The World Wide Web's course correction

some thoughts

There is a very interesting open source project going on in the area of social media and the web, called Solid, and guided by the inventor of the original web, Tim Berners-Lee and his W3C organization.

The basic idea is an inversion of control.  Instead of apps owning data, a person or organization owns data and apps are allowed to access it based on permissions given by the person or organization.  So instead of 100 apps duplicating your personal information on their servers and possibly getting it wrong, you keep your personal information on your server or a server you designate and the 100 apps have to use it there.  This puts the burden on apps to use this data based on one's permissions and expectations and the expectations of other apps about how data will be structured.  This is an entirely new burden that apps are not used to dealing with, the control of the data being in the hands of the data owner, that being the individual or organization.  Its an ongoing project and many of the details of this inversion of control have yet to be worked out.

I am fascinated by this project, although I have reservations about it.

My reservations revolve around the role of organizations as stewards of data.  I have no problem with individuals controlling their own data, their personal profiles, their likes and dislikes, their history and opinions, their accomplishments, their connections.  

But when it comes to organizations doing this, being the stewards of information that many people and apps will have to rely on, and being able to set permissions to that data based on broad groups of people, then I have a problem.  It seems to me that for organizations, Solid is tailor made to be used to implement a social credit system.

I worry about this even more when I consider the nature of open source software projects and standards bodies.  They are by their nature not democracies.  Some would even go so far as to call them cults.  After all, what is a "do-ocracy"?  The more of your time and energy you donate, the more you are allowed to know about the goals and presumably the more control you have.  Just like a cult.  When employees from large corporations are involved, they completely skew the power balance of these "public-private partnerships".  Some would go as far as to call it fascist.  I have not come across anyone looking into these considerations.

A possible way to mitigate the risks of organizations using lists of broad groups of people might be to require *every use* of a person or persona, which in the Solid world would be a WebID, to trigger a process of asking that person or persona for permission to include them in a list.  The WebID is a self sovereign id, that is, a person or organization can make their own, and this is also important for freedom.  The WebID could be given a choice to be asked every time or to allow use automatically under certain conditions.  The point would be to give as much control to the WebID about its use in lists as possible.  This would include giving the WebID the ability to ban its use in any or all lists, and an ability to be informed of any changes in how the lists are used.  Individual persons in the real world can and do distinguish between broad groups of people, in fact its essential for survival.  But organizations should not be allowed to distinguish between broad groups of people without the permission and participation of the people involved.  Will this slow down the revised web?  Of course but it must be done to protect human rights.  I'm not just talking about diversity, equity and inclusion, which have no legal definitions, but human rights, which are legally defined.  How to precisely distinguish between individuals and organizations will be a difficult problem as well.  These things should not be decided by a cult.