One of the main creators of the world wide web Sir Tim Berners-Lee has warned that the phenomenal growth of the internet is also creating serious potential problems.

In particular he warns of false information being easily spread around the internet. Rumour stories and false accusations can easily can a currency of acceptance that would not occur in traditional forms of media. Sir Tim Berners-Lee warns:
"there is a great danger that it becomes a place where untruths start to spread more than truths, or it becomes a place which becomes increasingly unfair in some way".

In particular he mentions the phenomena of blogging. Blogging enables friends and contacts to easily spread and disseminate information. However he argues that people may too easily trust information mentioned in a blog. This inaccurate, defamatory and unverifiable information can then easily become an accepted truth on the internet.

He suggests the most important development of the internet will be in creating mechanisms for allowing people to check the accuracy of information by providing original sources. Sir Tim admits that this poses a significant challenge. It is interesting to note that Wikipedia has had to take steps to prevent false information being added to the biographies of living people. Because anybody can edit the open source encyclopedia several people have complained it has been used to spread false material. In seeking to raise standards wikipedia has sought to stop the implementation of false and libelous material.

At the same time there is a growing consensus that the internet has had a radical impact on the way millions of people work, and interact with others. The last two years has seen an explosive growth in the use of the internet. It is estimated the size of the internet has doubled in the past two and half years. There appears no slow down in the growth of the internet with increasing access in less prosperous countries. Sir Tim says another major challenge will be to provide free internet access to everybody.

Sir Tim was recently launching a new joint initiative between Southampton University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to create the first degree in web science. The two schools hope to raise the standards of web content.

Richard is an economics teacher in Oxford. Richard writes a blog about various things including Tips for SEO and Writing. http://www.netwriting.co.uk/