1997: TIM BERNERS-LEE warns the WEB could DIVIDE US | HARDtalk | Past Predictions | BBC Archive

"Do you think it's the creation of a monster?"
Father of the internet, Tim Berners-Lee is interviewed by Tim Sebastian about the World Wide Web.
He discusses its origin, the fact he didn't make any money from his invention and the risks of extremist 'cultural potholes' developing online, whereby people would only be exposed to views the same as their own.
Clip taken from HARDtalk, originally broadcast on BBC World News, Wednesday 10 December, 1997.
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[@nigefal]

Tim Berners Lee predicting 'group think' on the internet. He is seems to be a God in tech circles. As I did a basic computer module in college, and there were many in class in awe of the lecturer simply because she knew Tim well!

[@folksurvival]

Anyone with a brain could have predicted that.

[@GoWithHelen]

My maths teacher knew Tim well. She was his mother.

[@phillipecook3227]

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't he invent something called the World Wide Web or something which is now used by a few people? What did you invent?

[@edonslow1456]

The real damage done by the internet was anti-intellectualism. People argue (they would call it "debate") endlessly based on intuition rather than knowledge and expertise. Arguments that were settled and well understood in the writings of academics and authorities resurface, simply because people who are unaware of those works stumble across an issue again, believe it to be new, and overestimate their ability to fully grasp the subject. There was a time where, when faced with an intellectual or political challenge, we'd reach for books, and we'd consult with experts, or at least educated and trained people in conventional media would act as a proxy. Now we yell at each other in the comments section. Politicians are now taking advantage of this to construct entire alternate realities, because in the absence of experts, they know people will now choose the reality that they intuitively feel or want to be true rather than the one that is objectively true.

[@cornishhh]

Define an expert.

[@edonslow1456]

@@cornishhh for any given subject there is a body written material and evidence, that's the product of research, experiments, studies and peer review. Captured knowledge. Experts understand and can refer to that body of materials. Laymen do not.

[@cornishhh]

@@edonslow1456 I'd agree that that is the case for empirical science, but even that has to be open to challenge from reasoned argument. For more interpretive subjects, people become "Experts" by reading books by people who's opinions are fashionable at the time, and passing exams based on these writings. The exams are generally marked by people with the same fashionable opinions. Funding from commercial interests further distorts the process.

[@edonslow1456]

@@cornishhh I'm talking more broadly about academia. My comment was referring to people making arguments for and against this without understanding the existing academic concepts. Even if you're bringing a challenge to established norms, you still need to understand what those norms are. To use an example, flat Earthers will make arguments without an understanding of any of the physics, or history that leads to the knowledge that the earth is round. That's an example from science, but it applies everywhere. Political and economic systems are well understood, yet we all debate them in the comments sections as if we're the experts. That's where you get "fashionable" ideas. In actual academia you get reasoned and evidenced debate. Trans issues for example, and ideas on gender you'll find are very different in academia to how they play out on the internet. The "debate" has already been happening for quite some time. Then there's a separate, emotive one that's being exploited on all sides of the political spectrum, in public.

[@carlostheghost2793]

​@@cornishhhNot Joe Rogan 🤣

[@Chicharrera.]

I'm 53 and still remember the very moment I heard about the internet. It was February 1995, I was 24 and on a tour of the TAFE library. The librarian conducting the tour had us stop by a single, stand-alone computer. She briefly pointed to it and said "And that's our internet computer." I thought to myself. "Internet? What's that?" I was already very familiar with computers. In 1985 my parents brought my older brother a Microbee personal computer. I learned to code in C+ that year. Then, when I completed a clerical traineeship in 1989 I had to learn on Microsoft PC's. Today, my brother is a computer programmer/systems analyst for the Australian Stock Exchange. His first born son followed in his footsteps and is a programmer for Qantas Australia. 1995 was also the year I got my first mobile phone. It wasn't much back then. Just a brick with a thin black strip for a screen with enough room for only neon green numbers and letters and nothing more. I remember there were five of us in the car, all taking turns on this new thing called a mobile phone. Memories are a wonderful thing.

