9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Our weekly video hangout series! 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I think - let's see, we started a little bit off time 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so I'll say it again: 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Welcome to GV Face, our weekly video hangout series! 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Today, we are celebrating the 25th birthday of the world wide web. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Pretty exciting. That was on Wednesday. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Um, we've got a really all-star lineup of guests 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 on today's program. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Um, moving from left to right, we have: 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Alan Emtage, a very special guest who is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 gonna talk to us about his very special creation 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of, uh, the first web browser... 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Um! We have Jeremy Clark, in Montreal - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Jeremy is a technical director at Global Voices. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Josh Levy, from Free Press, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in Massachusetts, in the U.S. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and Renata Avila, campaign manager [br]for the Web We Want 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Creative Commons extraordinaire, and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 GV star. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 who is joining us from Berlin! 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Welcome, everybody! 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Um. So we wanted to start today's show 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 by talking a little bit about the world wide web 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and the internet. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 'Cuz a lot of people think that they're the same thing 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 when actually, that's not quite true. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I want to first turn to Jeremy 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and just ask, Jer, could you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 break it down for us, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I thought that the internet was invented in the 70's 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but, if it's the 25th birthday of the web, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 what does that mean? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Jeremy Clark: Okay, well, the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 best place to start, I think, is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the internet - it has existed in various formats 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 since the 1970's, as you said, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but it was the web that really made it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 enter our homes. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and, so, understanding the relationship is important. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, the internet was invented by 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the U.S. Government in a lot of senses... 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 ...a mix of military and science funding 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that developed the network of [br]actual computers 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that can communicate with each other over 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 wires. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Now, another related technology that is also compri-- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 [amends] uh, built in to the web 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is called hypertext. And that is the notion 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of documents that can link between each other 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 immediately, without having to go and fetch 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a separate document. Um. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So there were lots of systems since the 1960s 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that were trying to implement hypertext, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Xanadu is an example, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 uh, but all of them were commercial, [br]expensive, closed, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and none of them were very popular. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, Tim Berners-Lee, who is the[br]"inventor of the internet," 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 [corrects himself] of the web, [br]obviously, the World Wide Web - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Um. [Tim Berners-Lee] put those two things together 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 by building a service that runs 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 on top of the internet, and he 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 called it the World Wide Web. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So what the World Wide Web is, is the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 decentralized hypertext engine 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that we use to communicate between 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 computers' web pages. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So what makes up WEB is three things: 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 URLs (or URIs) - Universal Resource Locator 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which are the addresses we use [br]to find things on the web, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 [#2] HTML, which is the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 HyperText Markup Lanuage 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which is the way that the information 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is stored and sent 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so that we can then use browsers 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to view HTML, and then 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 all the documents can be understood 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and then also they display the links 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so that the hypertext part of it works 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and we can jump around from page to page. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Um, the final part is HTTP, which is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the HyperText Transfer Protocol 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which is the communication method 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 by which the different computers can 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 talk to each other and send the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 HTML documents back and forth 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 depending on the URLs. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Um. So, when he built it, there were some 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 very important things that he [br]built into this system 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that didn't exist before. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And the main one is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 universal authorship. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So he always intended that anyone[br]would be able 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to access these webpages, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and anyone would be able to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 add their own webpages, without 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 asking for permission. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 With the very explicit special condition 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that anyone can link to any other webpage 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 without permission. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Previous hypertext systems required that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 basically, for you to link to me, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I have to accept that link, and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 probably create a link back to you, and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that wasn't required on the Web, which 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 gives us a lot of freedom to link to people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 who wouldn't want us to be able [br]to link to them, for example, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so no one can say "I'm putting up free content..." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "...but you can't send your readers here,[br]because I hate you," et cetera. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The other one is that he made it [br]completely, completely free. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So in the world of[br]inter--[fumbles for words]--programming 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the most free thing is generally considered 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to be the GPL [General Public License]:[br]open-source, free software licenses. