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Week 1: Response to “Long Live the Web” by Tim Burners-Lee – Allie Dunnaville

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.

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Week 1: Response to “Long Live the Web” and “A Network of Fragments” – Milly (Yumin Cai)

“Long Live the Web” by Tim Berners-Lee let me reconsider about the internet: like, should we regard the internet as a new form of the human society in the modern world or simply a tool for information?

It’s very interesting to learn how does “internet” and “web” be different from each other, as the web is applied for all kinds of uses and is only accessible with the internet, which is an open supporting system. Making clear of this concept would be important for us to understand how the internet function. Just like Berners Lee emphasizes “freedom” of the web and internet, which means “Freedom from being snooped on, filtered, censored and disconnected” (82). Although we have free access to the internet, the truth is that we are actually influenced or even controlled by some important figures such as the government or some internet related companies. Just like the examples that Lee argues in the article: Apple’s “itunes:” replacing “https:” or information monitoring by the government… In fact, similar examples are not hard to find besides the mentioned ones in the article. For instance, the isolation of internet and web services in China would be a famous case to support this argument. The Internet has no longer been a place of freedom.

However, comparing with the universal standard for free internet that Lee supports, my consideration is that how we define or, in other words, to regard the internet for the current and future society. Following Lee’s logic, the internet still plays the role of an information exchanging tool rather than a new form of human society. Like it is described in “A Network of Fragments”, the effect of the internet exists everywhere in our life. Also as Lee says, the internet is an open way for us to access the web where information is available for communication. The way that the internet deal with data and information just changed our traditional view of social activities and understanding of the world. It has deeply rooted in the current world, which makes it form up part of the essence of modern culture. Should it be still just a tool? If the internet is a tool, then we’ll probably set up proper rules to regulate its usage. But if not, then fragmented methods like laws to protect privacy or allocation for free speech would never be enough to regulate culture or society.

Fiber lines, mobile phone apps or “http:” websites; physical or intangible…the way that internet appears do not really matter. The internet will not die, however, “what would it be” and “what would we human be” are the questions that matter. Thus, I think the question I asked, in the beginning, is quite important for us to think about is not only because we are now sitting in comm lab, but also because we are now living in a culture that will die without internet.

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Response to Woodward-Alessandra Hallman

This idea of something being “accidentally sustainable” was something I came across last year. I was waiting in line to pay at a Zara and I saw this tiny, makeup-removing microfiber towel. At the time, I solely used cotton pads to remove the day’s dirt off my face, often using two or more pads a day. After buying and using the towel once, I was hooked. I did not set out that day to find something to make my daily routine/life more sustainable, and yet I came across and bought an item that did just that. Am I allowed to feel proud of doing so? Am I just doing the bare minimum, and nothing will make up for buying clothing at Zara in the first place? This oscillation between good consumer versus bad consumer is a main fixture of Professor Sophie Woodward’s chapter “Accidentally Sustainable? Ethnographic Approaches to Clothing Practices.” Woodward is done with the idea that the consumer simply buys clothing because they’re a victim of the fast fashion system. She’s even less tolerant of the argument that consumers are the villains in the fast fashion system, buying clothing for the sole purpose of its disposability. Instead, she clarifies that the consumer buys a fashion product in their own “specific personal, relational, and social contexts.” Woodward, like Edelkoort, disagrees with the sustainable fashion philosophy of making every stage of the fast fashion industry start from square one. Instead, she argues that we can trust the average consumer and designer to choose/design fashion products with longevity, intent and continued use in mind. This way, much more fashion products will go the way of the American blue jean, a lauded and memory-filled addition to any wardrobe, and one that is rarely thrown out.8

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Week 2 : Responses to “Long Live the Web” and “The Room Where the Internet Was Born” – Abdullah Zameek

The messages that Tim Berners-Lee conveys through “Long Live The Web” could not have been more timely. In any age where almost every service is available online, it is crucial to think about the way in which policies, standards and frameworks govern how we use the Internet. 
A lot of the modern problems regarding the Internet seem to stem from big corporations and other bureaucratic entities. Some of these problems are

  • Censorship – Not giving everyone with access to the internet the same information.
  • Net Neutrality – Favoring the services of certain entities over the others.

This sort of behaviour makes it seem like the Internet belongs to some organisation, rather than a free resource that belongs to everyone. However, unlike other free resources, everyone with access to it has complete privileges to determine how it is used and what it provides. It is collective effort that made the Internet what it is today – if not for the work of students, scientists and others in the early days of the Internet, we would not have the information super highway that we have today.  And, it is this sort of collaborative effort that needs to be revived and fostered as we move on into the future. The future of the Internet lies in open-souce collaboration, not closed-source, proprietary standards. Closed source standards create a hostile, competitive environment where companies are solely focused on outcompeting each other while not prioritizing user experiences and satisfaction.
While, this article had many resounding points, the following quote seemed to be quite questionable.
“Once you enter your data into one of these services, you cannot easily use them on another site.”
Privacy is one of the biggest concerns in the digital realm today, and the statement above seems to directly contradict the fundamental principles of digital privacy. If a user has provided their data to a service, it is expected that this service would not divulge this data to a third party, or use it for purposes other than what it is was collected for. If this sort of information-sharing was allowed, then there would be no control over who gains access to an individual’s data, and who would be accountable for the handling of such data. This is where the question of “Digital Human Rights” comes into play. It is high time that law-makers and technologists come together to create a framework upon which fundamental digital rights are agreed upon and put down in black-and-white. The ever-increasing presence of technology in the most intimate aspects of our lives warrants the need for such a framework. One such effort was the Online Magna Carta – an initiative by Tim Berners-Lee himself.
Once the Internet goes back to being the largest crowd-sourced, community-driven venture, would we be able to say that we have a free and open Internet for all.

“The Room Where The Internet Was Born” could be described as a historical account of the evolution of communication technologies, starting at the principles of “time-sharing” and going all the way to modern-day cloud-computing. The fundamental message behind this article could be that it is essential to understand the underlying inspirations that drive modern technologies and to understand and appreciate the roots of what we have today. As described, the ARPANET is simply an extension of the time-sharing concepts introduced by John McCarthy, and the Internet was built upon the ARPANET itself. After reading this article, I began to appreciate the current technologies that we have today much more, and it is essential that the humble origins of what we have today is recorded for the generations to come.