[@esarab21]

this is so awesome, thank you for sharing.

[@schmiggidy]

Thx for sharing. I also distinctly recall the first time I bumped into the idea of the Internet in action. It was also 1995, I was 20, finishing out my Junior year in college at Chapman University in SoCal. My roommate at the time was an incredible introvert, prone to vanishing for extended periods of time. After a month or so of rooming together that Fall, I asked him where he was for 16+ hours every single day. His eyes lit up at the question. He said, "Did you know that our campus library has several computer connected to the Internet? I'm using a program called IRC [Internet Relay Chat] to type in real time with other people all over the world." I just stared at him in stunned disbelief. "You mean when you're not in class, you immediately head to the library, sit in a chair, look at a screen, and spend countless hours there typing words to people you've never met." A big smile crept across his face. "Yep!" His name was Kirk Villeneuve. Pretty cool dude. I should google him and see what he's up to these days.

[@mickmickymick6927]

Wow that jumper looks cozy.

[@daviecrocket9160]

Wool that is

[@MashLimit]

"Threats to the Internet, such as companies or governments that interfere with or snoop on Internet traffic, compromise basic human network rights." - Tim Berners-Lee, 2010.

[@positivelynegative9149]

The internet isn't inherently bad, but it gives humans the ability to greatly accelerate our tendency to self-destruct...

[@matthewarnold5531]

Just like nuclear power. With great power comes great responsibility.

[@bohome34602]

Which is why it should be restricted. It isn't a human right.

[@matthewarnold5531]

@@bohome34602 and who should restrict the internet, given that it's impossible anyway due to the very nature of its original construction to be resilient to restrictions from nuclear attacks. We see how internet restrictions in Russia, China and North Korea, together with the right wing Murdoch press in the UK, allow authoritarian rulers to control the people of the country to be compliant to their abusive power and control, so what makes you think anyone with total control over the internet would be any different? Authoritarian humans gonna be crap towards others, and with great power comes even more repression towards others.

[@lucasm3879]

It brings out both the best and worst in humanity. To get deep about it, humanity is yin and yang - you can’t have light without dark, and vise versa. That’s why there will always be war and peace, love and hate... some things I love about the internet - the sharing of knowledge, easy access to information, art and positive communication with anyone around the world... then there’s social media hate, trolling, plus worse on the dark corners... pedophilia, animal torture etc. I think in the future it should be probably be more legally regulated, even though I’m all for free speech.

[@Harry-fk5of]

@@lucasm3879 So much to love about the internet, and some to hate.

[@pete4508]

Well this aged well

[@SoSo-li6dn]

So rare it is that someone so technical could be so poetic and articulate.

[@SoSo-li6dn]

timbl writes poetry too - most tech guys dont think this way@@igakoga2481

[@zgaming6806]

Elon Musk

[@SoSo-li6dn]

lol, no@@zgaming6806

[@RuthvenMurgatroyd]

​@@igakoga2481 A lot of technical people aren't especially good with words or communicating to the laymen audience.

[@SleepingHowl]

People had so much hope when the internet took off thinking it could unite humanity when in actuality all it did was unleash the hate. Social media really was a massive mistake.

[@tabsntoot]

too remedial the public to be allowed any thing other than simple wooden effects. My opinion

[@agritech802]

Very true, and the worst is still to come..

[@folksurvival]

What hate?

[@MacGuffinExMachina]

I think like with anything, there's good and bad. In a way, it did unite us. We are able to connect with people all over. We know more about things like police brutality. When I was a kid, we heard about it, but there wasn't the spread of proof there is today. The Rodney King incident was such a big deal because you didn't see a lot of video proof of this kind of thing. On the flipside, it is easier to end up in an echo chamber, and to spread misinformation. It's liie any other new invention like TV. It comes with great improvements, but also new problems.

[@phillipecook3227]

You're kidding with that comment right?​@@folksurvival

[@waynekeenansvideos]

The audio on this is a monster

[@bnsyphotography2104]

It's how tv used to sound. It's the microphones and camera audio broadcasting this.

