As the web wraps ever tighter around us, Mozilla’s open-source Internet Health Report is investigating what is helping (and hurting) our greatest shared global resource.
The aim is to start a conversation with the “citizens of the internet” about what is healthy, what is not – and what lies ahead for the ecosystem as it continues to evolve, along with a proliferation of connected devices.
The initial version covers familar Mozilla topics like decentralisation, open innovation, and online privacy and security; through to newer areas like digital inclusion and web literacy.
Chosen because they are all deeply intertwined, Mozilla believes these issues and the choices we make around them have a deep impact on how the internet functions.
A Mozilla blog explains: “The Internet of Things, autonomous systems, artificial intelligence: these innovations will no doubt bring good to our lives and society. However, they will also create a world where we no longer simply ‘use a computer,’ we live inside it.
“This changes the stakes. The Internet is now our environment. How it works — and whether it’s healthy — has a direct impact on our happiness, our privacy, our pocketbooks, our economies and democracies.”
So the health of the internet becomes of critical interest to us all, and we all need to play our part in creating a global movement to safeguard it.
The blog goes on to say: “We need to help people understand what’s at risk and what they can do.
“We have started work on the Internet Health Report at Mozilla for exactly this reason. It is an open source project to document and explain what’s happening to this valuable public resource.”
To find out more about contributing to future versions of the report, click here.