Social Media and Human Rights: A Timeline

The invention of the World Wide Web (internet) by Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist while working at CERN [European Organization for Nuclear Research]. The Web was originally conceived and developed to meet the demand for automated information-sharing between scientists in universities and institutes around the world."

After being selected to host the World Trade Organisation [WTO] Ministerial Conference in 1999, Seattle, Washington simultaneously held one of the largest political protests ever seen in the city. The protests surrounded issues on workers' rights, sustainable economies and environmental and social issues. Over 50,000 protestors - who planned out strategic routes to stop traffic and bring attention to their cause - relied on their mobile phones and instantaneous text messages which helped with quick shifts of strategy. The organisers also created the Independent Media Center, now a worldwide grassroots news source.

Facebook founded in Massachusetts, United States. While studying psychology at Harvard University, Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook, now a global behemoth social media platform with over a billion users.

Twitter is founded in San Francisco, United States by Evan Williams, Biz Stone, Noah Glass and Jack Dorsey. Sitting on a slide, eating Mexican food, Jack Dorsey and his colleagues came up with the idea to instantly type messages for a group of people to see. A combination of "status-type ideas", Twitter launched on March 21st, 2006.

When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinajan was re-elected, students gathered in the streets of Tehran to protest. Communicating and amassing forces via social networks, the protest gathered such high numbers that the Iranian government was forced to shut down internet access. Protestors used social media to trade lists of proxy servers to get around restrictions, which authorities monitored and blocked. The turning point of the protest occurred online, when the killing of Iranian woman Neda Soltani was recorded on video and published on the internet, which bolstered the rallying cries of Iranians.

Instagram was officially launched on the iOS app store.

In Greece's largest protests since 1973, people organised in response to the debt crisis which had engulfed the country. Inspired by the Greek protests, the Indignant Citizens Movement was created in Spain, calling via Facebook for demonstrations across the country.

The Arab Spring was a seismic event which shook the Middle East. Referring to a series of revolutions and uprisings throughout North Africa and the Middle East, it started in Tunisia on December 18, catalysed through Facebook groups. Social media - via blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and more - was essential in both mobilising protestors and informing the world about the ongoing events.

After Manal-al-Sharif, a social media activist, was arrested having posted a video of herself driving on YouTube, Saudi Arabian women organised to drive on June 17, 2011 - a month on from the date of her arrest. Though the government repeatedly shut down the movements occurring on social media, they kept springing up and garnered a large following.

The first Occupy movement - targeting Wall Street - took place in New York City as thousands gathered to vent their frustrations against the wealthiest 1%. Spread through social media, the Occupy protests took place in 951 cities across 82 countries and in over 600 communities in the United States alone.

A Kony 2012 video is released with the intention of making Ugandan militia leader Joseph Kony globally known, so as to have him arrested. Though the creators of the film were dismissed as "slacktivists", the film has been viewed 18.6 million times and went viral, gaining the support of political leaders and other celebrities.

A global movement, a hashtag and a network of grass-roots organisations and activists all stem from a simple Facebook post in the USA titled 'Black Lives Matter'. Written after the acquittal of George Zimmerman, who reportedly shot and killed Trayvon Martin in Florida, the post encapsulated the frustrations many African-Americans felt at their treatment by the authorities, and especially by the police.

The #BringBackOurGirls social media campaign was launched after 276 Nigerian schoolgirls were kidnapped by the terrorist group Boko Haram. The campaign reached Michelle Obama whose influence allowed it to gain significant traction. It has since been turned into a documentary, 'Stolen Daughters: Kidnapped by Boko Haram'.

The ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) Ice Bucket Challenge went viral on social media with celebs and high profile figures raising awareness and donating to support those with motor neuron disease.

#BlackLivesMatter emerged as a movement in the UK in the summer of 2016, as thousands attended protests against police racism across the country

TikTok was launched under its original name A.me. Within a year, it had more than 100 million users, with more than one billion videos viewed every day.

Four days after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, Cameron Kasky and his classmates announced #MarchForOurLives – a gun-control campaign which sparked sibling events in the United Kingdom and throughout the world.

Social media posts about pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong are censored by the Chinese government

After the video showing George Floyd’s murder by US police was circulated on social media, a mass movement on Twitter and Instagram enabled the Black Lives Matter protests to gather forces for marches across the world.

After the killing by a serving police officer of Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old woman who was kidnapped, raped and murdered in London, millions of women took to Twitter to share their experiences of sexual harassment and male violence. Grassroots movements such as Sisters Uncut and Reclaim These Streets organised vigils through social media. Clashes with the police over covid lockdown restrictions during some vigils were shared across social media, opening a wider discussion regarding police brutality and misogyny.

A group of over 200 protestors were able to stop the detention of two migrants after surrounding an Immigration Enforcement van in Glasgow. One protestor spent over eight hours under the van in order to stop it being able to move. The protest began on social media, after several posts warned that an Immigration Enforcement van had detained Sumit Sehdev and Lakhvir Singh