[@relwalretep]

​@@bnsyphotography2104TBL is also moving his head around a lot, I reckon that doesn't help much.

[@waynekeenansvideos]

@@bnsyphotography2104 I know, we have the technology to EQ it and make it sound better.

[@primalconvoy]

Thank goodness! I thought I was going deaf!

[@dan.barrett]

It's an archive channel, we are supposed to see and hear it as it is without post processing @@waynekeenansvideos

[@kxmode]

That ending song is the same one used in the London Olympics 2012 opener at the beginning of the history of music segment. The segment eventually ended with Tim Berners-Lee's introduction as the inventor of the World Wide Web (the famous "THIS IS FOR EVERYONE"). Wow!

[@Novotny72]

"we've had enough of experts!" - our government.

[@OmegaWolf747]

The Net itself is neutral. Its nature depends on those who use it.

[@lizichell2]

The information super Highway

[@nonautomaton6230]

Amazingly prescient! :O

[@56k-modem]

What divides us is the interviewer constantly interrupting and talking over his guests every time.

[@alanmahoney167]

Yeh and he's got a stupid moustache lol

[@golgotha3938]

The BBC and everyone who works for it are up their own ass.

[@srpacific]

How little has changed

[@EadwinTomlinson]

I think we can all unite on that one!

[@svensvenkill]

The clue is in the title, HARDtalk. The whole point of the show at the time was the interviewer, Tim Sebastian, asking tough, unfriendly and challenging questions and pushing the interviewees (who all knew the deal before they went into the interview).

[@UpTheAnte1987]

Was Tim wearing his mic underneath that woolly jumper by any chance? I'm having a hard time making out what he is saying

[@revupreview]

Appalling sound quality (from the BBC!) - even with closed captions I found it impossible to listen to. Maybe there's text version I can read somewhere....

[@folksurvival]

​@@revupreviewIt's fine and easily audible.

[@jaffarbh]

"Brilliant" would be an understatement!

[@cameronweston1762]

It’s after the Web became a place for entertainment that it lost

[@WeeWeeJumbo]

so, immediately?

[@CricketEngland]

How right he was, sometimes I think he sits around and wishes he had never created it or at least made some money from it

[@DissociatedWomenIncorporated]

He addressed the money thing in the video, so no, he doesn’t regret that. Besides, asking money for a protocol like HTTP makes no sense.

[@nigefal]

I don't think he was a money kind of fella, not materialist. Sure look what he is wearing what would he spend the millions on?

[@folksurvival]

I doubt he's poor.

[@phillipecook3227]

If he hadn't someone else would have.

[@DissociatedWomenIncorporated]

@@phillipecook3227 how? Seriously. HTTP is like Morse Code, not really a thing you can monetise.

[@WanderingWarg]

Almost prescient comments from Tim that the internet would become homogenised "like Mcdonalds", and that there would be echo chambers of like-minded people. That early internet/web hope is virtually gone now.

[@MarkDell]

Little did he know that the web would end up being a bastion for moderation and tolerance.

[@danielwarren3138]

Lol

[@CaptainBollocks....]

Why is the camera so close to their faces? I seriously felt like I was in their personal space, and they in mine lol.

[@folksurvival]

I doubt it is, it's probably just zoomed in.

[@CaptainBollocks....]

That's kind of what I meant, but still overly zoomed in lol@@folksurvival

[@sh-ig9fm]

What's the song at the end called.

[@4c00h]

According to Shazam (downloadable app), it's called "Girls in Grey - The Queen's Hall Light Orchestra".

[@grantjsimon]

I wonder what he'd think now!

[@MartinPoulter]

He has continued to write blog posts and give talks about the Web. Just Google him.

[@eightiesmusic1984]

In 1989 Jason Donovan warned that Nothing Can Divide Us.

[@U2QuoZepplin]

I don't even know what hyper tex is?

[@robertoyeah]

= very Texan

[@RuthvenMurgatroyd]

Hypertext is basically text which links to other text. The internet is just a bunch of files with their own addresses and links to content at those addresses.

