Web 5.0: Blockchain-Powered Digital Network

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Web 5.0: Relevance for UPSC Exam

Web 5.0: It is an important topic for UPSC prelims and mains examination. Web 5.0 will come under- awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nano-technology, bio-technology and issues relating to intellectual property rights of Science and Technology (GS Paper 3).

Web 5.0 in News

Recently, the former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced his vision for a new decentralized web platform that is being called Web 5.0.
Web 5.0 is being built with an aim to return “ownership of data and identity to individuals”.

What is Web 5.0?

About: Web 5.0 is aimed at “building an extra decentralized web that puts you in control of your data and identity”.
Development: Web 5.0 is being developed by Dorsey’s Bitcoin business unit, The Block Head (TBH).
Significance: It will allow users to ‘own their identity’ on the Internet and ‘control their data’.
- Web 5.0 envision an Internet without threat of censorship – from governments or big tech, and without fear of significant outages.
Use Cases for Web 5.0: On its website, the TBT presents two use cases for how Web 5.0 will change things in the future.
- Changes the “Control of Identity”: An individual can switch apps whenever she wants, taking her social persona with her.
- Gives users control over their own data: An individual can keep his data in his decentralized web node.

Liquid-Mirror Telescope- India’s first International Liquid-Mirror Telescope (ILMT)

How Web 5.0 is different from Web 1.0, Web 2.0, & Web 3.0?

Web 1.0: It was the first generation of the global digital communications network.
- It is often referred to as the “read-only” Internet made of static web-pages that only allowed for passive engagement.
Web 2.0: next stage in the evolution of the web was the “read and write” Internet (Web 2.0).
- Users were now able to communicate with servers and other users leading to the creation of the social web.
- Web 2.0 is the world wide web that we use today.
Web 3.0: It is an evolving term that is used to refer to the next generation of Internet – a “read-write-execute” web – with decentralization as its bedrock.
- It speaks about a digital world, built leveraging the blockchain technology, where people are able to interact with each other without the need of an intermediary.
- Web 3.0 will be driven by Artificial Intelligence and machine learning where machines will be able to interpret information like humans.
Web 5.0: Web 5.0 is Web 2.0 plus Web 3.0 that will allow users to ‘own their identity’ on the Internet and ‘control their data’.
- However, Web 3.0 isn’t truly decentralized or owned by its users, but is instead controlled by various “venture capitalists and limited partners”.