REVIEW of Nation commentary. Street Corners in Cyberspace (June 3, 1995)
Writer Andrew L. Shapiro believes that a free cyberspace may depend on the right -- perhaps the need -- of the human consciousness to be unable to escape from itself.
And, despite the purists' desire for individual, private freedom, it may be that only government can ensure this.
Shapiro, contributing editor of The Nation Magazine, compares two possible enabling cyber communities. One is Cyberkeley, after the University of California at Berkeley where the free speech movement had a rebirth in the 1960s. In the online fantasyland of Cyberkeley, the consciousness is bombarded from all sides with all views. The other community is Cyberbia -- the reference is obvious -- where the traveller avoids all thought and all challenge, a sort of Stepford for Everyman. The land of Cyberbia could be tempting to some. It is an escape. There are no stresses, no contradictions.
Cyberkeley, on the other hand, is the Hyde Park, the talk radio (if there were idea exchange on talk radio) of the Internet where one may face every shade of opinion. This would bother some of us; the ones who dither and fulminate at presentation of any view contrary to their own.
On the other hand, what a boon it could be for those who wonder about other opinions, but are afraid some of their neighbors might catch them listening! We might all be surprised how many problems never get solved simply because some folks are afraid to know about them. Cyberkeley could be great for them..
This free space is endangered, Shapiro believes, by the current slippery slide toward a megabusiness take-over of the internet. IBM and MCI efforts to privatize cyberspace are being ignored by big media while every other net development is getting full focus. Maybe that's because they're mostly about sex.
Ownership and free speech are "inextricably linked..." online, Shapiro says, and whatever some may say against government interference, speech on the net will not be free if big business alone controls its every inch...er ... pixel.
Government has a role here because it is the site of the First Amendment, the Bill of Rights. Who else has the power to enforce these basic precepts? The ACLU and the computer nerds cannot do it alone.
"The public needs a place of its own," according to Shapiro.
This place online can be found only in a virtual world like Cyberkeley, the writer says, comparing its electronic byways to the parks and public squares, the town halls and street corners where expression ranges from idle talk and laughter to debate on social issues with heat and light. In Cyberkeley you may picket an institution whose practices you regard as wrong or unfair. You may pause to read a leaflet handed to you by a zealot of a cause you never heard of before. You may circulate your own opinion without fear.
In Cyberbia, on the contrary, Shapiro feels, fear of commitment and of knowledge dominates the timid internetties, and threatens to allow onliners to ignore problems of the real world offline.
Part of the online world, therefore, needs to be dedicated as a public trust, reserved for citizens' speech.
Without this modicum of regulation, according to Shapiro, "It is unlikely that we will realize the democratic possibilities of this new technology."
These words reveal Shapiro as a believer. He thinks we still recognize democracy and its possibilities. We hope he is right.
The danger of private online control has already shown itself. Prodigy and America Online have pounced on clients whose communications did not meet with the services' preferences. Shapiro commented on interference with political messages, but he may not have heard that both services are said to curtail rights discussions on women's conferences.
The need for free public discussion space is becoming acute, according to Shapiro, because more physical areas are being privatized and restricted. The shopping mall has cut into free sidewalk space. There is no room for soapboxes there anymore. Early access to these spaces has been limited. The Supreme Court has allowed property owners and municipalities to exclude dissension, arguing that the First Amendment frees them from association with anything with which they disagree.
The off-line world is becoming Cyberbia.
The high cost of going online is part of the freedom-loss picture. Minority populations, many women, and certainly the poor are without passage money. Shapiro points out that Santa Monica, CA, and other communities have set up public computer terminals to alleviate this access-denial.
Community or Federal, government involvement in public fora should not be perceived as authoritarian. In fact, the writer suggests that in a democracy "... the people have a right to demand that government promote speech in a content-neutral way, particularly speech that is drowned out by the voices of the moneyed and powerful."
This equates with government protection of citizens against unfair market conditions, a factor which big business would like to erase.
The Supreme Court, in contrast to its mall and airport restrictions, said last year in Turner Broadcasting v. FCC, "Assuring that the public has access to a multiplicity of information sources is a governmental purpose of the highest order, for it promotes values central to the First Amendment."
If the online world is smoothed into pablum, in fact, a few of us will be reminded of George Orwell's novel, "1984," in which wall-sized television plays so involved the harried citizens that they could forget the troubled world outside. The dangers of a zonked-out citizenry are very real. Only forces seeking total control prosper under these conditions.
"As the wired life grows exponentially in the coming years," says Shapiro, "we'll all be better off if we can find a street corner in cyberspace."
Denied our street corner, we and the country could be in worse trouble than we thought.
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