Joint Anglo-American project to check Internet "misuse"

German Press Agency
Nov. 02, 2006

London- The British inventor of the basic software for the world wide web, Tim Berners-Lee, Thursday voiced concern about the future of the web and its possible use to "spread misinformation." His warning came as the University of Southampton, in Britain, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), launched a joint research programme in web science to investigate the social impact of the internet.

The new research will look not only at computer science, but will also cover emerging research into social networks and how people behave while using the internet.

"If we don't have the ability to understand the web as it's now emerging, we will end up with things that are very bad," said Berners-Lee.

"Certain undemocratic things could emerge and misinformation will start spreading over the web."

"Studying these forces and the way they're affected by the underlying technology is one of the things that we think is really important," said Berners-Lee, who is a professor at Southampton University.

"The web isn't about what you can do with computers. It's people and, yes, they are connected by computers. But computer science, as the study of what happens in a computer, doesn't tell you about what happens on the web."

The two universities will now seek funding from governments and large businesses to establish the research programme.