[@PravdaSeed.]

💙 Thanks 💙 💙 T.B-Lee 💙 🌍💙🌎

[@ic3358]

They knew exactly what the internet would don!

[@chrischarlescook]

Burness Lee is Oppenheimer 2.0

[@Labruskie]

I call it the paper problem. Someone came up with the idea of paper and others decided what should go on the paper.... We, as pretty much all of living kind, have a responsibility....

[@RickP2012]

Lowest common denominator = TikTok

[@WeeWeeJumbo]

surely not KZbin? no, surely not! only those _other_ social media sites _over there,_ not the one you're using, KZbin, which also feeds on hatred and rage and does all the same other bad things. no! other users, other sites are the problem. not you and not here

[@benwilliams2135]

Wow

[@hassyg4083]

now we are in the AI era

[@BdR76]

The audio on this is like the teacher talking in Charlie Brown cartoons

[@257rani]

❤Agree with Tim,All Great Minds do things For Goodness of the Humans. ❤All Writers Like Arthur. C.Clark and Issac ASIMOV. ❤Our Brothers Who all NEED to Read 🧠❤and Listen to Their Messages For Humanity and Mother Earth and Harmony ❤

[@edwardecl]

As for that incredibly complicated piece of paper to censor... hello AI.

[@user-cr3ti1vj6f]

I agree with him, it was much better when there was only a couple of nation wide TV networks, radio stations and newspapers - that was way more easier to control. We need that kind of gate keeping on the Internet too. People should just trust the establishment telling them what to think, it is for their own good, after all.

[@pauliusnarkevicius9959]

5:12 many Hypertexts has issues when You want to pass each of them to the Syntax Correction Mechanism. The answer to the Question: How deep these Commercial instruments and technologies could use and show off the name of the HTML. Does Doctype references to the technical documentation could be a good step, no?

[@relwalretep]

If there was only some global comms system he could have used to warn us all with, an international interconnected network if you will...

[@georgesos]

He did warn us but not many were listening...

[@bohome34602]

“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” Dr Ian Malcolm 😂

[@relwalretep]

​@@georgesosthe buffering for video in 1998 was so horrendous, though that may have been more due to the erm other downloads of COMPLETELY LEGIT DATA I was doing and this missed it

[@bohome34602]

Serious point actually, sadly scientists often do stuff like this as they are not great at assessing risk, consequence and unintended consequence as they exist in the bubble of their field. He has to take some of the responsibility

[@filipburic5194]

he says while commenting on a 25 year old video of him doing exactly that, logic.

[@skullandbones1832]

👍

[@justinklenk]

PHEW! Glad we dodged THAT bullet - eh?? I mean... Can you even IMAGINE what the world would have been like - had this dystopian future actually HAPPENED?!

[@andrewlavinski1917]

There are two problems with the currant paradigm, who pays for the hardware and how do we transcend the innocence of 1960s counterculture and the subsequent ignorance of 1980s techno utopian ideology that has been so very very good at creating the network.. the problem we face today is how to maintain anonymity whilst also ensuring the person on the other end is real (hurry up Elon! ;p), if we can solve this without turning everything into 1984, we can start to build properly transparent democracies, which was the ultimate goal of the internet, to build a more open and potentially stable world, which in turn affords us more peace time on this planet to figure out a better sustainable energy solution before we go extinct.

[@nathancoleman7235]

Berners-Lee was the Englishman who invented the internet while he was working at CERN in Geneva in the 1989-1991 period.

[@mkdoddart]

Once the Web got married to mobile phones it went from computer enthusiasts to the masses.

[@relwalretep]

Check out Eternal September, aka The September That Never Ended.

[@CyclingSteve]

DHCP and Wi-Fi made it too easy.

[@ArdentlyGrant]

Once we content became available on mobile devices, instead of laptops and computers with keyboards, it went from a useful reference and publication tool, to a digital tracking device habituating the masses into being surveilled in trade for 'free' constant consumption of entertainment. We are now tracked, owned, and rarely does anyone contribute anything more than a quick comment or a social media post, such as this comment.

