I suspect a good deal of angst around the topic has been from people seeing the issues in online communities as symbolic of real-world issues—opposing policies not because they are bad for an online community, but because they would be bad if applied by a real-world government to a real-world nation; real-world governments come to mind because we have reasons to care more strongly about them, and we hear much more about them. But there are important differences! The biggest is that you can easily leave an online community any time you’re not happy about it. I don’t think an online community is more similar to a nation than it is to a bridge club, or a company, or a supermarket, or the people making an encyclopedia.
I don’t think the concern about the symbolism of censorship is completely wrong; it’s quite possible that China could argue that real-world censorship is important for the same reasons it is in online communities!
Somewhat off-topic, but this makes me think that maybe school should teach a bit about “online history”—the history of Usenet and Wikipedia for example.
I suspect a good deal of angst around the topic has been from people seeing the issues in online communities as symbolic of real-world issues—opposing policies not because they are bad for an online community, but because they would be bad if applied by a real-world government to a real-world nation; real-world governments come to mind because we have reasons to care more strongly about them, and we hear much more about them. But there are important differences! The biggest is that you can easily leave an online community any time you’re not happy about it. I don’t think an online community is more similar to a nation than it is to a bridge club, or a company, or a supermarket, or the people making an encyclopedia.
I don’t think the concern about the symbolism of censorship is completely wrong; it’s quite possible that China could argue that real-world censorship is important for the same reasons it is in online communities!
Somewhat off-topic, but this makes me think that maybe school should teach a bit about “online history”—the history of Usenet and Wikipedia for example.