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 uh, and Tim Berners-Lee actually almost used 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the GPL, because he wanted the web software 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 he was building to be free. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But at the last minute he actually changed his mind 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and made it full public domain, [br]because in certain ways 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the GPL is actually more restrictive, because it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 forces other people - like, certain commercial actors 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 wouldn't have wanted to use web technology 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 if it were GPL, so he made it full public domain, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and then from there went on to make all of the standards 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 as open and, uh, general and free as possible. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Uh. So that's my extremely brief[br]history of the internet. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If anyone is curious, he wrote a wonderful book 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 called "Weaving the Web" about his experiences 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 [enticing tone] As you can see, it's short! 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And he has lots of interesting technical information 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in it, without being overwhelming. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's very approachable 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and he's a really interesting person 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and it - the book is much better than his tweets, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which are usually incoherent. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 [one of the participants huffs out a "whew"] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Ellery: Ouch![br]Jeremy [?]: A few minutes? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Ellery: Thanks, that was - that was great, Jer! 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Ellery: I mean, I think that that helps 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 um, in conversations about internet policy, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and internet governance, there's a lot of emphasis 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 on the ability to kind of create and innovate 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 without permission? Like, for every 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to be able to build parts of the web, and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 what you just laid out for us makes it clear 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 how important the Web piece of the infrastructure is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 for that, for that capacity to become 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a real tangible thing, and somebody that -[br][amends] something that now 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we can do - we don't have to have 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 technical expertise to kind of build our own[br]spaces there. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Ellery: Um. So, I wanted to -[br]Jeremy: So um. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Jeremy: If I could add just one more thing, sorry - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Jeremy: I just wanted to give a couple examples 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of things that happen over the internet 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that aren't the web, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 because that was the actual initial question. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, one example would be torrents, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 where you're the - two computers [br]connect to each other, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and stream information directly, without any URLs 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 being mixed into the process. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Um, another one is - email, at its core, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is its own communication protocol 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that doesn't have to use the web, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 although we often use web sites[br]to access and manage our email. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Umm. And then another one was the one[br]right before the Web came out, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a very popular protocol was called Gopher, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which people liked, and sort of worked like the Web 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - you surf around and find things - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but it actually became commercial [br]right around the time that the web came out, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so people would've had to start paying, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and instead of starting to pay, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 they switched to HTTP, HTML, and [br]the World Wide Web. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Ellery: Thank you. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Ellery: So I want to move to Alan, now... Um, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Alan built the first search engine. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And I'm kind of... like, overwhelmed, and feel sort of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, giddy and nervous having him here. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Ellery: This is just - [br][Alan laughs] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Ellery: This is, like, a really big deal! 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Ellery: So, Alan, just - if you could tell us - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 'cuz I think a lot of people don't know about Archie - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 um, it would be really cool just to hear 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 about how you sort of - what you were doing 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that made you decide to, to do this 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and kinda what it was like, and then, I mean,[br]everything you've seen since... 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Unfortunately we're time limited, but... 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Alan: Right.[br]Ellery: You know. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Alan [coughs]: Well, um, uh, well, that was back in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 1989, and, I was working as a system administrator 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 for uh, McGill University - I was a grad student 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 for McGill University - and um, I was responsible 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 for getting software for - one of my responsibilities 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 was getting software for the faculty and the students. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And at the time, the three major [br]protocols on the internet 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - this was pre Web, ummm - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 was, uh, Telnet, which would allow you to log in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to a remote machine. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Email, ah, which would allow you to communicate 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 ah, with another - as we do now, with a, with a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 remote machines, plural, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and, and FTP, which was the File Transfer Protocol, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which allowed you to move, ah, data files, or files 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 from one machine to another. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And at the time what we had was - people had made 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - remember it was a non-commercial internet[br]at the time - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - actually, commercial traffic was forbidden[br]on the internet at the time, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 because it was run by the [br]National Science Foundation 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and it was using educational money 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and therefore other than companies with 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 research arms, like IBM and HP [br]and those kinds of things, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we didn't have any commercial traffic on the internet, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which nowadays seems kind of amazing [br]to even think about - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and, ah, so what people did, were to provide 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to provide free space on their machines 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - and remember, you know, at the time, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a big disc would be a megabyte, you know - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and so people would provide common repositories 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that you could deposit programs that you had written 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 datafiles, and documents, and that kinda stuff. