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Blog Comments
Blogging emerged in the mid-1990s but the launch of Open Diary in 1998 is a watershed because it is the first significant platform to encourage reader responses or comments on individual blogposts. When the Drudge Report, a gossipy news blog, breaks the story on 17 January of then US president Bill Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky, its headline is "Newsweek kills story on White House intern", reflecting the impotence of offline media to control the news agenda in an online world. -
Wikipedia
2001
Wikipedia Wikipedia is founded as a "multilingual, web-based, free-content encyclopedia", to which anyone can contribute, and which anyone can access. By 2014 the English-language version has about 4.5million entries. -
Great firewall
2003
The great firewall The Chinese government begins to pursue several initiatives to counter the potentially subversive influence of the open web, including this system of web filters that allows the authorities to block individual web pages, whole websites, or any page referencing a particular term. -
Facebook
The site, which only becomes generally accessible in 2006, helps millions of people become more active online but is not on the open web as many of its pages, for good reasons, are only accessible to signed-in users. -
Google Chinese Censorship
The search engine compromises with the government in Beijing on the issue of censoring search results, in order to get access to the billion-strong Chinese market. -
Iphone
The iPhone, like Facebook, is another innovation that makes many people more active online, but at the same time draws them away from the open web, in this case into Apple's app ecosystem. Apps are small applications that may use the internet, or even web protocols, but are not usually web browsers. -
Google Chrome Browser Chrome OS
Google releases a suite of products including a freeware browser called Chrome, and an operating system that consists of the Chrome browser plus a set of web-based applications to replace traditional, locally installed software. -
Trafigura
The open web comes to the defence of old media in October, when blogs and tweeters reveal that the oil company behind a gagging order against the Guardian is Trafigura. -
WikiLeaks
In April, WikiLeaks makes the first release from the cache of documents it has received from Bradley Manning which includes video footage of a US army helicopter firing on civilians. Later that year, the US embassy cables make public a vast trove of diplomatic memos. -
Anti-WikiLeaks subpoenas and response
The US government responds to the WikiLeaks revelations by issuing subpoenas to Twitter and Google to reveal what they know about users suspected of involvement. Twitter reacts by informing the users. Elsewhere, a number of companies withdraw their services from WikiLeaks, including Visa, Paypal and Apple, which removes a WikiLeaks app from its store. -
Sopa Pipa Acta
The Stop Online Piracy act (Sopa) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (Pipa) are two pieces of proposed US legislation that their proponents claim will protect copyright owners. Others say the effect will be web censorship. Wikipedia takes the threat so seriously that it goes on strike for a day. Both bills falter. Two Twitter trials The law around free expression on the web has been tested several times in the UK in recent years, with differing outcomes. In one case a trainee accoun -
NSA Files
Classified documents leaked by Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor, reveals a number of mass-surveillance programmes undertaken by the NSA and Britain's surveillance agency, GCHQ. -
Camerons 'OPT in' Censorship
David Cameron pushes for default content filters operated by internet service providers, with users able to request that they be lifted, saying it will protect children from pornography. Campaigner Cory Doctorow says it will fail in this, but succeed in establishing "a regime of unaccountable censorship". The opt-in version goes live.
