Reweaving the Web

by Richard Whitt

This book is a manifesto for the reform of the World Wide Web. Its goal is the restoration of individual users’ confidence that they can trust and only benefit from their interactions with corporations and governments over the Web. The book exposes how we have become increasingly entangled in the aptly named Web: huge data-gathering companies have adopted business models premised on online surveillance, the extraction of personal data and biased algorithms. In exchange for our personal data, and our exposure to having our behaviours and mindsets manipulated by others, we receive ‘free’ online services.

The author Richard Whitt’s proposed solution is the GliaNet, a virtual glue formed of new tools and intermediaries resetting the unbalanced relationship that currently exists as a result of the commercialisation of the Web for marketing purposes. ‘Personal AI Agents’ would be supplied to and managed for us by ‘Net Fiduciaries’, who would be professionally regulated like doctors and lawyers. The PAI Agents would protect our both our identity and our data, and filter out the incoming data flows we don’t want to see. The book concludes with a credible Theory of Change for implementing GliaNet.

Whitt, who now heads the GliaNet Alliance, has much relevant experience from being a technical policy attorney at Google and a fellow in residence at the Mozilla Foundation. Reweaving the Web has though yet to be reviewed by the press or academia or appear on bestseller lists; nor has the GliaNet Alliance any major tech companies listed in its quite small membership. One wonders why its ideas are not gaining traction or whether it’s simply a question of time. Both the UK and US governments are currently studying the potential for AI and it could be they might introduce the sort of legislation Whitt advocates in the book to enable the GliaNet. In the meantime, maybe the direction in which GPTs and the likes of Microsoft Copilot are developing reflect a realisation by the major tech companies that there is a user demand for trustworthy personal AI at least.

The current concerns about scams, digital ID, the detrimental effects of social media, and data exploitation make this a timely book. It is exhaustively referenced and publicly supported by tech luminaries. I too support its analysis and the prospect it holds out for restoring human autonomy and agency online for all of us. Let’s hope for all our sakes that the momentum for reweaving the Web grows.

Dr Richard Davis

Published by: Richard S Whitt, 27 Sept. 2024. 444 pages.

ISBN-13: 979-8991085830