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 into these central repositories that were 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 spread around the internet. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Then other people could then retrieve them. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And so I spent a lot of my time trying to locate 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 software, or the information that my, the[br]students and the faculty were trying to find, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and I got tired of it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and since I'm lazy and a geek, I... 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I automated the process. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I got - instead of doing it manually, I had a bunch 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of scripts wake up in the middle of the night[br]every night, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and go out and index files. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Now remember all of this was just file listings. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's not like Google, it's not like [br]a search engine would be today, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it is just... filenames. All it was, was filenames. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And so what it would do 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 was it would go out every night, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 list all the filenames in all the repositories, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and allow you to search lists of filenames. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And I only used it for myself! 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I only used it, um, uh, for my own personal use. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Um, and at one point my boss, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 who was also a student, a grad student 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 at the University, let Peter Deutsch let it be known 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that, um, somebody was asking for, you know, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 could they, could somebody tell them where, um, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 y'know, a particular piece of software was. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And, uh, uh, we, um, uh... we, you know, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 he came and asked me, [br]he knew we had this database 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and he came and asked me if I could help out. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And I gave it to him, and if, y'know, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 half a sec- half a minute later I had the information, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and so he put this posting online, and, umm. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 People then started asking, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "Well, can you find this for me?" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And, you know, all these manual requests! 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Basically - either through email, or UseNet postings - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - which is what we were using at the time - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we thought, this is silly, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 there's no point doing these things manually 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 when we can just allow people access[br]to the database itself. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And in a moment of insanity, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we had to come up with a name for it, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and I said, "Okay, well, let's just call it ARCHI," 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which is "ARCHIVE" without the V 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And, ah, and within about three or four months 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we were consuming about half 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of all of the traffic to eastern Canada [br][where McGill University is] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 as this search engine became - as people, y'know - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - word of mouth - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you know, people who know about Archie 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 are generally people of a certain age... 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 ...I won't mention what that age is, but 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it's generally people who were in university 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 or working on the internet, so it would have been 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so it would have been research people, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 people in academia in the early nineties. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So Archie lasted for about, uh, [hems and haws] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Five years. Four or five years. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And, um, it only indexed FTP archives. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It never indexed the web. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Now, I went on, as Archie became popular, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and I got more involved in the standards process 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and that kind of stuff, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I worked, uh, fairly closely with Tim Berners-Lee 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to, uh, to standardize - for example, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I did the - I ran the committee 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 at the standard-setting body for the internet, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which is the IETF [br][Internet Engineering Task Force] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to standardize URLs. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Because Tim had come up with 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a set of rules for URLS, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and as we looked at expanding that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to a larger range of resources, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we realized that those rules did not cover 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 all of the cases. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, we worked, for, uh - Tim brought the, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the specification, his original specification, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to the group, and we worked on it for, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I don't remember, nine months to a year or so, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to come up with a standard for URLs. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So all of those URLs that we use, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 day in and day out, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 were, were standardized as a result 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of that committee. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, it was, um, it was a really exciting time, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it was a time of, y'know - the question I always get 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is why didn't make a billion dollars off of it? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And I keep reminding people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 most of the people who were pioneers - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 with the exception of Mark Andreessen 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 uhm, didn't make a whole lot of money off of these. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 these original things. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We were working in an environment which, uh, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 put a premium on getting the technology out there 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 making it as widely available as possible - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Tim's big coup with CERN, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which is the organization that he worked for 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 when he first developed the web 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 was to get CERN to put, um, the web software 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that he had created into the public domain. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So it wasn't even his to give away, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it was CERN's property. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 As an employee [of CERN], [br][Tim's work] would actually belong to CERN. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Uh. He, he actually convinced them [br]to put it in the public domain 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and that's what really, uh, y'know 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 set [amends] lit a fire under the whole thing. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 At the time, the philosophy behind it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 was really, "Let's get this out there, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "..this is a brave new world," 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "..we don't know what all of this [br]technology's gonna be used for!" