Abstract

The internet, the network of networks that interconnects the myriad of computers and other devices that populate our world, dates back to the late 1960s. Its predecessor, Arpanet, was created to facilitate remote communications for military personnel. Originally a restricted technology capable of connecting at most some tens of computers, it has since become a large technological infrastructure, connecting some tens of billions of devices. The biggest and most widely used service enabled by this infrastructure is the World Wide Web (WWW), 1 where users can create, upload, share, and interlink various contents. The WWW has gone through several revolutions, passing from the Web 2.0 (characterized by the rise of social media and online social networking sites) to its 3.0 version, organized for the coexistence of both humans and automated agents, dubbed “semantic Web.” This extremely succinct excursus on the rise and evolution of the internet and the web allows us to understand why the internet, the web, and social media (SM) are now central to and entwined with our social and political lives. The possibility for anyone to create and read online content, allowed by the Web, represented a paradigm shift in the production and consumption of information. This has brought opportunity (eg, the Arab Springs) and problems (eg, disinformation and online manipulation). The rise of online social networks allows us to defy the physical constraints of traditional social relationships and user-generated content to spread faster and further than ever before. The sheer number of users and the deluge of information that they constantly produce and share …

Date

October 18, 2021

Authors

Luca Luceri, Stefano Cresci, Silvia Giordano

Journal

The Internet and the 2020 Campaign

Volume

1

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield