[ploum]

What’s also funny is that between "Internet" and "social media", there’s a huge layer called "World Wide Web".

That layer (which is now often confused with Internet itself) is an European invention. (A Brit and a Belgian, sitting in an office on the border between France and Switzerland, could not be more european than that).

The point is not to be pro-european, just to say that if you list inventions and remove the components not invented in the US, you will end with a list of inventions from the US.

[RickyS]

I think the point is that defining authorship of intellectual products is a bit like putting authorship on words (even common ones). They are always part of a larger shared discourse. That is not to remove merit from individuals but to acknowledge that merit is not quantitative and could be stretched to fit political motives.