On the Sustainability of the Open Web

Technology is continuing to prove itself as a prevalent force in the now interconnected world. There are over 1 billion websites and over 4 billion internet users worldwide. (internetlivestats.com) As with all great innovations, technology has the potential to be invasive and to be abused. Companies collect and sell personal data, hackers have spied on and suppressed individuals, people publish a plethora of biased, fake information to mislead and sway opinions, alongside many other intrusive or malicious issues. The UN’s 9th Sustainable Development Goal is the development and sustainability of industry, innovation, and infrastructure. Although computers were originally invented to perform math and the internet to share plain information, both have revolutionized all 3 of these categories. Because we’ve adopted it in nearly every part of our lives, it is important that technology is accessible and used ethically. In our study, we will examine the current threats to the availability and ethicality of the major areas of technology and the internet, what is being done to combat them, and conclude what needs to continue and what needs to change to ensure technology will continue to be a tool to help us