he Search Suggestion Effect (SSE), the Answer Bot Effect (ABE), the Targeted Messaging Effect (TME), and the Opinion Matching Effect (OME), among others. Effects like these might now be impacting the opinions, beliefs, attitudes, decisions, purchases and voting preferences of more than two billion people every day.

What's terrible and dangerous is a faceless organization deciding to arbitrarily and silently control what I can and can not do with my browser on my computer. Orwell is screaming in his grave right now. This is no different than Mozilla deciding I don't get to visit Tulsi Gabbard's webpage because they don't like her politics, or I don't get to order car parts off amazon because they don't like hyundai, or I don't get to download mods for minecraft, or talk to certain people on facebook.

The forces that Berners-Lee unleashed nearly three decades ago are accelerating, moving in ways no one can fully predict. And now, as half the world joins the Web, we are at a societal inflection point: Are we headed toward an Orwellian future where a handful of corporations monitor and control our lives? Or are we on the verge of creating a better version of society online, one where the free flow of ideas and information helps cure disease, expose corruption, reverse injustices?