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Snowden Reveals NSA Monitoring
An extremely important event in 2013 was the revelation of documents by Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee, that the NSA had a monitoring system in place capable of taping communications from individuals including US citizens. -
Vine Launched
Although created in 2012, Vine was purchased by Twitter and formally launched in January, creating a mass fad in short video sharing. -
Twitter goes public in 2013
Twitter, a seven year old company finally becomes a publicly traded company. -
Pinterest Introduces Buyable Pins
Pinterest added a new feature allowing items to be purchased directly from their image. This created a one click to shop option making online shopping even easier. -
Instagram Hits 400 Million Users
Instagram surpasses Twitter who hits 316 million users tat same year -
F.C.C Sets Net Neutrality News
Beginning in March and put into effect June 12, the F.C.C ruled all internet data be treated the same. After an on-going debate since the '90's and five failed attempts at creating net neutrality provisions, it was finally made law that there is no discrimination. -
Vine Dies
Vine was discontinued as an app. It's brief lifespan is a perfect representation of the modern attention span. Popularity is king and sadly Vine was a momentary fad. -
Google Creates Google Assistant
Google releases the Google Assistant, who joins Alexa, Siri and Cortana as a voice activated personal assistant program -
Snapchat Files for it's IPO
This means Snapchat was open for trading in the New York Stock Exchange resulting in a company value of 33$ Billion Dollars. (an example of a lasting app) -
Facebook CEO's Day with Congress
A heated first-amendment debate between Congress and Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerburg about free speech through social media.
Social Media is now a contributing and contending aspect of human rights and US citizen expected rights. The start of an era of free speech and it's relationship to the internet and social media.
