The internet and the World Wide Web are socio-technical systems, made up of infrastructure machines, programmes and protocols, but it is also made up of the social groups and social shifts that make these things feasible. This consultation process has rightly highlighted ethical concerns. However, social impacts should also be considered.

Participation in the web is almost becoming obligatory to access social benefits. Eurostat figures estimate that around 83% of the population of Europe had access to the internet in 2016, but that figure says little about how confident these individuals are using a range of internet services, and it says nothing about the 120 million people who are currently excluded. As government departments and businesses come under increasing economic pressure to reduce costs, many are unable to justify offering essential services face-to-face. What are the implications of this for people who are not digitally literate? The problem is exacerbated by the fact that studies suggest that pre-existing disadvantages in broader society are being re-produced online. Digital literacy appears to be correlated to socio-demographic characteristics, such as age, disability, socio-economic group and geographic location (Office for National Statistics, UK, 2015). Despite the concerns, we have limited understanding of current and future disadvantages for those who are not digitally literate.

The Web was always intended as, and is valued as, a system for the common good. However, many feel excluded, unwelcome, victimised, or generally afraid of the pace of change. Cyber crime currently costs European Member States €265 billion a year (EC3, 2016), a figure that masks the social and human suffering caused by the most serious online crimes. If decisions on current developments also try to understand the issue from a human perspective, we may be able to avoid steer web developments in a direction that avoids the very high costs of ending up with the wrong sort of web.

Society undoubtedly places social constraints on the internet infrastructure and its potential for development. Social pressures combined with technical affordances of geolocation are threatening a Balkanisation of the Web. Business pressures are creating a drive to privatise web content and allow discriminatory transport of web packets, and therefore threaten equal access to information. We are only now beginning to develop the tools to monitor and observe social interactions on the web, such as the Web Observatory. Understanding of this complex co-relation should also be a consideration in this consultation process if we are to get the web that we want.

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