Here’s what the internet looked like in the hours after 9/11
Earth-shattering news in the pre-social media world
Fifteen years ago, on September 11, 2001, there was no social media. In fact, the term hadn’t been coined yet. MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter didn’t exist. We relied mostly on traditional media, which was then just acclimating to the power and speed of web-delivered news.
In addition to the homepages of places like CNN and The New York Times, events also played out in forums across the web, much like they would on Twitter today. Six minutes after the first plane hit, a user posted on Metafilter, which is still around today, about the attack that was unfolding before everyones eyes:
The post linked to CNN.com, which had to decrease the size of their site so people could access it, as servers were straining under the traffic load. The slimed downed version of their normal site looked like this:
The look of The New York Times site suggests it also removed images so it could be accessed over the swamped internet. No logo, no ads, and few images:
Other Metafilter forum posts feel like a proto-Twitter feed, hinting as to how everyone would experience unfolding tragedies online in the future. Questions, theories, and images that news outlets wouldn’t broadcast or publish due to their shocking nature found their way there:
Fox News went with a dramatic “Terrorism Hits America” logo:
The news made its way around the world, via the web. From the BBC:
…to LeMonde in France:
The FBI put a call for information regarding the attacks on its homepage:
And Google gave its condolences and displayed a link to support and information regarding the attacks:
Metafilter users also used the forum to direct traffic to the Red Cross donation page:
Blogger set up a special service online to help people keep connected.
Blogger reported its most active day ever. Its founder, Ev Williams, would go on to co-found Twitter, which intimately shapes how we experience mass tragedies 15 years later.
Thanks to http://oldweb.today for making this post possible, check it out to surf the web as it was at any point in the past, with an authentic browser UI to boot.
