The Torque News Drop is a weekly report on the most pressing WordPress news.
In this episode of the Torque News Drop, we talk about The Contract For The Web‘s nine principles. We also talk about diversity at WordCamp Europe and Freemius’s new WordPress video series.
Love WordPress news, but hate reading, my name is Doc and this is the Torque News Drop
Today we’ll talk about diversity at WCEU and a new video project by the Freemius team, but first lets talk about the state of the web.
The World Wide Web turned 30 this year and it’s creator, Tim Berners-Lee, has recently shared a new initiative to help keep it going another 30 years.
The Contract for the Web is an initiative by Tim and the World Wide Web Foundation to attempt to address issues of fake news, privacy issues, and political manipulation on the internet. Or as Tim says “The Contract for the Web gives us a roadmap to build a better web”.
It’s built on 9 principles, 3 of which are for governments, 3 are for private companies, and 3 are for citizens of the web. The list goes like this:
“Ensure everyone can connect to the internet”.
“Keep all of the internet available, all of the time”.
“Respect and protect people’s fundamental online privacy and data rights”.
“Make the internet affordable and accessible to everyone”.
“Respect and protect people’s privacy and personal data to build online trust”.
“Develop technologies that support the best in humanity and challenge the worst”.
“Be creators and collaborators on the Web”.
“Build strong communities that respect civil discourse and human dignity”.
“Fight for the Web”.
The Contract For The Web launched with over 150 partners, including Google, Microsoft, Dreamhost, Twitter, Human Made, and Facebook, but it looks like Facebook might already be breaking one of Tim Berners-Lee’s main requests by running targeted political adverts for the 2019 general election in the UK.
The contract is non-binding, so I guess it’s just good pr for companies like Facebook to sign on to it, regardless of whether they plan to actually observe it or not. I’m just saying.
Consider this less of a contract and more of a roadmap to building a better web. For more information, you can check out contractfortheweb.org
Speaking of making the web better, last year’s WordCamp Europe was their most inclusive and diverse event yet, but they want to keep the trend going. In a recent post titled “Diversity Matters”, WordCamp Europe put out a call for nominations to help make this year’s event the most diverse yet. This includes people of color, the LGBTQ community, people with disabilities, and people identifying as women or non-binary.
If you know someone who would be great on stage that also comes from a group not typically represented at tech events, then go to 2020.europe.wordcamp.org to nomiminate that person, or even yourself if you feel you qualify.
Finally, I wanted to give a shout out to Freemius for diving head-first into the world of video with a series of WordPress tutorials. Ben Lev is writing, directing, and appearing in this videos which are really top notch. I recommend checking there videos out on Freemius.com or search “freemius” on youtube.
That’s it for this week’s News Drop, we’ll see you next week.
The post Torque News Drop: The Contract for the Web appeared first on Torque.
