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Internet launched for military purposes
Integrated into broader society in the early years of the 1990’s - Naughton, J. (2016) -
Military involvement in internet operation ceases
Naughton, J. (2016) -
Internet handed to Internet Service Providers, commercial sector
Naughton, J. (2016) -
UK National DNA Database created, cataloguing DNA samples from around 5.2% of the country's population in its first year, despite most lacking a criminal conviction
Police have the power to take samples without consent for any recordable offence, a definition which includes even minor crimes such as begging or public drunkenness. By 2005, over 100,000 people who had not been charged or even given an official caution had their DNA stored in the database - Wallace, H. (2006) -
Terrorism Act 2000 passed
Broadens existing definitions of terrorism, in an aim to stop terrorist attacks before they occur, particularly by surveilling UK citizens for recruitment materials - Petley, J. (2013), Green, A. Johns, N. & Rix, M. (2011) -
9/11 terrorist attacks spur further anti-terrorism laws
Laws permitting citizens suspected of global terrorism to be either detained indefinitely or deported in the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act, 2001 - Green, A. Johns, N. & Rix, M. (2011) -
Period: to
Social networks founded
2003, 2004, 2006, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter respectively founded - Naughton, J. (2016) -
iPhone launches
First smartphone to access the internet, Apple iPhone - Naughton, J. (2016) -
Samina Malik targeted under the Terrorism Act 2000
Malik is sentenced originally to a jail term, later reduced to community service, for possessing texts described to encourage terrorist training and bomb making, as she published poetry online with the pseudonym ‘Lyrical Terrorist’. Important to note is the availability of texts crucial to the prosecution's case, the Al Qaeda Training Manual being readily available online and even through a UK publisher - Green, A. Johns, N. & Rix, M. (2011) -
Rizwaan Sabir targeted under the Terrorism Act
Rizwaan Sabir targeted under the Terrorism Act 2000 for downloading the same training manual as Malik, although in his case it pertained to Sabir’s university studies. Eventually paid out £20,000, after being held in custody for a full week. -
European Court of Justice rules on ‘right to be forgotten’
Individuals living in the EU are given a legal right to petition Google to remove links to references deemed damaging or inaccurate from Google search results - Naughton, J. (2016) - Article elaborates Google has the power to ‘disappear’ people from the internet, ‘algorithmic airbrushing’ to strike whole individuals from records -
European Court of Justice rules against ‘Safe Harbour’ agreement between UK & US
Microsoft & other companies must hold EU citizen data in EU countries, instead of importing to the US as they had been - Naughton, J. (2016) -
Brexit social media interference revealed
Investigations reveal Russian involvement in the UK ‘Brexit’ referendum, to leave the European Union. Twitter and Facebook are seen to have amplified pro-Brexit viewpoints and ads, categorising Russian involvement as state-encouraged, with the government indirectly involved in motivating hundreds of thousands of social media accounts. Brexit passed with only a 1.89 percent majority, so the aggressive extent of this campaign is highly notable - Galante, L. & Lee, S. (2018) -
WannaCry Ransomware attack targets UK National Health Service hospitals
The program took advantage of a vulnerability in older Windows operating systems, with effects including surgeries and appointments being cancelled, compromising key hospital resources and spreading through nearby technology. The attack exposed the outdated hospital services, and a failure of the UK to protect vulnerable data as a result - Harkins, M. & Freed, M. (2018) -
Google, Facebook and Twitter established digital libraries of political ads shown on their individual platforms in response to the Cambridge Analytica scandal etc
A form of self-regulation. Showed Brexit Leave campaign to be highest receiver of cost-per-1000 impressions (key information spread metric), often used ads often used vernacular language to more subtly promote an agenda. Demographic figures showed higher age linked to Leave ads. While Facebook’s ad library in particular shows some transparency, a lack of specifics regarding algorithmic curation diminishes the value of the service to curb corporate election influence - Mehta & Erickson (2022) -
Facebook limits impressions and shadow bans accounts posting a specific article from the British Medical Journal (BMJ), being tagged as missing context
Article pointed out flaws in COVID vaccination trials, limited as public may understand as blatant vaccine denial. Only option to dispute - appeal to third party fact checker. Despite publishing factually incorrect article fact checker upheld as correct. To make all information on Facebook feeds simple to understand, corporation called into question legitimacy of peer-reviewed journal, passed blame onto another corporation with their own business interests - Coombes, R., & Davies, M. (2022)