If the Internet is Broken, How Can Libraries Help Fix it?

How does one even measure the state of the highly dynamic, many layered internet? With its obvious flaws and increasing hazards blended among new services and conveniences, is deprivatization an answer? What does that mean and is it possible? Tune in to hear from three people who look at these and related issues like trust, identity and privacy, IT security full time. Might increasingly powerful AI tools help or hurt and whom?

Could libraries expand their existing role as helping hands and points of open information /communications access to assume any new private &/or public services delivered over the internet? How might libraries help restore a measure of trust to the online world?

How exactly is the internet governed anyway? Is anyone in charge? Or does it run like the world at large through a massively complex set of overlapping treaties, laws and business contracts atop the widest range of histories, cultures and customs? Does this now critical global infrastructure all somehow run with no central controlling authority?!

Big questions and more.

Speakers

• Ben Tarnoff, writer and co-founder of the magazine Logic and the author of the forthcoming book “Internet for the People”; technical writer and product manager.

"The Internet Is Broken. How Do We Fix It?" - NYT, 5/27/22 

• Richard Whitt, President, NetsEdge LLC; fmr. Corporate Director for Strategic Initiatives, Google Inc; Ethical Data Governance for Web Companies: The Virtual Trust Layer

• Robin Wilton, Director - Internet Trust, Internet Society; 35 years of experience in the IT industry, centred around identity and privacy, IT security; Policy Brief: Principles for Responsible Data Handling