Articulate how we will learn from the harms of the web

[wareid]

The paragraph describing the harms doesn’t transition well into the remainder of the document. We need a sentence/statement between to explain one very important thing: we were naive about how the world would use the technologies we developed. We now know that there are important consequences to how standards are developed, and with open eyes to those consequences, we move forward by [rest of vision document].

Also we don’t guide the entirety of the web, we produce application-layer standards that facilitate the distribution, formatting, and structure of web content, we can’t fix every problem, but we can ensure that within our purview we attempt to limit harm whenever we can.

[michaelchampion]

Issue #13, which references the previous repo's issue WebStandardsFuture/Vision#21 has suggested text that might be useful here. For example,

W3C should invest in research / align with external researchers on "post-mortems" of how web technology and culture was exploited by bad actors.

Aspire to get something like the Privacy Threat Model to maturity and use those criteria to evaluate specs as they proceed on the Rec Track

Build credible policy guidance, analogous to WCAG, and encourage governments to reference the guidelines created by an international, multi stakeholder process. For example see this New York Times editorial ”All of this is why federal legislation is so urgently needed. That should include provisions making personal data collection available only with consumers’ prior consent. …If American consumers want more targeted advertising, or wish to freely share other personal data, they can choose to do so, rather than trust that companies have their best interests in mind.

[cwilso]

Concern from editors+chair on adding more negative language about our past naiveté.

[michaelchampion]

It's not worth blocking finalization of the Vision, but I'll take the opportunity for one last rant before admitting defeat: Each passing day shows more and more how naive we were in the early days of the web about the positive benefits of information decentralization (thus destroying the newspaper industry), anonymity (empowering hate/lie-spewing trolls), insisting that everything on the web is "free" (meaning that tracking and targeted ads are the only viable business model for most websites), etc. etc. etc. W3C would better serve humanity as more of a "Bulletin of the Web Scientists" a la https://thebulletin.org warning of impending doomsday than as a cheerleader for what the web might have been in a better world, and paying only lip service to the harms it has enabled. 🧌👋

[cwilso]

To be clear, Mike, we all agree were naive about these issues, and I believe the current vision text makes that clear. We are trying to strike a balance between impending doom and hopeful cheerleading. I do think we need to expand on the title of this issue more in the future - we should articulate more about how we will do better - but the specific suggestion (make it clear how naive we were) I don't think is a good idea.

I don't want this to be "admitting defeat". I see it as we need to formalize the guiding light as a Statement, and then refine with maps on how we'll get there. Getting that light written down is taking forever, so I want to lock in what we have before expanding further. Does that make sense?

[michaelchampion]

Getting that light written down is taking forever, so I want to lock in what we have before expanding further.

+1. The Vision as it stands -- as far as it might be from what I hoped for 5 years ago -- is a significant improvement over "Lead the web to its full potential." I'm admitting defeat on trying to make it stronger / less acceptable to some current stakeholders, you should not admit defeat on publishing a Vision that does get broad W3C consensus.