www@30 on TV2

Screenshot from Norway's første web page, created on the 12th of May, 1993

[Transcribed from TV2 Nyhetskanalen 12 March 2019 at 7:05 with reporter Øyvind Brigg. Translated from Norwegian]

Today, it is 30 years since the World Wide Web was invented. Håkon Wium Lie was one of those who early understood that this was the future and that the internet would revolutionize the way the world works. He contributed to creating Norway's very first website, MultiTorg.
[To Håkon] Håkon Wium Lie, you started Norway's very first website. When you think back on that, did you understand how important this would be for everyone?: Nobody fully understood that this would change our everyday lives in every possible way. Today we find spouses and banks, we do everything online now. But we saw the potential. I remember seeing HTML code for the first time, it was an eye-opening experience. Revolutionary. The revolution was not how advanced it was, the revolution was that it was so easy to compose new pages. The simplicity of HTML made it possible for many to create websites.
On May 13, 1993, you will published Multitorg. Looking back, what do you think?: In fact, I don't think it's so bad, it has colors and links! The fact that you could click on a text and jump to a completely different place, it was – WOW!
Tell us a little about the process behind this. You had a background from [the research institutes at] Kjeller where you had access to lots of equipment and connections.: Indeed, we had a plenty of computers and connections, we were priviledged. I had been fascinated by computers since I first found a home computer as a 15-year old. Computers became even more interesting when they were connected, when we started to send email and such. And then came the web. We saw websites, with hypertext where you could click and go elsewhere, it was WOW! I decided, this I want to work on, contribute to. So I went to CERN to work with Tim Berners-Lee, we shared office there. It is him we are celebrating today. Today it is 30 years since he first wrote down the ideas that came to be the web.
Even before the web you had the internet...: Yes, we could send e-mail before the web. The web was much more compelling, though, you could point and click with the mouse and many people could participate and contribute. Today we see that everyone in Norway and half of the world's population have access to the web. This has changed the media landscape, as well. It is no longer only NRK and TV2 that are allowed to broadcast signals, everyone can join and write on Facebook, for example. Some problems have also appeared. Facebook may have become a little too big and a little too powerful. These are pluses and minuses. But all in all: there are more pluses than minuses.
How do you see the development further on?: I hope we can maintain an internet where everyone can participate, where there is freedom of expression, and where people behave themselves. In fact, Norway has a unique opportunity to help this development. We own two secret domain names. We own .no, which everyone knows, and we also own .sj, for Svalbard and Jan Mayen, and .bv, for Bouvet Island. These are names that are unused, which are Norwegian resources, almost like the oil in the North Sea in 1965. I believe we can do compelling things with these names. It's important to think about privacy, it's important to think about freedom of speech, it's important to think that we should be part of making the world a better place.
Explain, what does it mean to have these resources: Bouvet Island, Jan Mayen and Svalbard?: The interesting thing is not the names or the islands. It is historic why we got these. The fact that we have unused two-letter domain names allows us to start new services. We can create zones where you can, e.g., know for sure where the files are stored. For example. when you communicate with the government, the communcation may be stored outside of Norway. If you use .bv, we could make it a rule that all files should be stored Norway. They don't have to be stored on Bouvet Island, though, which only has penguins. [laughter]
Finally, are Norwegian government officials and politicians aware of these problems?: Politicians have a lot more to think about, so I don't think they're up to speed on this. But some of us try to raise awareness. We believe that public information should be publicly available. One of the first projects I worked on in 1994 was to put Norwegian laws online. At that time, one had to pay to read the Constitution electronically. That has changed Norwegian laws are now freely available. But we are still struggling with the Supreme Court decisions. I was actually sued for having posted the Supreme Court decisions online, so there are still some lumps in the sauce out there.
Håkon Wium Lie, as the pioneer you are, how will the 30th anniversary be celebrated?: I will probably sit in front of my computer. [laughter]
Is that the best way to celebrate?: We use these screens everywhere, some of use a little too much. I'll send some messages and congratulate some people. It'll be fine.
Thank you for coming to us.: Thanks.