Even 25 years later, the planes continue to crash and the towers continue to collapse.
Across the internet, people old enough to remember September 11, 2001 are rewatching the terrorist attacks and rereading about the aftermath, often through devices and platforms that did not exist 25 years ago.
However, that is not the element that stands out most.
What is truly remarkable is that some younger individuals are watching the footage for the first time.
«More than 100 million Americans are too young to remember that day», former Mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg recently observed.
Some of them are discovering the horror of September 11 now, video by video, through platforms such as YouTube and TikTok.
The experience can feel like a journey back in time, to an era of VHS tapes and landline telephones. At the same time, however, it can be disorienting and deceptive, as very little context frames the staggering historical record and separates it from absurd conspiracy theories.
There are many avenues through which one can access the material, some more credible, and more respectful toward the victims, than others.
The award-winning film «9/11», which includes rare footage of heroic firefighters inside the World Trade Center, is streamed via CNN All Access.
A firefighter walks among the rubble of the World Trade Center, following the plane strike during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Several major television networks are also presenting new documentaries to mark Friday's 25th anniversary.
Public interest is exceptionally intense
The new documentary «Turning Point: Generation 9/11», which is dedicated to the anniversary, ranked second last week among the most-watched films globally on Netflix.
On Google, queries showing the steepest rise include questions such as «how many stairs did the firefighters climb» and «who were the hijackers», a reminder, perhaps, for news organizations to bring their archival reporting back to light.
Certain outlets are already doing so.
The CBS news magazine «60 Minutes» has been publishing excerpts from past September 11 reports throughout the week on its social media accounts.
The History Channel is likewise bringing back interviews with survivors, given that this now constitutes, after all, history.
When September 11 turns into social media content
The problem is that all of this is distributed through the same chaotic feeds of social media, where the lines between reality and fabricated information become increasingly blurred.
Random and anonymous accounts on X and Instagram exploit, or, as some would say, commercialize, the anniversary, posting vintage television clips and tributes, but in some instances also unfathomable lies and insinuations.
Any user clicking on even a completely neutral and fact-based post about September 11 is very likely to encounter a comments section overflowing with extreme conspiracy theories.
The truth exists on the internet as well, but usually the user has to search for it.
The images of devastation without today's social media filter
One of the most frequent entry points into the history of September 11 is original footage from the television coverage that morning.
On YouTube, some of the most popular searches related to September 11 are the phrases «9/11 news coverage as it happened» and «videos of the plane crash».
One YouTuber has curated playlists of September 11 television broadcasts that appear to be copied from older sources.
Another created an impressive «multi-view», displaying the coverage of eight television channels during the first 18 minutes of the catastrophe in New York.
WNYW, the Fox station in New York, was the first local television station to interrupt its regular programming to break the news, while CNN was the first national television network to do the same.
«You are looking at, obviously, a very disturbing live shot», said CNN anchor Carol Lin, as the camera showed Lower Manhattan and a gaping hole in the side of the North Tower.
Jim Geraghty of National Review, recognizing that young people are consuming content about September 11 for the first time, opened his Thursday column by writing:
«Kid, what none of the documentaries will convey to you is how, that morning, after the initial reports, nobody knew anything».
It is extraordinarily difficult to put into words the sense of uncertainty and dread that prevailed at that moment.
Yet that emotion is captured through the minute-by-minute television broadcasts.
People in New York gazed upward in shock and bewilderment, while across the rest of the country citizens watched their trusted anchors on old CRT televisions and refreshed the very primitive, by today's standards, versions of news websites.
There were no live streams, no tweets, and no deepfakes generated by artificial intelligence.
«Yes, there were toxic rumors and conspiracy theories even without Facebook and X, which had not yet been invented», wrote former TIME editor Nancy Gibbs.
«Yet compared to what has happened since, the information ecosystem feels almost pristine».
The news anchors who became «national leaders»
For those interested in reading more about the television coverage, extensive records exist from those hours.
The attack represented an unprecedented test for television producers and news anchors.
The question was straightforward yet critical: «Would you want these individuals on the air on September 11?»
On that day, anchors like Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, and Dan Rather became, as historian Garrett Graff once observed, «the closest thing America had to national leaders».
Their role was fundamentally historic: guiding an entire nation through processing and understanding an unspeakable tragedy.
The fact that the television coverage of that day continues to be replayed and broadcast 25 years later also serves as a testament to the weight of that role.
Live broadcast errors became «fuel» for conspiracy theories
Live television broadcasts on September 11 contained moments of erroneous reporting, something inevitable given the chaotic conditions on the ground.
However, conspiracy theorists latched onto those specific misstatements, alongside routine technical glitches and low-resolution video, as supposed evidence for a battery of false claims regarding the attacks.
«The conspiracy theories circulating about the September 11 attacks are in no way benign», wrote James M. Lindsay of the Council on Foreign Relations.
«They help discredit democratic governance. They scapegoat innocent groups who are falsely accused. And they redirect scrutiny away from the true root causes and the actual culprits».
Lindsay has published a useful inventory of ten resources debunking the most persistent falsehoods surrounding the attacks.
When imagery was «filtered» by editorial newsrooms
In 2001, mainstream news outlets maintained substantial control over the imagery presented to the public.
Television networks deliberately avoided airing photographs and video of individuals falling or leaping from the towers.
The iconic photograph by Associated Press photographer Richard Drew, titled «Falling Man», appeared «once» in most newspapers and «never again», as Tom Junod noted in an essay for Esquire that is widely recirculated on social media every September 11 anniversary.
The newspapers that published the image, he observed, «were forced to defend themselves against charges that they exploited a man's death, stripped him of dignity, invaded his privacy, and turned tragedy into voyeuristic spectacle».
The debates, however, did not conclude there.
Extensive deliberations followed concerning whether, when, and how television networks should air other potentially traumatic recordings, such as the footage of planes slamming into the towers.
Even today, networks like CNN remain particularly cautious regarding these editorial choices, carefully weighing when to present the most intense and graphic footage.
On YouTube, however, and across an array of platforms established years after September 11, there are no news editors to deliberate over such sensitivities, and there is no barrier to the ceaseless circulation of the exact same clips.
Today, as algorithms resurface all this material and as new viewers encounter the «Falling Man» photo for the very first time, a critical question endures:
What is the psychological toll when the most traumatic memory of one generation becomes algorithmic TikTok content for another?
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