A benefit of the Web is the ability for information to be shared with and accessed by different people, no matter where they are. My friends and I are able to send things to each other and communicate from different sides of the world. However, this can also be an “ill effect” of the web, since there is information that people who use the Web aren’t able to access. One example of this that I have experienced is that because I live in China, there are many websites that I used to be able to access in the States but am unable to access now. Even though there is a way for me to continue being able to access that information (using VPNs), there are people who don’t have that freedom to access the information.
Universality is the concept of allowing everyone to upload and have access to any information on the Web. The Web should be accessible by everyone regardless of age, disability, and language. Isolation is when data and information are stored only in the website that you use, and cannot be transferred to another one.
Open standards and closed worlds are related to universality and isolation in that open standards are universal and accessible to everyone, where you don’t need to pay to be able to access them. However, closed worlds limit access to just that application, meaning that people might not have access to those closed worlds, even with Web access.
The Web is an application that runs on the internet. The internet functions as a network that transmits information to different places.
More than 10 years after this text was published, the concept of social machines is still prevalent today. However, with the rise of social machines for good (such as rating systems, informational sources), these can also be manipulated to promote “bad” things (i.e. the rise of cancel culture on social media).
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