WEBVTT

00:00:00.895 --> 00:00:02.543
TED is 30.

00:00:02.543 --> 00:00:05.181
The world wide web is celebrating this month

00:00:05.181 --> 00:00:07.453
its 25th anniversary.

00:00:07.453 --> 00:00:10.142
So I've got a question for you.

00:00:10.142 --> 00:00:14.966
Let's talk about the journey, mainly about the future.

00:00:14.966 --> 00:00:16.681
Let's talk about the state.

00:00:16.681 --> 00:00:18.995
Let's talk about what sort of a web we want.

NOTE Paragraph

00:00:18.995 --> 00:00:22.315
So 25 years ago, then, I was working at CERN.

00:00:22.315 --> 00:00:24.665
I got permission in the end after about a year

00:00:24.665 --> 00:00:27.297
to basically do it as a side project.

00:00:27.297 --> 00:00:28.995
I wrote the code.

00:00:28.995 --> 00:00:31.144
I was I suppose the first user.

00:00:31.144 --> 00:00:33.687
There was a lot of concern

00:00:33.687 --> 00:00:35.206
that people didn't want to pick it up

00:00:35.206 --> 00:00:37.030
because it would be too complicated.

00:00:37.030 --> 00:00:38.749
A lot of persuasion, a lot of wonderful

00:00:38.749 --> 00:00:40.459
collaboration with other people,

00:00:40.459 --> 00:00:42.888
and bit by bit, it worked.

00:00:42.888 --> 00:00:44.531
It took off. It was pretty cool.

00:00:44.531 --> 00:00:47.748
And in fact, a few years later in 2000,

00:00:47.748 --> 00:00:51.950
five percent of the world population

00:00:51.950 --> 00:00:53.769
were using the world wide web.

00:00:53.769 --> 00:00:56.480
In 2007, seven years later, 17 percent.

00:00:56.480 --> 00:00:59.820
In 2008, we formed the World Wide Web Foundation

00:00:59.820 --> 00:01:01.394
partly to look at that

00:01:01.394 --> 00:01:04.244
and worry about that figure.

00:01:04.244 --> 00:01:06.303
And now here we are in 2014,

00:01:06.303 --> 00:01:08.537
and 40 percent of the world

00:01:08.537 --> 00:01:12.553
are using the world wide web, and counting.

00:01:12.553 --> 00:01:14.555
Obviously it's increasing.

NOTE Paragraph

00:01:14.555 --> 00:01:17.963
I want you to think about both sides of that.

00:01:17.963 --> 00:01:20.180
Okay, obviously to anybody here at TED,

00:01:20.180 --> 00:01:23.163
the first question you ask is, what can we do

00:01:23.163 --> 00:01:25.219
to get the other 60 percent on board

00:01:25.219 --> 00:01:26.539
as quickly as possible?

00:01:26.539 --> 00:01:28.854
Lots of important things. Obviously
it's going to be around mobile.

00:01:28.854 --> 00:01:30.834
But also, I want you to think about the 40 percent,

00:01:30.834 --> 00:01:32.544
because if you're sitting there yourself

00:01:32.544 --> 00:01:35.170
sort of with a web-enabled life,

00:01:35.170 --> 00:01:36.466
you don't remember things anymore,

00:01:36.466 --> 00:01:38.180
you just look them up,

00:01:38.180 --> 00:01:42.263
then you may feel that it's been a success

00:01:42.263 --> 00:01:44.243
and we can all sit back.

00:01:44.243 --> 00:01:47.326
But in fact, yeah, it's been a success,

00:01:47.326 --> 00:01:49.272
there's lots of things, Khan Academy

00:01:49.272 --> 00:01:51.561
for crying out loud, there's Wikipedia,

00:01:51.561 --> 00:01:53.378
there's a huge number of free e-books

00:01:53.378 --> 00:01:54.784
that you can read online,

00:01:54.784 --> 00:01:56.552
lots of wonderful things for education,

00:01:56.552 --> 00:01:58.276
things in many areas.

