Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, credited with inventing the World Wide Web, tweeted up a storm on Thursday, reassuring internet users that they could reassert control over their data — and the web's future — after the Cambridge Analytica-Facebook scandals. He's right, but not necessarily in the way he imagines.
"What can Web users do?" Berners-Lee wrote. "Get involved. Care about your data. It belongs to you. If we each take a little of the time we spend using the web to fight for the web, I think we'll be ok. Tell companies and your government representatives that your data and the web matter."
I understand his agony about what's happened to his invention, and I envy his optimism about the efficiency of activism and regulation. Both are useful in rolling back the massive invasion of privacy we have all suffered, not quite knowingly, in recent years. But even if we get "woke" to the invasion, there's not much we can do about it.