「萬維網之父」談數字壟斷與隱私威脅——《蘋果周刊》對蒂姆·伯納斯·李專訪

WEB』S INVENTOR DISCUSSES DIGITAL MONOPOLIES, PRIVACY THREATS

「萬維網之父」談數字壟斷與隱私威脅——《蘋果周刊》對蒂姆·伯納斯·李專訪

圖源：Vincent West，APPLE MAGZINE

翻譯：鳳梨是只胖柯基

校閱：PC

The interview was conducted a few weeks before Facebook』s current privacy scandal.

這次訪談是在Facebook當前的隱私醜聞之前幾周進行的。

Q: What are your biggest concerns about the internet?

A: Bullying and fake news are getting worse. (And) a monopoly messes up a market, it tends to hit innovation. I think there are some people that are worried about the fact that there is a monopoly in search, social...

問：您對互聯網最大的擔憂是什麼？

答：互聯網霸凌和假新聞的情況越來越嚴重。（而且）互聯網寡頭壟斷混亂了市場，打擊了創新性。我認為有些人會擔心在搜索、社交等方面的（互聯網企業）也存在壟斷......

Q: And in commerce?

A: Pretty much.... It is really hard for people to think about how to make progress to design new systems without involving the incumbent.

問：在（互聯網）商業中的擔憂呢？

答：非常多......人們很難想到在不涉及現任人員的情況下設計新系統方面取得進展的方法。

Q: Do we need regulations imposed on Google, Facebook, and Amazon because of the power of their networks?

A: I think that is too broad a question. You might look at regulations for antitrust or monopoly, there might be regulations about privacy, there might be regulations for search engines (and) whether they should be declared a public good and therefore have a duty to provide fair answers. You have to see every case independently.

問：我們是否需要對谷歌、Facebook和亞馬遜等壟斷企業實施約束性的法規，因為他們在互聯網中的權力？

答：我認為這是一個太寬泛的問題。你可能會考慮反托拉斯法或反壟斷法，法規里可能會有關於隱私的規定。搜索引擎里也可能會有規定（以及）它們（公眾信息）是否應該被認定為公共物品，因此他們有責任提供正確的答案。 你必須獨立地對待每一個案例。

Q: What do you think of the argument that these companies have become modern-day trusts and it might make sense to break them up?

A: Anyone should always become concerned about a monopoly stifling innovation. It was an issue with AT&T, not to mention Standard Oil. When the web started, it was actually (browser pioneer) Netscape that was dominant. Now people don』t worry so much about the browser. They worry more about the search engine. Except for the people that don』t worry about search engines at all because they worry about the social network. In other words, whenever there is a monopoly, it』s a threat. But on the other hand, you also may find in a couple years, that when you look back and what you thought was the dominant threat has finally been replaced by something else on another axis.

問：您如何看待這個觀點：這些互聯網巨頭公司已經成為當代的信仰的觀點，因此將它們解散是合理的？

答：任何人都應該關注壟斷扼殺創新。 這就像AT＆T（美國電話電報公司American Telephone and Telegraph Company）壟斷的問題，更不用說美孚石油了。當網路開始流行時，它實際上是（瀏覽器先鋒）Netscape網景瀏覽器佔主導地位。現在人們並不擔心瀏覽器，他們更擔心搜索引擎。那些不擔心搜索引擎的人，他們擔心社交網路。換句話說，每當有壟斷時，這就是一種威脅。 但另一方面，你也可能在幾年後發現，當你回頭看看，你現在所認為的主要威脅最終會被同一條路線上的其他東西所取代。

Q: Do you think that is still possible for that to happen, with the all the power that these networks have accumulated?

A: I am concerned, partly because it means the ability to change the web for the better is limited to the labs of those particular companies rather than to the community at large. I think there is a danger that ... in the next 10 years we end up with the same dominant players that we have today because that is the way market domination works.

問：在互聯網巨頭公司已經積聚了這麼大的權力的情況下，你依然會認為他們會被解散嗎，？

答：我有擔心這方面。部分原因是因為這意味著改變網路的能力僅限於那些特定公司的實驗室，而不是整個社會。我認為，在未來10年內，我們遇到的互聯網主導企業還會是現在的這幾家，因為這是市場統治的方式。

Q: Are you feeling better or worse about where the web is today compared to a year ago?

A: I think about the same as a year ago. A couple years ago, I was very disappointed with the whole fake news thing. We are finding out a lot more about the malicious manipulation of content, which we always suspected but it』s now coming out in the open. It』s all pretty depressing when it comes to the web not being in a functional way of serving humanity.

問：與一年前相比，你覺得現在的網路環境變好還是變差了？

答：我覺得和一年前一樣。幾年前，我對整個網路充斥著假新聞感到非常失望。我們一直懷疑很多內容被惡意操縱，直到它被公開。當網路沒有以服務全人類的方式運作時，這一切都令人沮喪。

Meanwhile, I feel a big backlash coming about personal data. I talk to people about projects on how to manage their personal data and people get very excited about that. It』s just not people like you and me that think of things like this all the time. All kinds of people are thinking about it. To some extent, we may see a backlash, we may see a revival of a sort of a more utopian push saying, 『No, this isn』t the world I want, we can do better.』

同時，我很關心個人隱私數據。我與人們討論如何管理個人隱私數據的項目，人們會對此非常興奮。只是不僅僅是像你和我這樣的人總是想到這樣的事情，各種各樣的人都在想它。 在某種程度上，我們可能會看到一種變革，我們可能會看到一種更加烏托邦式推動的變革說：「不，這不是我想要的世界，我們可以做得更好。」

The web was actually more exciting when we were all watching blogs and linking to each other』s blogs and ended up reading the best blogs because you follow all the best links and so on. It was great, and we can do that again.

當我們都在閱讀博客並鏈接到彼此的博客，且最終閱讀最好的博客時，網路實際上更令人興奮，因為它篩選出了最好的鏈接給你等等。這很棒，我們可以再次做到。

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