Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy

Almost anyone who has been on the Internet (in particular interactive or Web 2.0 websites) for a few years has encountered the phenomenon of electronic shunning. It happens when the website you frequently use and have become a member of, suddenly kicks you (or part of your content) off. The reason may be legitimate, or completely random and difficult to accept.

I’ve been shunned from eBay’s forums before, and had legitimate auctions removed which didn’t violate the rules of the site. Bloggers who allow comments have to make frequent decisions on how to handle abusive or unpleasant comments. It’s Wild West Web, except that each of the virtual communities we inhabit have potentially dozens of sheriffs with a multitude of backgrounds and biases, and none of them have to look the accused in the eye. It’s not hard to silence someone to the point where they just have to mosey on down the information highway to even be heard. Governments are nearly powerless to make it any easier to have free speech on the Net, and are only in the position to take the rest of our free speech online away.

In looking for the phrase “digital dystopia” I found this well written paper on DRM, Net Neutrality, and Copyright, and how it was clear to that author [and me] at least two years ago that each were critical issues in the continuation of the “free” WWW as we know it. It seems as the web grows, the number of providers of space shrinks. With each passing buy-out, we’re slowly losing Net Neutrality because the competing content hosts can’t stack up to the massive “free” resources afforded by Google, Yahoo, LiveJournal, and others.