[Westside]

Are you glad that Al Gore created the internet?  What are the plus and minuses that you see with the internet?  By the way, the Al Gore comment was purely a joke.

[Old School Hound]

Are you glad that Al Gore created the internet?  What are the plus and minuses that you see with the internet?  By the way, the Al Gore comment was purely a joke.

I like some things about it. We have so much information available at our fingertips. I like being able to watch old shows and video clips from when I was a kid. Social media, however, is horrible. Facebook and Twitter(X) is a cesspool. The internet gives us easy access to learning lots of things. But it is also full of misinformation and can be very dangerous. I would gladly go back to the time before computers and cell phones. With the conveniences afforded by technological advances, we have sacrificed a more personal society and civil discourse.

Btw, Al Gore's statement about the internet was taken out of content.  He never claimed that he "invented" the Internet,  as is often quoted, nor did he say anything that could reasonably be interpreted that way. The legend arose from critics and pundits who took a relatively credible statement Gore made during the course of an interview, altered its wording, and stripped it of context to make it seem a ridiculously self-serving falsehood.

[Granny Bear]

"Here is Blitzer's entire query to Gore:

BLITZER: I want to get to some of the substance of domestic and international issues in a minute, but let's just wrap up a little bit of the politics right now.
Why should Democrats, looking at the Democratic nomination process, support you instead of Bill Bradley, a friend of yours, a former colleague in the Senate? What do you have to bring to this that he doesn't necessarily bring to this process?

Clearly, Blitzer is asking Gore to offer an explanation of how he differs as a politician from other politicians in general, and his rival at the time, Bill Bradley, in particular. Here is Gore's entire response to Blitzer's question:

GORE: Well, I will be offering - I'll be offering my vision when my campaign begins. And it will be comprehensive and sweeping. And I hope that it will be compelling enough to draw people toward it. I feel that it will be.
But it will emerge from my dialogue with the American people. I've traveled to every part of this country during the last six years. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system."

Here is the context.  While nobody believes Al Gore invented the internet, it appears to be self-serving. IMO
Al Gore was incredibly self-serving.  If you don't believe me, ask Tipper.

[Westside]

I really do like the internet, but it has caused the demise of some of my other pleasures. One of favorite things to do is browse a bookstore. The internet has caused the demise of many of those. Back in the 1990's and early 2000's I used to spend north of $40.00 a month on weightlifting magazines. Every magazine that I used to buy has closed up shop. The internet has also changed the music industry forever. Despite these things, the internet has made life easier for many.

[Old School Hound]

"Here is Blitzer's entire query to Gore:

BLITZER: I want to get to some of the substance of domestic and international issues in a minute, but let's just wrap up a little bit of the politics right now.
Why should Democrats, looking at the Democratic nomination process, support you instead of Bill Bradley, a friend of yours, a former colleague in the Senate? What do you have to bring to this that he doesn't necessarily bring to this process?

Clearly, Blitzer is asking Gore to offer an explanation of how he differs as a politician from other politicians in general, and his rival at the time, Bill Bradley, in particular. Here is Gore's entire response to Blitzer's question:

GORE: Well, I will be offering - I'll be offering my vision when my campaign begins. And it will be comprehensive and sweeping. And I hope that it will be compelling enough to draw people toward it. I feel that it will be.
But it will emerge from my dialogue with the American people. I've traveled to every part of this country during the last six years. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system."

Here is the context.  While nobody believes Al Gore invented the internet, it appears to be self-serving. IMO
Al Gore was incredibly self-serving.  If you don't believe me, ask Tipper.

From Snopes:

The "Al Gore claimed he 'invented' the Internet" put-downs were misleading distortions that originated with a campaign interview conducted by Wolf Blitzer on CNN's Late Edition program on 9 March 1999. (Gore, then the sitting Vice President, was seeking the 2000 Democratic presidential nomination.)



When asked to describe what distinguished him from his challenger for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey, Gore replied (in part): "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system."
In context, Gore's response (which employed the word "created," not "invented") was clear in meaning: the vice president was not claiming that he "invented" the Internet in the sense of having thought up, designed, or implemented it, but rather asserting that he was one of the visionaries responsible for helping to bring it into being by fostering its development in an economic and legislative sense.
The claim that Gore was actually trying to take credit for the "invention" of the Internet was plainly just derisive political posturing that arose out of a close presidential campaign. If, for example, Dwight Eisenhower had said in the mid-1960s that he, while president, "took the initiative in creating the Interstate Highway System," he would not have been the subject of dozens and dozens of editorials lampooning him for claiming he "invented" the concept of highways or implying that he personally went out and dug ditches across the country to help build the roadway. Everyone would have understood that Eisenhower meant he was a driving force behind the legislation that created the highway system, and this was the very same concept Al Gore was expressing about himself with interview remarks about the Internet.