[@agritech802]

Good point about mobile phones, very true, it's the social element that really made it take off

[@MichaelBosley]

And thus became worse

[@BolinFoto]

Yes well it took what, a day, for people to make the twitter AI in to a racists. Corporations didn't destroy the internet, humanity did.

[@tiredideabox]

Moral of the story: Humans will be humans.

[@sinapetito]

we need help

[@danielktdoranie]

YOU need help. I’m fine 😂

[@ChillToMusic87]

Everybody needs help.​@@danielktdoranie

[@matthewarnold5531]

We need critical thinking skills to be taught from an early age

[@MajorKlanga]

Tim Sebastian was 45 in this interview.

[@purefoldnz3070]

and thus Flat Earthers were born.

[@folksurvival]

You think there was no flat earthers before the invention of the web?

[@purefoldnz3070]

@@folksurvival if you mean the dark ages? Then yes.

[@Garbageman28]

Narrator is almost a perfect parody of Chris Morris. Hang on…

[@paulgibbons2320]

Genies don't go back in bottles. But the tech wizards are just about to unleash another one in AI. Now they have totally lost control if this one.

[@fredo1070]

In 1997 the internet was 90% porn sites......

[@relwalretep]

Only 90%? We tried, we really did...

[@primalconvoy]

And today?

[@fredo1070]

@@primalconvoy Around 10%, the internet today is just about selling stuff.

[@sinapetito]

FACTS

[@posmoo9790]

turns out it wasn't the web but the ruling class

[@chrisdraper845]

….and the media. Ironic that the BBC is posting this, when they actively peddle the most divisive narratives at the moment.

[@CyclingSteve]

Through centralisation as he warned, the web was intended to be self-published, social media moguls and their algorithms recommending content you would not seek out yourself are the problem.

[@folksurvival]

You're being antisemitic.

[@posmoo9790]

@@folksurvival lol

[@WeeWeeJumbo]

the web exposes us, and we should limit this exposure

[@BurleyFuzz]

In 1997 we discussed hyperlinks and the future of instant global communication, while using audio recording devices from the 1940's. FFS 🙄

[@saitzo2325]

and he predicted woke trash at 2:00

[@kramnam4716]

Sadly it was an horrific misconception that is hastening the end of all life on Earth. Makes Oppenheimer look like a charity worker

[@folksurvival]

How is the hypertext protocol hastening the end of all life on earth?

[@Gandim45]

That moustache doesn't suit the interviewer

[@Arthur_King_of_the_Britons]

I wonder which black actor will play Tim Berners-Lee in his biopic?

[@Pikestnt]

🤣🤣 This is a funny pothole 🕳

[@urgumskurgum7570]

Could call it 'The Dark Web' 🎬

[@CaptainBollocks....]

Just tell us all you're racist while you're at it

[@Arthur_King_of_the_Britons]

@@CaptainBollocks.... You think it's 'racist' that Native European actors should play Native Europeans in their own life stories. Thanks for proving my point

[@CaptainBollocks....]

That isn't what you said. You mentioned nothing about somebody of the same race playing a character of the same race. What you're trying to force is the notion that people of colour are playing the lead role in biopics of people of a different race. This just is patently false. Now, people of colour do indeed play fictional characters who were once white, but they are FICTION and it is the creators' choice and freedom of speech to change their characters how they best want to portray that story. Hate to burst your bubble, but you are indeed just being ridiculous in making obvious racist suggestions just because you don't like fictional characters' race being changed.@@Arthur_King_of_the_Britons

[@NeverStopRolling]

Father of the 'interent'?? BBC can't afford proof-readers now?

[@MegaALEXLOUIS]

He's a revolutionary for porn and gambling. What a legend!

[@Th3Pr0digalS0n]

I thought Al Gore invented the internet! 😄

[@christophercooper6731]

I've just noticed that I'm replying to a religious loony, so I'm wasting my time really.