00:01:58.276 --> 00:02:00.678
Online commerce has in some cases

00:02:00.678 --> 00:02:03.469
completely turned upside down the
way commerce works altogether,

00:02:03.469 --> 00:02:05.024
made types of commerce available

00:02:05.024 --> 00:02:07.350
which weren't available at all before.

00:02:07.350 --> 00:02:10.732
Commerce has been almost universally affected.

00:02:10.732 --> 00:02:12.999
Government, not universally affected,

00:02:12.999 --> 00:02:15.112
but very affected, and on a good day,

00:02:15.112 --> 00:02:18.080
lots of open data, lots of e-government,

00:02:18.080 --> 00:02:20.783
so lots of things which are visible

00:02:20.783 --> 00:02:22.411
happening on the web.

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:22.411 --> 00:02:24.522
Also, lots of things which are less visible.

00:02:24.522 --> 00:02:26.925
The healthcare, late at night when they're worried

00:02:26.925 --> 00:02:28.636
about what sort of cancer

00:02:28.636 --> 00:02:30.761
somebody they care about might have,

00:02:30.761 --> 00:02:35.767
when they just talk across the Internet to somebody

00:02:35.767 --> 00:02:40.276
who they care about very much in another country.

00:02:40.276 --> 00:02:44.495
Those sorts of things are not, they're not out there,

00:02:44.495 --> 00:02:47.715
and in fact they've acquired
a certain amount of privacy.

00:02:47.715 --> 00:02:50.499
So we cannot assume that part of the web,

00:02:50.499 --> 00:02:51.590
part of the deal with the web,

00:02:51.590 --> 00:02:53.026
is when I use the web,

00:02:53.026 --> 00:02:56.416
it's just a transparent, neutral medium.

00:02:56.416 --> 00:02:58.952
I can talk to you over it without worrying

00:02:58.952 --> 00:03:01.811
about what we in fact now know is happening,

00:03:01.811 --> 00:03:04.261
without worrying about the fact

00:03:04.261 --> 00:03:06.207
that not only will surveillance be happening

00:03:06.207 --> 00:03:09.245
but it'll be done by people who may abuse the data.

00:03:09.245 --> 00:03:10.451
So in fact, something we realized,

00:03:10.451 --> 00:03:11.860
we can't just use the web,

00:03:11.860 --> 00:03:13.545
we have to worry about

00:03:13.545 --> 00:03:17.119
what the underlying infrastructure of the whole thing,

00:03:17.119 --> 00:03:21.315
is it in fact of a quality that we need?

00:03:21.315 --> 00:03:26.264
We revel in the fact that we
have this wonderful free speech.

00:03:26.264 --> 00:03:29.302
We can tweet, and oh, lots and lots of people

00:03:29.302 --> 00:03:32.227
can see our tweets, except when they can't,

00:03:32.227 --> 00:03:35.578
except when actually Twitter
is blocked from their country,

00:03:35.578 --> 00:03:38.921
or in some way the way we try to express ourselves

00:03:38.921 --> 00:03:41.856
has put some information
about the state of ourselves,

00:03:41.856 --> 00:03:43.219
the state of the country we live in,

00:03:43.219 --> 00:03:45.703
which isn't available to anybody else.

00:03:45.703 --> 00:03:48.684
So we must protest and make sure

00:03:48.684 --> 00:03:50.808
that censorship is cut down,

00:03:50.808 --> 00:03:52.382
that the web is opened up

00:03:52.382 --> 00:03:54.839
where there is censorship.

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:54.839 --> 00:03:57.549
We love the fact that the web is open.

00:03:57.549 --> 00:03:59.754
It allows us to talk. Anybody can talk to anybody.

00:03:59.754 --> 00:04:01.592
It doesn't matter who we are.

00:04:01.592 --> 00:04:02.929
And then we join these big

00:04:02.929 --> 00:04:05.582
social networking companies

00:04:05.582 --> 00:04:08.944
which are in fact effectively built as silos,

00:04:08.944 --> 00:04:10.733
so that it's much easier to talk to somebody

00:04:10.733 --> 00:04:12.567
in the same social network

00:04:12.567 --> 00:04:14.890
than it is to talk to somebody in a different one,

00:04:14.890 --> 00:04:19.264
so in fact we're sometimes limiting ourselves.

