When the guy that essentially invented the internet that we know and love/hate today speaks up people generally listen. Sir Tim Berners-Lee joins an extensive list of submissions to the Australian government with concerns that its proposed Media Code will hurt the internet.
The Media Code at the centre of the controversy is the requirement for internet giants such as Google and Facebook to pay news creators for their content when linked to on their relevant platforms. The move has garnered significant outcry, not only from the giants themselves, but even the US government calling on Australia to reconsider.
In Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s words:
On the web, the sharing of content rests on the ability of users to do two things: to create content […] and to make links in that content to other parts of the web.
Both he and the majority of other submitters argue that without links to content you are in fact reversing the very fundamentals of the internet. We’ve also been treated to a somewhat “coincidental” preview of this when Google ran an experiment for some Australian users removing links to editorial content from their search results.