berners-Lee was instrumental in the latter.
well that is rich, i watched the global warming piece on the BBC last night. It was the most disgraceful one sided hit job i have ever seen. outrageous...they have a bloody neck running something like this
its the difference between the “Internet” and the World Wide Web”. The US military was essentially the genesis of the “Internet” in the form of Usenet(an unlimited message board, in essence). Sir whatshisface there came up with the concept of Hyper Text Transport Protocol or HTTP which enabled the World Wide Web.....If my slightly sleep deprived brain is functioning reliably.
Yes, they are right with regard to the WWW. It is the exponential advances since said contrivance, IMO, that make up the web we understand and use today. For example, if Microsoft and/or Apple didn’t develop the software/hardware to make home computing a more user-friendly experience, therefore placing computers in nearly every home, the WWW would be a different experience altogether.
Thanks for the responses folks. I appreciate the comments. Between the three of you, I think I got my answer.
So, this Brit is saying “Vee haf vays of making you believe OUR version of the truth!”
Nice of him to be so interested in our well-being and wanting to cut off information HE thinks is “illegitimate.”
As to who gets credit for the web: both USA and CERN (which is in Geneva). The USA had the hardware and a simple system (sort of like FTP) in place, but then Tim Berners-Lee over at CERN created the hyper-linking system we now use to jump from link to link. It might be fair to say that USA developed the internet and Tim Berners-Lee created the WWW part.
I even have a t-shirt which can be bought at CERN which says, “CERN: home of the world-wide web”
Allen
(who is currently in Geneva)
That would be like trying to make sure no one tells a lie over the phone.
Short and quick explanation The INTERNET was originally a development of the US military (DARPA) I believe who used it to communicate data internally and with colleges and research facilities. The first rendition was a mainly text based user interface.
Tim came along and applied Hyper links so that the major it of stuff could now be graphical and finding out about something written on a page could be referenced via hyper links like continual footnotes and citations.
The Hyper links could be anywhere on the web that would allow linking. Those could be other sites, the same site, of a different location in the same document.
He helped to develop the first browser which was a shell that allowed the pages and linked pages to view properly.
Thus we have the web as you see it today.
But algore really made it all happen.
Thank you folks. I appreciate the additional comments from the two of you.
Maybe I’m being simplistic, but I believe the worst offender of the majority of the bunkum that gets ‘blessed’ on the Web is Google, and other entities like Wikipedia. There are many ways in which the web-crawling spyder-bots can be attracted or kept out of specific pages, and the nefarious scripters know how to utilize them.
Always double/triple check any web source.
I guess Sir Tim Berners-Lee didn’t get the memo but Al Gore invented the internet!
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