Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the Internet, was awarded the prestigious Turing Award on Tuesday for his world-changing creation. The Turing Award is like the Nobel Prize for computer science and comes with a cool $1 million reward from Google, according to NPR. So, yeah, pretty apt for the man who’s enabled you to read this story and many more important things. If you need further proof of his qualifications, here are four examples of when the Internet used its powers for good. Berners-Lee should have a lot of awards. But Berners-Lee also discussed one of the darker sides of the Internet in an interview with Boston’s NPR affiliate, WBUR. While he’s still optimistic about the Internet and its future, he said he’s particularly concerned about social media, where anonymity is enjoyed by “misogynist bullies, by nasty people who just get a kick out of being nasty.” Looking forward, Berners-Lee recently outlined, on the 28th birthday of the Internet, three major issues he believes need to be addressed: personal data privacy, the spread of misinformation (FAKE NEWS!), and the lack of transparency in political advertising. “It’s only gonna happen because lots of people care about it very much,” he said. “And it’s not just people writing code. It’s people writing laws, teachers, people in the street.” Still, what to do about those damn trolls? Next time you see a nasty comment, just tell them "dad" doesn’t approve. ***prbxselfnetwork***
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