Mark Evans

Blogging is a Danger: Berners-Lee

The Internet doesn't suck - contrary to Maclean's magazine's preposterous claim - but there are concerns that things are getting out of hand. One of the critics is Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web. In a recent interview with the Guardian, he said among the many dangers, blogging ranks right up there. Blogging? What about all those things Maclean's highlighted such as pornography, academic plagiarism, gambling and fraud? Berners-Lee contends blogging is a threat because “there is a great danger that it becomes a place where untruths start to spread more than truths, or it becomes a place which becomes increasingly unfair in some way”. He also said people who read blogs have too much trust in their accuracy. To be things in perspective, Berners-Lee made the comments during the launch of a new project between Southampton University and MIT to create the first degree in web science, which they hope will improve Web content standards. While Berners-Lee is an Internet Idol and I'm just a D-List bloggers, his concern about blogs comes across as alarmist. Sure, there are plenty of blogs that are inflammatory and inaccurate but is this really a bad or evil phenomena? If Berners-Lee wants to clean up the Web, there are other more bigger battles to fight.

Mea Culpa: As my friend, Mathew, pointed out in a comment, the Guardian apparently did a nice job torquing Berners-Lee's comments. (I read Berners-Lee blog post, which comes across as far more positive about what's happening on the Web.)