The four visions shaping the way we use the Internet

Centre for International Governance Innovation

2019

Co-authors: Catherine Tsalikis, Wendy Hall

Category: Interview

30 years on from the invention of the web, the ideas of openness, transparency and universal access that underpinned Tim Berners-Lee’s founding vision are under threat. What’s more, as the University of Southampton’s Wendy Hall and Kieron O’Hara explain, the traditional model of the open internet — a given in Silicon Valley — is being challenged by various alternatives, some of which are backed by major geopolitical players. With more than four billion internet users globally, questions about which version of the internet might prevail will only become more urgent in the coming months and years. In this written interview with CIGI, Hall and O’Hara jointly discuss how geopolitics play into the competing visions, what’s at stake as more and more people come online, and what internet governance might look like in the future.

Read the article