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I don't think any of us - including Tim - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 imagined what it would become. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Y'know, he always had a much grander vision of it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but I don't - I can guarantee you - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I've spent many, many, many, many an hour 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 with drinks, in bars, drinking with Tim, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and I can guarantee you that he did not 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - Sir Tim, by the way, Sir Tim - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Um. I should - y'know, he even, he, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I don't think, had any idea that it would basically 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 take over the world. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and half the world's population would be using 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the system that he created, twenty years later.[br][corrects himself] Twenty-five years later. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Ellery: Thank you so much. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Ellery: I mean, so, speaking of which, yeah, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it has changed, and, I guess, taken over, in a way, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 um, that we, I'm sure, wouldn't have expected. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I wanted to now move to Josh and Renata, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 who are both [something falls to the floor] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 very [she looks at the fallen object, winces] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 committed, involved leaders in what has now 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 become a global effort to - I mean, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the way that we're sort of putting it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is "save the internet" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 or, preserve and protect the openness 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of all of the rights to free expression, access, um, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and also privacy, that we all feel are embedded 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 actually, in the way that it was built. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, Josh, I wondered if you could explain to us 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 really briefly what your role is in your organization 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and then also, um, tell us about 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the Web We Want campaign, and explain, y'know, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 how you think this rights movement is shaping up 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and if you could kind of link it with everything that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Alan just laid out for us, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that would be really wonderful. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Josh Levy: I'll do my best. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Josh: So, my name is Josh Levy, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Josh: I'm from Free Press, [br] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we're a U.S.-based organization, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we advocate for better technology and media policy 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that allows for an open internet, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 for better representation 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of people in the media, including media that's online, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and for open access to information. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And this issue that we're talking about - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the anniversary of the web - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is really central to our work, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 because we've been fighting, for example, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to pass strong Net Neutrality policies [br]here in the U.S. for years. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Basically ever since the issue first came up,[br]in the mid-2000s, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 when we saw big internet service providers 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 blocking traffic coming from certain destinations. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And that fight is ongoing. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The FCC, the Federal Communications Commission 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 here in the U.S., is charged with overseeing communications and technology policy, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 passed rules in 2010 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that were intended to protect Net Neutrality 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but were passed in a way that we knew[br]wasn't gonna hold up in court. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And we were - unfortunately, we saw that happen 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 when a court in Washington, D.C., [br]threw out those rules, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 effectively throwing out any Net Neutrality [br]protections that people have. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And so this gets back to what Jeremy was saying 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the "internet" versus the "Web," right? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So when we're talking about Net Neutrality, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which I hope a lot of people have heard of, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 this concept that we should be able to access[br]any information that we want online 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 without anybody getting in the way, whether that's[br]a big company or the government - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that is, essentially, that's a policy that applies to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to the ways in which all of our computers[br]connect to each other. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And we have this basic understanding[br]that the internet should be free and open, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 meaning that my computer should be able to connect 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to yours in this global network of computers 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 without any entity inspecting the traffic, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 trying to understand what you're trying to access, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and, based on that understanding, block it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So if it doesn't like the video you're watching, [br][it would be] slowing it down; 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 or, if it doesn't like the application you're using, [br]blocking it - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - that, that should be totally unacceptable. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We should be able to connect to whatever we want[br]in whatever way we want. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And that includes using the Web, right? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So the Web is basically an application 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The internet's this global network, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the Web is just one application that [br]uses this global network. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And so it's essential - [br]Net Neutrality is essential to using the web, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 because as we've seen today, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 using the web is so essential to all of our lives 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and big companies, and governments, have so much power over it that they can block all kinds of things: 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 political speech, videos that we wanna watch,[br]pictures of cats, et cetera. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So. Um, anyway, so that's what Free Press is doing, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in large part, trying to protect [br]that notion of Net Neutrality. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And out of that fight came a number of campaigns, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 including the campaign to stop SOPA[br][Stop Online Piracy Act] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - which was the bad copyright bill a couple years ago[br]here in the U.S. - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and out of that came a realization, I think, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 here in the U.S. but [also] around the world, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that we all needed to kind of talk to each other[br]a little bit more. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 those of us who have been advocating for a free[br]and open internet for a long time. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And so we started doing that: 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Free Press led the development the drafting of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 something called the [br]"Declaration of Internet Freedom" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which was a simple statement of principles[br]about our right to access information online. