British scientist, inventor of URI, URL, HTTP, HTML, the creator of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, doubts the bright future of his brainchild - the Internet. This is reported by The Guardian.

Optimism Tim Berners-Lee on the future of the Internet begins to weaken when there are questions about the rejection of network neutral defenses, the spread of fake news, propaganda and the growing polarization of the Internet.

The inventor of the worldwide network has always maintained that his creation was a reflection of humanity - good, bad and ugly. But Berners-Lee's view of "an open platform that allows anyone to share information, access opportunities and interact across geographic boundaries" is called into question.

"I'm still an optimist, but an optimist hanging on a fence on top of a hill during a storm," he said..

The spread of disinformation and propaganda was made possible in part because the advertising systems of large digital platforms, such as Google or Facebook, were designed to attract people's attention.

For example, the financial stimulus somehow forced the Macedonian adolescents, who do not deal with politics, to create fake political cliche news that were distributed on Facebook and funded by the profits from the Google AdSense automated advertising mechanism.

"The system fails. The way advertising revenue began to work on the clickbate system, the Internet has ceased to fulfill its goal - to help humanity in promoting truth and democracy. Therefore, I am concerned, "said Berners-Lee, who in March called for regulating online political advertising to prevent its use by" unethical methods ".

Since then, it turned out that Russian operatives bought political targeted advertising campaigns aimed at American voters on Facebook, Google and Twitter.

"This is not democracy - it's a question who gets into the hands of the most manipulative companies. It's not too late to go back, "Berners-Lee said..

"We are so used to the fact that these systems are manipulating us, that some people just think that the Internet. We need to think about how it should be, "he said..

"One of the problems with climate change is to make people realize that this is an anthropogenic problem - created by people. The same problem with social networks - they are artificial. If they do not serve humanity, they can and must be changed, "he said..

In fact, the situation is only getting worse. For example, the Trump administration announced the departure from Obama's policy regarding the protection of network neutrality.

Net neutrality is that Internet service providers (ISPs) should treat all data equally - be it letters from your grandmother, the episode "Stranger Things on" Netflix or bank transfer. This ensures that large cable providers, including Comcast, AT & T and Verizon, will not be able to choose which data to send faster and which sites to block or throttle depending on who paid.

Now, the US Federal Communications Commission Trump, led by former employee Verizon Ajit Pai, wants to get away from these rules.

Berners-Lee urges lawmakers to reconsider their decision. According to him, some Internet providers are already beginning to violate the principles of network neutrality. For example, AT & T blocked Skype and other similar services on the iPhone to make more money on ordinary phone calls.