How justified Gore's statement that he "took the initiative in creating the Internet" might be can be a subject of debate, as statements about the "creation" or "beginning" of the Internet are difficult to evaluate because the Internet is not a homogeneous entity (rather, it's a collection of computers, networks, protocols, standards, and application programs), nor did it spring into being all at once. (The components that comprise the Internet were developed in various places at different times and are continually being modified, improved, and expanded.)
But a spirited defense of Gore's statement penned by Internet pioneers Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf (the latter often referred to as the "father of the Internet") in 2000 noted that "Al Gore was the first political leader to recognize the importance of the Internet and to promote and support its development" and that "No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater contribution [to the Internet] over a longer period of time":

Al Gore was the first political leader to recognize the importance of the Internet and to promote and support its development.
No one person or even small group of persons exclusively "invented" the Internet. It is the result of many years of ongoing collaboration among people in government and the university community. But as the two people who designed the basic architecture and the core protocols that make the Internet work, we would like to acknowledge VP Gore's contributions as a Congressman, Senator and as Vice President. No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater contribution over a longer period of time.

Last year the Vice President made a straightforward statement on his role. He said: "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet." We don't think, as some people have argued, that Gore intended to claim he "invented" the Internet. Moreover, there is no question in our minds that while serving as Senator, Gore's initiatives had a significant and beneficial effect on the still-evolving Internet. The fact of the matter is that Gore was talking about and promoting the Internet long before most people were listening. We feel it is timely to offer our perspective.
As far back as the 1970s Congressman Gore promoted the idea of high speed telecommunications as an engine for both economic growth and the improvement of our educational system. He was the first elected official to grasp the potential of computer communications to have a broader impact than just improving the conduct of science and scholarship. Though easily forgotten, now, at the time this was an unproven and controversial concept. Our work on the Internet started in 1973 and was based on even earlier work that took place in the mid-late 1960s. But the Internet, as we know it today, was not deployed until 1983. When the Internet was still in the early stages of its deployment, Congressman Gore provided intellectual leadership by helping create the vision of the potential benefits of high speed computing and communication. As an example, he sponsored hearings on how advanced technologies might be put to use in areas like coordinating the response of government agencies to natural disasters and other crises.
As a Senator in the 1980s Gore urged government agencies to consolidate what at the time were several dozen different and unconnected networks into an "Interagency Network." Working in a bi-partisan manner with officials in Ronald Reagan and George Bush's administrations, Gore secured the passage of the High Performance Computing and Communications Act in 1991. This "Gore Act" supported the National Research and Education Network (NREN) initiative that became one of the major vehicles for the spread of the Internet beyond the field of computer science.

As Vice President Gore promoted building the Internet both up and out, as well as releasing the Internet from the control of the government agencies that spawned it. He served as the major administration proponent for continued investment in advanced computing and networking and private sector initiatives such as Net Day. He was and is a strong proponent of extending access to the network to schools and libraries. Today, approximately 95% of our nation's schools are on the Internet. Gore provided much-needed political support for the speedy privatization of the Internet when the time arrived for it to become a commercially-driven operation.
There are many factors that have contributed to the Internet's rapid growth since the later 1980s, not the least of which has been political support for its privatization and continued support for research in advanced networking technology. No one in public life has been more intellectually engaged in helping to create the climate for a thriving Internet than the Vice President. Gore has been a clear champion of this effort, both in the councils of government and with the public at large.
The Vice President deserves credit for his early recognition of the value of high speed computing and communication and for his long-term and consistent articulation of the potential value of the Internet to American citizens and industry and, indeed, to the rest of the world.

It is certainly true that Gore was popularizing the term "information superhighway" in the early 1990s (although he did not, as is often claimed by others, coin the phrase himself) when few people outside academia or the computer and defense industries had heard of the Internet, and he sponsored legislation that included efforts to establish a national computing plan, to help link universities and libraries via a shared network, and to open the Internet to commercial traffic.

In May 2005, the organizers of the Webby Awards for online achievements honored Al Gore with a lifetime achievement award for three decades of contributions to the Internet. "He is indeed due some thanks and consideration for his early contributions," said Vint Cerf.



Old School will take the word of Kahn and Cerf, who as much as anyone, could be regarded as the true "inventor" of the internet.
As those two pioneers indicated, there was absolutely nothing wrong with what Al Gore said.

[Old School Hound]

Internet aside, I always really appreciated Al Gore's passion for the environment. He continues to be a leading environmentalist. 

More impressive, even,  than his immensely important work for environmental causes and climate change awareness, Al lived with the insufferable Tipper for 40 years. That qualifies him for Sainthood in Old School's book. Ask Dee Snider(Twisted Sister) what he thinks of Tipper.  Tipper heard her 11-year old daughter listening to Prince's "Darling Nikki" and went on her rampage against the music industry. lol   Dee and John Denver were not amused by the Tipster.

"Gore is not the Father of the Internet, but in all fairness, Gore is the person who, in the Congress, most systematically worked to make sure that we got to an Internet."  --- Newt Gingrinch

[Granny Bear]

Unlike you, OSH, I read the interview directly and don't take my opinions from other people's "interpretation" of said interview.

Al Gore was the insufferable one. Tipper tolerated him because she didn't want to hurt his political aspirations. He was a self serving baffoon who tried to assert his personal opinions by stuffing them down other people's throats. Like you, his opinions were spoon fed to him which he gobbled up like a baby bird.