On the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, Tim Berners-Lee, one of the inventors of the Internet, discussed Google in China and gave an optimistic perspective of the role of the Internet in China. From the Times:
Speaking about the dispute between Google and China, Sir Tim said: “I think that openness increases steadily.
“Every time you open it, the genie comes out of the bottle and it’s very difficult to put it [back] in the bottle.”
He said he expected that countries such as China, which fiercely moderate some items online, would eventually open up, even if it will take a long time.
“The internet has a tradition of bit by bit increasing openness,” he said.
“It tends not to go backwards … [but] a government that is used to working with an uninformed citizenry might take a while to move to a position where the citizens are informed.”