00:04:19.264 --> 00:04:22.190
And we also have, if you've read
the book about the filter bubble,

00:04:22.190 --> 00:04:24.158
the filter bubble phenomenon is that

00:04:24.158 --> 00:04:25.960
we love to use machines

00:04:25.960 --> 00:04:28.092
which help us find stuff we like.

00:04:28.092 --> 00:04:30.434
So we love it when we're bathed in

00:04:30.434 --> 00:04:32.166
what things we like to click on,

00:04:32.166 --> 00:04:34.326
and so the machine automatically feeds us

00:04:34.326 --> 00:04:35.810
the stuff that we like and we end up

00:04:35.810 --> 00:04:40.071
with this rose-colored spectacles view of the world

00:04:40.071 --> 00:04:42.260
called a filter bubble.

00:04:42.260 --> 00:04:44.203
So here are some of the things which maybe

00:04:44.203 --> 00:04:47.295
threaten the social web we have.

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:47.295 --> 00:04:49.224
What sort of web do you want?

00:04:49.224 --> 00:04:52.662
I want one which is not
fragmented into lots of pieces,

00:04:52.662 --> 00:04:54.845
as some countries have been suggesting

00:04:54.845 --> 00:04:57.945
they should do in reaction to recent surveillance.

00:04:57.945 --> 00:05:01.628
I want a web which has got, for example,

00:05:01.628 --> 00:05:04.588
is a really good basis for democracy.

00:05:04.588 --> 00:05:09.165
I want a web where I can use healthcare

00:05:09.165 --> 00:05:10.920
with privacy and where there's a lot

00:05:10.920 --> 00:05:13.090
of health data, clinical data is available

00:05:13.090 --> 00:05:15.020
to scientists to do research.

00:05:15.020 --> 00:05:18.710
I want a web where the other 60 percent

00:05:18.710 --> 00:05:21.050
get on board as fast as possible.

00:05:21.050 --> 00:05:25.668
I want a web which is such
a powerful basis for innovation

00:05:25.668 --> 00:05:27.051
that when something nasty happens,

00:05:27.051 --> 00:05:29.380
some disaster strikes, that we can respond

00:05:29.380 --> 00:05:33.160
by building stuff to respond to it very quickly.

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:33.160 --> 00:05:36.090
So this is just some of the things that I want,

00:05:36.090 --> 00:05:38.526
from a big list, obviously it's longer.

00:05:38.526 --> 00:05:39.767
You have your list.

00:05:39.767 --> 00:05:42.541
I want us to use this 25th anniversary

00:05:42.541 --> 00:05:45.534
to think about what sort of a web we want.

00:05:45.534 --> 00:05:47.233
You can go to webat25.org

00:05:47.233 --> 00:05:48.236
and find some links.

00:05:48.236 --> 00:05:49.292
There are lots of sites where people

00:05:49.292 --> 00:05:52.004
have started to put together a Magna Carta,

00:05:52.004 --> 00:05:53.530
a bill of rights for the web.

00:05:53.530 --> 00:05:55.043
How about we do that?

00:05:55.043 --> 00:05:59.670
How about we decide, these are, in a way,

00:05:59.670 --> 00:06:03.330
becoming fundamental rights, the right
to communicate with whom I want.

00:06:03.330 --> 00:06:05.288
What would be on your list for that Magna Carta?

00:06:05.288 --> 00:06:08.156
Let's crowdsource a Magna Carta

00:06:08.156 --> 00:06:10.398
for the web.

00:06:10.398 --> 00:06:12.490
Let's do that this year.

00:06:12.490 --> 00:06:15.797
Let's use the energy from the 25th anniversary

00:06:15.797 --> 00:06:18.409
to crowdsource a Magna Carta

00:06:18.409 --> 00:06:19.891
to the web. (Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

00:06:19.891 --> 00:06:24.397
Thank you. And do me a favor, will you?

00:06:24.397 --> 00:06:26.963
Fight for it for me. Okay? Thanks.

NOTE Paragraph

00:06:26.963 --> 00:06:30.950
(Applause)