TANZANIA World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee said Thursday the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the gross inequality of a world where almost half the population is unable to connect to the internet.
Men remain 21 percent more likely than women to be online, and 52 percent more likely in the least developing countries.He spoke at the online launch of U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres Roadmap for Digital Cooperation.
A first step is to develop new financial models to provide affordable connectivity to the Internet for everyone by 2030.
The digital world has many benefits, but also has been gravely misused, Guterres said.
Hate speech, discrimination and abuse are on the march in digital spaces, the U.N. chief said.