The Web At War: Hypertext, Social Media, and Totalitarianism
In 2022, much of the world faced the prospect of a prolonged conventional war with a totalitarian state. The origins of hypertext lie in the wars of the 20th Century, and efforts to avoid a repeated conflict — and confidence that conflict could be contained if not entirely avoided— is deeply embedded into the architecture of the World Wide Web. The Web was not designed to confront a war, and it remains deeply vulnerable to totalitarian subversion. Our systems, platforms, and our discipline will need to adapt.
doi
10.1145/3511095.3536365
name
The Web At War: Hypertext, Social Media, and Totalitarianism
source
supplied-acm-publisher-html-and-archival-pdf
license
© 2022 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).
summary
In 2022, much of the world faced the prospect of a prolonged conventional war with a totalitarian state. The origins of hypertext lie in the wars of the 20th Century, and efforts to avoid a repeated conflict — and confidence that conflict could be contained if not entirely avoided— is deeply embedded into the architecture of the World Wide Web. The Web was not designed to confront a war, and it remains deeply vulnerable to totalitarian subversion. Our systems, platforms, and our discipline will need to adapt.
import_kind
full_text
open_access
false
displayAuthor
Mark Bernstein
displayPublishTime
2022-06-28
acm_source_attribution
Supplied ACM publisher HTML, verified against authorized ACM archival PDF; complete full-text conversion with page facsimiles.