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And out of that came a really fruitful relationship[br]with Tim Berners-Lee's organization, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - the World Wide Web Foundation - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and we discussed ways in which we could move [br]that effort forward, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 this Declaration effort, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to involve more groups around the world, [br]more people around the world, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and to guarantee that we all have [br]access to information 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and that that access, and the principles behind it, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 are not the domain of any one country, [br]or any one group of individuals. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, out of that came this great project,[br]the Web We Want, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which Renata's gonna tell you more about. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which is seeking to do just that: 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to pass laws, around the world, that will protect [br]people's right to access the internet 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and to access content on the Web [br]without anybody getting in the way, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and, uh, it's building steam very, very quickly - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we are working with countries around the world to [br]develop their own set of principles 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 regarding the web and our rights on it, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and organizing lots and lots of organizations that [br]are really excited about getting involved in this effort 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and our dream of uniting groups who are all fighting [br]the same fight but in different parts of the world 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is kind of coming to life. [br] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, I'll let Renata tell you more about that. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Renata Avila: Eum, hello everyone, everybody, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it's really good to be here? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Renata: Ah, so: Web We Want. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The Web We Want is a coalition of [br][gestures as she searches for words] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 very important groups of organizations [br]from [unintelligible] society 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Ah, I will mention [some] of them: 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Access, that many of us are familiar with;[br][AccessNow.org] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 APC; [br][Association for Progressive Communications] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Free Press; 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 7iber, in Jordan; [br]the Open Source Association, in Jordan as well; 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 [ums and ers] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Consumers International; Article 19; [br]Fundação Getulio Vargas, in Brazil; 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 IT for Change, in India; [br]Public Knowledge, in the U.S.; 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and we, we have a - we got the confirmation that[br]Open Knowledge Foundation, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which has affiliates all over the world,[br]will join as well. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, basically, the campaign... [br] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 ..what we are trying to achieve here 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is to move from the reactions, [br] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the constant reactions to the civil society we have, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to a proactive approach. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 To have a positive agenda, to have the safe [??] first, in different countries. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And also globally [??] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And what happens is usually that we come together last minute - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we react to bad legislation being proposed, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 by either specific [interest groups], or a very [br]creative but not so well informed legislator... 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And so, in the last, let's say, five years, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we have seen so many mobilizations against, against, against. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So we think that yes, it's good to have a reaction[br]to bad legislation, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but it's much more effective to have a proposal[br]coming from civil society. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And not only - like, civil society understood as a - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a more extended way [than] we usually use in [discussions of] internet governance - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but civil society involving everyone[br]in a fight for our rights. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And so we have different activities and [br]different actions to achieve that. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The first would be intense work in [br]specific countries where we [gestures] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 together, all the advisory committee, [br]so that there's something going on, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 some movement in civil society,[br]and there's some action there. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, the list of the countries that we have decided[br]will be like the first "grant-ees" [i.e. recipients] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of um, more stronger support from the punt [???] where we want manages [???] will be: 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Japan, Indonesia, Philippines, India, Bangladesh, Brazil, Ecuador, the U.K., Tunisia, Nigeria, Kenya... 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 ...and South Africa. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, as you see, it's mostly [br]countries of the global south. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Also the U.K., because we saw an opportunity there, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and we also saw a regression of rights. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It is very interesting to see how the [br]deterioration of rights in a country - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - even in a democratic country - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in the last ten years, has been very extreme. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And this is really affecting the region. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Apart from this intense work that we are planning to do, having national dialogues in these countries, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I have informed you of, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we have also - we are launching, [br]on the 21st of March, a mini-grant round. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The mini-grants are for everyone to apply, so you don't need to be an NGO 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so you don't need to be an NGO, you don't need to be an expert to apply for these grants. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 What we want is normal people - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - artists, musicians, everyone - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to be involved in this and [unintelligible] [br]to celebrate, to party for the Web! 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But at the same time celebrate the Web, we[br]start a conversation on what is the web we want? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 What is - [struggles for words] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - which values, which form we want, which way we want to protect the Web in our countries. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The free and open Web. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And so it can be as simple as [br]a screening in a public space? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It can be more elaborate, [br]like a talk at your local library? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It can be anything you want, [br]it can be even a sculpture in the middle of a city. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 ah, telling people what the Web [br]represents [means] to you. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But also, we know that we cannot abandon [br]those fighting "against." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So we have rapid response grants. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And these rapid response grants are for, ehh - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we, we have identified that sometimes to make[br]something happen, you need some resources. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Especially in some countries in the global south. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So. For example, ehh, think about [br]a very bad surveillance law. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 about to be passed in, oh, Nicaragua. