THIS week marks the 25th anniversary of the World Wide Web. It really is hard to think of an invention (a British one, at that!) that has had such a profound effect on all our lives.

It is also incredible to think that it has come so far in such a short period of time. The transition from the wheel to the internal combustion engines was thousands of years. The transition from clunking slow dial-up servers to super fast 4G mobile telephones has been just the blink of an eye by comparison.

The implications are incredibly widespread. Education has had to keep up as it is now possible to access every fact available to humanity at the click of a button. High streets have moved from the town to online.

Curiously, the web has enabled people to move back to a bygone era when people had their groceries delivered to their homes. The incredible increase in communications through a plethora of social media sites has changed everything from how we make friends to how we find our life partners. It has increased democratisation and has enabled voters to hold their representatives to account in a far more meaningful and immediate way.

It is not just high streets that have had to readjust to the new shopping techniques. Printed media has had to adapt or die. Post offices now have fewer and fewer basic services that can’t be accessed online. Banking in a branch is increasingly becoming a thing of the past.

But with the changes – many for the better, some not so – comes a whole new set of problems. Anyone who posts stuff on the internet from a blog to a tweet is now a publisher and subject to complex laws. Pornography used to be something that could only be bought on the ‘top shelf’. The internet has removed the self-policing effect of shame to allow unlimited access to a wide range of content, resulting in abuse.

And internet bullying – in many cases the online version of road rage – has resulted in people being driven to appalling outcomes.

The challenge comes not just with the profound changes we all must come to terms with, but in how we police it and protect it.

And importantly, we must get this right for the long term and make sure it is accessible to everyone.

CONTACT YOUR MP

  • Email: mark.garnier.mp@parliament.uk
  • Telephone: 020 7219 7198 or 01562 746771
  • Write: 9a Lower Mill Street, Kidderminster, DY11 6UU, or House of Commons, Westminster, London