It has been a year where the friction between technology and politics reached new heights.
How should any regulation of social media be handled, the debate around free speech and censorship and data collection and privacy concerns are all issues that have shaped the last 12 months.
Here is a look back at some of the biggest technology stories of 2021.
Mr Trump was banned from Twitter this year (Niall Carson/PA)
(PA Archive)
– Donald Trump is kicked off social media
The storming of the US Capitol on January 6 by supporters of former president Donald Trump – who had appeared to incite them along the way – was the final straw for the social media platforms.
After months of labelling Trump posts as misleading or hiding them from view, Facebook, Twitter and others banned the former president for posts they deemed to be inciting violence.
A debate around the power of social media quickly sparked into life – critics raised concerns that this amounted to censorship and that cutting off a then sitting world leader from such large forums was setting a dangerous precedent, while others…
