Thoughts on widening scope and focus of Backlash

Amelie, 15 Oct 2005 12:20:45

quote from Tim Berners-Lee:

http://www.w3.org/1999/04/13-tbl.html

"I'm very interested in a more fractal, less hierarchical structure arising
in society, allowing us to operate using the web of trust. Perhaps we can,
now that we've got machines that can help us find out individually where we
best fit, how we can weave ourselves into the Web to contribute best to
society. Maybe we can continue another very small step along that path that
we started when we stopped (some of us, most of the time) using violence to
settle or to decide things, and moved on to using money, or in some cases
stopped using money and started actually thinking about what other people
were feeling and trying to do, and sharing their goals. Maybe we can find
new systems based on peer respect, in which we work together and appreciate
that we are all in fact trying to go in the same direction. To me that would
be very exciting and make the whole thing worthwhile"

I wrote to him "Dear Tim,

I have long shared your dream of the Internet as an evolving community, free
from the restrictions of cultural, political and financial controls.

Together with many thousands of other people, I am becoming very concerned
about the prospect of web censorship proposed by various governments and
already implemented by some.

Currently, there is a consultation document for proposed new UK laws on
Internet Pornography, but this seems to be a hook for a whole raft of
controls which will make it possible to eliminate links and content at the
whim of a non-answerable quango such as the the IWF.

Is there some organisation to which you can direct me to share in resisting
this trend, or some source of information on how to combat these
developments?