What Really Happened in the Nineties?

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Robert Carlyle takes us back to moments we missed in the '90s that shaped the world today.

Cancel culture, Brexit, identity politics. How did we get here? Did we miss something? Robert Carlyle is here to show us that we did. And it happened in the '90s.

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What Really Happened in the Nineties?: 4. Internet

4. Internet

BBC Radio 4 - What Really Happened in the Nineties?, 4. Internet

The internet: from Utopian ideal to every parent's nightmare.

Robert Carlyle takes us back to a time when the internet seemed like a force for good and reveals how that Utopian ideal turned sour.

Here we are in 2022 navigating cancel culture, Brexit, identity politics, war in Europe.

How did we get here? Did we miss something? Robert Carlyle, who played the wildcard Begbie in the '90s hit Trainspotting, is here to show us that we did. That the world we live in was shaped by the forgotten decade: the 1990s.

From Hong Kong to Moscow, Cool Britannia to No Frills flights, we travel back in time to key moments in the '90s that reverberate today in unexpected ways.

Episode 4: Internet

As a new bill goes through parliament that hopes to ensure online safety, Robert Carlyle takes us back to a time when the internet seemed like a force for good, an online utopia where friends could re-unite. But, as he reminds us, the 90s was also the decade that witnessed the first prosecution for cyberstalking and when the term trolling was coined.  Professors Helen McCarthy and John Naughton take us back to the days of AltaVista, Ask Jeeves and the cyber-cafe. We hear from Keith Teare, one of the people behind the world's first cyber-cafe called Cyberia, who explains why they never made a profit, despite having coffee shops across the world and online dating site.


Producer: Stephen Hughes
Sound Designer/Composer: Phil Channell
Consultant: Professor Helen McCarthy

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What Really Happened in the Nineties?

4. Internet

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