Founder of World Wide Web Launches New Data and Content Platform, Solid

Founder of World Wide Web Launches New Data and Content Platform, Solid

Many individuals believe that the massive interconnected data platform they access through their web browsers and apps is the internet; in other words, they think of the World Wide Web as the totality of their online experience. This is not what Sir Tim Berners-Lee, founder of the World Wide Web project, had in mind when he leveraged the hypertext transfer protocol to create the internet layer we know as the web these days.
The father of the web is concerned about the direction that his landmark project has taken in recent years. While Berners-Lee admits that the web has helped in terms of making our world more connected and informed, he laments the inequitable manner in which powerful entities have taken control of personal data and online content.
Berners-Lee is particularly worried about the current business models practiced by certain web giants such as Facebook and Google, tech firms that provide seemingly free services in exchange for relinquishing control over how personal data is shared and managed. The Cambridge Analytica scandal and major data breaches at Facebook are examples of the situations prompting Berners-Lee to think about solutions to put the web back on the track he envisioned nearly decades ago.
With a series of recent interviews and statements, Berners-Lee has been shining a light on his latest project: Solid, an internet data platform that operates as part of the web but allows users to fully control their personal data and the online content they access. Solid is being developed as an open source initiative that will seek public and private funding with the understanding that it will be radically different from the way Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other online giants currently operate.
As of October 2018, Solid is at a very early stage. Individuals can create user identities and start organizing their data in privacy pods, and developers can take advantage of the platform's open source access to create apps. Berners-Lee is positive that the Solid development team will be able to return online privacy to the way it used to be when he published the first website in 1991. For more information click here https://medium.com/@timberners_lee/one-small-step-for-the-web-87f92217d085.

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