The World Wide Web is a place of its own, and really doesn’t have physical boundaries, or borders. But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t part of the world.
As much as I enjoy his writing, I have to confess that when cyberpunk fiction pioneer William Gibson started a blog, and kept it running for nine months, it bothered me when he referred to the world as “Meatspace” more than a couple of times. For instance, here:
The same thing, you’ll recall, happened with Salam Pax, whose Iraqiness and whereabouts in meatspace were hotly debated, with some declaring him the subtle tool of devilishly clever Iraqi intelligence operatives.
The web is not some fantasy la-la land, where we are separate from the rigors of reality. When we visit a forum, or we write in a blog, or write a comment in a blog, we take a little bit of a risk.
The internet is part of the world. In many ways it may seem novel, and it isn’t as tangible as face-to-face conversations and interactions. But, you know what? Neither is a phone call.
How do you lessen risks while writing online?
If we write anonymously, it might not be much of a risk. There are bloggers who do keep their identities under covers, such as Atrios, who writes some interesting political commentary at Eschaton. I’ve heard that he is possibly located somewhere around Philadelphia, which isn’t too far from me. According to the linked article, he gets around 20,000 visitors a day. I suspect very few of those visitors would recognize him in person.
Rebecca Blood’s chapter except on Weblog Ethics offers some excellent suggestions for mitigating risks, and for treating others graciously. If you post to forums or blogs regulary, you might find her advice of interest.
You can also limit what you write about. Some people tend to write about personal relationships in blogs and online journals. Fine and good, but the intimacy of a personal diary doesn’t exist on the web. There are people you know who might take exception to being written about. Family and friends, for instance.
Or your Boss! An article in the latest Legal Times asks Can you be fired for complaining about your boss online?.
Are you taking other risks writing on the web?
I do want to note that there are risks involved in posting anonymously, too. Just because someone doesn’t know your name doesn’t mean they might not try to sue you as a John Doe defendant. This article is on that subject: [URL=http://www.mttlr.org/voleight/RederOBrienver5TYPE_HTML.htm]The Anonymous Posters: A Discourse on John Doe[/url].
Comment by Bill Slawski — March 31, 2004 @ 1:26 pm
There is no winning for us bloggers or forum enthusiast.
Just be smart in what you say and how u say it.
nice post…really makes me think twice before posting now.
Comment by rustybrick — March 31, 2004 @ 4:23 pm
re: Meatspace:
I think Gibson might be pardoned in saying that. He pioneered “cyberspace” after all. Those who imagined it have a different perspective from those who have actually created it.
There is a definite perspective divide, not quite along generational lines, but definitely along computer-using lines. Those who have used computers and the Internet for a long time, and in the pervasive way that I have– not just kids, but largely people like me who went to college and immersed ourselves in the WWW as it was born– I think view the Internet as far more real.
My father thinks of the Internet as a destination, as something very separate from his life, as something to be used in certain very specific circumstances– to check his bank balance, to find more information about Chicago’s race riots of April 1968, to read email from his daughters.
I think of the Internet as a large extension of my daily life. I conduct almost all of my business online, and a large portion of my pleasure– from my job, which is done entirely online, to emailing my mother, which is just about my exclusive contact with my parents.
My father uses the Internet for specific tasks, and otherwise prefers to be away from a computer.
My computer hasn’t been off in three months, and our DSL connection hasn’t gone down in months either.
So we have very different perspectives of cyberspace and meatspace. I think Gibson envisioned them as complementary. I do, but find the divide to be fuzzier than even his imaginings made it (I’m a huge fan of Neuromancer, just for the record)– I live with my boyfriend, but IM him instead of shouting across the apartment, and our daily email correspondence is a two-year catalogue of our relationship, more real to me than the by-now hazy memories of the first time we held hands or went out for Thai.
To me, the things I say online are more real than the things I say in real life. My life is lived online. Business is conducted online. Romance is facilitated online. Friends are kept up with online. It is a supplement to real life, or at times real life is a supplement to it.
To others for whom the divide is wider, it is easier to forget the consequences of a poorly-considered posting to the Internet.
To me… well, it’s just another place to put my foot in my mouth, but it requires less physical flexibility to do so.
Comment by dragonlady7 — March 31, 2004 @ 5:21 pm
Thanks, Rusty. I think your second sentence is a good short guide.
Excellent points Dragonlady7. Technology does have the power to change the world, but it might affect different generations differently.
When I talk with friends who don’t have computers, and don’t connect to the internet, I wonder if they realize all that they are missing out on. We have that digital divide to contend with too.
So many people are writing personal diaries online with their blogs ar live journals, and many of them will write almost anything, without restraint. I wonder sometimes where that will lead us. I suspect the openness is good for us in many ways, but it will change our lives around.
The last article I linked to in the post, about employers, mentioned that there are companies that really just don’t want to know that someone who works there has a blog. They would rather not know.
Other companies are worried that their employees might say something that harms the company. It is even possible for a large company to have information exposed to the public that it might not want exposed, either as a business strategy, or a trade secret, or as something that might affect stock prices and be considered inside information. If you look at it for the perspective of the employer, blogging can be a little frightening.
Comment by Bill Slawski — April 2, 2004 @ 1:07 am
>>It is a supplement to real life, or at times real life is a supplement to it. <<
Wow, I can really relate to that. Not sure if it’s necessarily a good thing though!
Comment by High Rankings — April 2, 2004 @ 4:19 pm