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, this rapid response - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - which will be open during the whole year - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - will allow activists to say, "Hey, listen. [br]This very bad thing is happening..." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "..and we think that if we gather a group of people[br]together, and we print, uh, leaflets..." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "..and we make a short video about it, we have[br]a good chance to shift the opinions to our side." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "The side of right." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And so that will be open as well, that will be open on the 21st of March, and remain open the whole year. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And what we will achieve at the end of the year is a[br]very interesting collection of experiences. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We will see that - [finds her words] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 what is the Web people want,[br]in the specific countries, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 with more intense follow-up [br]mechanism and dialogue. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We will also see which techniques are [br]the best for rapid response 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 when there's a threat to the open internet. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 by the collection of experiences from the rapid response grants. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And also we will learn from ways to engage the broader public in our topics and in our issues. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So I am very hopeful that especially [br]artists, or very creative activists, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 will find ways to engage the broader public. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Because we need - this is ours. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The future of [the open internet] [br]depends on us preserving it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And the more people invited to this fight,[br]the stronger we get. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 At last, I will... I would like to invite everyone to be engaged the way that you can engage. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And to apply for these grants! 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But not only to apply for these grants -[br]to make things your own. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If you want to write an article, [br]if you are an expert on specific topics, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 please write articles, [br]please share your knowledge with people, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and please engage, and don't be apathetic. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Because the Web offers us - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - and the internet offers us - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - this opportunity to communicate and connect beyond borders, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and I think that, slowly, we are building this platform - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - which is not a website but is a platform made of [amends her description] collective – 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - that is ready to jump and to take actions to save[br]the web any moment that it is under threat. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So. Yes. That's it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Ellery [laughs]: Thanks. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Ellery: It's really - I think it's great to sort of, [br]to have that out there, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 for people to understand all the ways [br]that they can get involved. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 One thing I - so, in thinking about how can we make a little show today that would celebrate the web, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I couldn't help but think about Global Voices, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 because that's what brings us all together here, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and, I think that our community, in so many ways - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I mean, we couldn't exist, wouldn't exist, [br]without the Web, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but there are also so many particular attributes of it, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 when it comes to access and openness, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that allow us to do all the things that we do, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, including this hangout, right now. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Um. So I wanted to ask - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - although we're really short on time - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Jer, you, I kind of, I said, is there... 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 ...could you talk a little bit about what, [br]if you look at Global Voices, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and sort of the way that it's grow up, [br]um, with the internet - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - you've been here since the beginning, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so you can kind of - just, just tell us a bit. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Jeremy Clark: Okay, well, uh, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Jeremy: I actually haven't been with [br]Global Voices since the very beginning, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but I joined near the start. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, maybe you can see on my screen - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - Global Voices was started in 2005, um, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and one of the great things about the story is that it [br]was started quickly and easily by Ethan Zuckerman 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 who set up the original site, uh, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 along with Rebecca McKinnon, [br]who worked on the idea and the content, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and so, they actually used WordPress, which [br]is the system we still use today, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and which is very similar to the Web[br]in a lot of senses 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 because it's a distributed project, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 people all around the world develop it, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it's open-source, free, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (and it is [free] not by convenience but very explicit philosophy and they're very active in defending that) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and also in another way: uh, originally, at the time, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 there was a very popular free software [br]called Movable Type 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and instead of starting to pay for it, [br]people switched to Wordpress. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, this was our original website. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We later redesigned it several times. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And over the years, we have grown with WordPress 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to take advantage of the new features... um. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 [gestures] - keep running our site. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And so running our whole infrastructure on this very decentralized open-source model has been 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a really rewarding experience for us,[br]just as using the Web has. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And obviously, the, uh, one of the most[br]interesting things is that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Global Voices is all about the web. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Without the Web, [br]without that decentralized authorship, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - anyone can write to it - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 there would be no Global Voices. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Uh, the whole point of global voices was to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 recognize that people all over the world 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 were taking advantage of the benefits of the Web, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and create one place where you could find it, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 sort of like Archie was with the pre-Web TelNet days 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a archive of things happening all around - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - that's what Global Voices did. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Um. So. Yeah! 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And, y'know, we've tried a lot of different 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 infrastructure based around the web over the years; 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 uh, we've used Drupal, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we've used a lot of different online services, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 obviously, like everyone else, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the temptation to take advantage of Google's 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 free offerings has always been [br]part of Global Voices' DNA, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we use Google mailing lists, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we use all the different things that they make for free