The creator of the web realizes his invention has gone way wrong

(Image credit: PHILIPPE DESMAZES/AFP/Getty Images)

last updated 2 July 2018

From the moment he decided to share the web with the world, Tim Berners-Lee knew his invention could be dangerous.

That became especially obvious when Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal broke — a moment that "devastated" the father of the world wide web, he tells Vanity Fair. People have been Berners-Lee's top priority since he envisioned the web nearly 30 years ago. That's why he released the internet as an open-source platform and never profited off its invention. And he knew it would reshape the world, both for better and worse.

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Repairing the internet means ensuring billionaires like Elon Musk don't have better web access than, say, everyone in Ethiopia, Berners-Lee says. His first step is a platform called Solid, which gives individual users unprecedented power over their data and how it's used. Anyone can log in to help build Solid, but Berners-Lee suggests those without coding skills "go out on the streets" and advocate to change what the internet has become.

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.

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