A Diseased Cyberspace and How to Treat It
Grateful Dead Lyricist John Perry Barlow once wrote in “A Declaration of the Independence for Cyberspace” of a potential place free from state intervention where a new social contract might arise in the absence of privilege and prejudice, economic power, military force, and station of birth. Regrettably, Barlow’s vision has not come to pass. Instead, cyberspace has been invaded by all those qualities he sought independence from and more. Writing following a contentious election in the United States (US) and amidst a pandemic that has forced billions to work and socially interact intermediate through technologies, it is difficult not to question whether cyberspace has itself become in so many ways a diseased space, where the worst qualities of humanity are cultivated.