Sir Tim Berners-Lee urges the world to think about the sort of web it wants

Sir Tim Berners-Lee has called on people to think about the sort of web they want, in a speech to mark his invention’s 30th anniversary.

Speaking as part of a 30-hour tour for the occasion during a stop in London, Sir Tim emphasised the need for caution amid a spate of fake information being distributed online – but also shared some positive experiences of the web.

“Obviously there is harm that is created by people just being nasty but there is also fake information that is created very carefully by bad actors who just want you to believe something fake,” he said to around 2,000 visitors at the Science Museum.

“They want to manipulate you to join a particular community which they will then use during an election, or they will use to cause a riot, or they will use to cause genocide, so there’s a lot of stuff we’ve got to watch out for.

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“We need to fix these things and we need to think actively about what sort of web we want.”

Sir Tim, who also visited Downing Street during his time in London before heading to an event in Lagos, Nigeria, said hearing from people who share that the web had saved their life was among the happier outcomes.

He also explained how he envisaged the web as a “big online book” where people would be able to access documents on other computers, but warned that the web still has some work to do to become more inclusive, with 50% of the world’s population still not online.

The World Wide Web was first proposed by Sir Tim as an information management system in 1989 while he was working for the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern).

In an open letter shared by the inventor on Tuesday, he called on the public and politicians to “come together” to end its misuse.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Google UK boss Matt Brittin were among the speakers at the Science Museum who thanked Sir Tim for his contribution to the world.

Digital Secretary Jeremy Wright, who met Sir Tim at Downing Street, said: “It was great to meet Sir Tim Berners-Lee today and mark 30 years since his invention of the World Wide Web. It remains one of the finest examples of British technological ingenuity.

“We are at a pivotal moment in the history of the internet and I am determined to make sure it can be a force for good while supporting the next generation of tech innovators.”