Tim Burners-Lee’s “Long Live the Web” article not only gave a history of the internet/web but also pointed out several threats to our current system such as large social media sites abusing their users’ private information. An example I immediately thought of regards Facebook’s 2018 incident where the company leaked its user’s private data to sixty-one corporations such as AOL, Nike, and dating apps. Incidents such as these where private information of users is leaked without permission have the potential to result in the loss of our freedom for users to connect with whichever websites we desire.
More often than not, large corporations such as Facebook, Youtube, and Amazon who have to use the internet as a platform for their businesses take the internet for granted when sharing public information of their users. For the public community to be allowed to continue benefiting from the web, it’s clear the vast freedom of the internet must be cherished more than we currently recognize it to be. As a society we must uphold the principles of the web—otherwise, we may lose our ability to utilize the internet freely in the future.