Most think of this fact about the early Net as a limitation. Technically, it was. But this technical description does not exhaust its normative description as an architecture that made possible a certain kind of life. From this perspective, limitations can be features; they can enable as well as disable. And this particular limitation enabled classes of people who were disabled in real-space life.
Think about three such classes — the blind, the deaf, and the “ugly.” In real space these people face an extraordinary array of constraints on their ability to communicate. The blind person in real space is constantly confronted with architectures that presume he can see; he bears an extraordinary cost in retrofitting real-space architectures so that this presumption is not totally exclusionary. The deaf person in real space confronts architectures that presume she can hear; she too bears an extraordinary cost in retrofitting these architectures. The “ugly” person in real space (think of a bar or a social club) confronts architectures of social norms that make his appearance a barrier to a certain sort of intimacy. He endures extraordinary suffering in conforming to these architectures.
In real space these three groups are confronted with architectures that disable them relative to “the rest of us.” But in cyberspace, in its first iteration, they did not.
The blind could easily implement speech programs that read the (by definition machine-readable) text and could respond by typing. Other people on the Net would have no way of knowing that the person typing the message was blind, unless he claimed to be. The blind were equal to the seeing.
The same with the deaf. There was no need to hear anything in this early Internet. For the first time many of the deaf could have conversations, or exchanges, in which the most salient feature was not that the person was deaf. The deaf were equal to the hearing.
And the same with the “ugly.” Because your appearance was not transmitted with every exchange, the unattractive could have an intimate conversation with others that was not automatically defined by what they looked like. They could flirt or play or be sexual without their bodies (in an extremely underappreciated sense) getting in the way. This first version of the Net made these people equal to “the beautiful.” In a virtual chat room, stunning eyes, a captivating smile, or impressive biceps don’t do it. Wit, engagement, and articulateness do.
The architecture of this original cyberspace gave these groups something that they did not have in real space. More generally, it changed the mix of benefits and burdens that people faced — the literate were enabled and the attractive disabled relative to real space. Architectures produced these enablings and disablings.
I’ve told this story as if it matters only to those who in real space are “disabled.” But of course, “disabled” is a relative term.[9] It is more accurate to say that the space changes the meaning of the enabled. A friend — a strikingly beautiful and powerful woman, married, and successful — described for me why she spends hours in political chat spaces, arguing with others about all sorts of political topics:
You don’t understand what it’s like to be me. You have lived your whole life in a world where your words are taken for their meaning; where what you say is heard for what it says. I’ve never had a space, before this space, where my words were taken for what they meant. Always, before, they were words of “this babe”, or “wife”, or “mother”. I could never speak as I. But here, I am as I speak.
Clearly, the space is enabling her, even though one would not have said that in real space she was “disabled.”[10]
Over time, as bandwidth has expanded, this architecture has changed, and so has the mix of benefits and burdens. When graphics entered the Net through the World Wide Web, the blind became “blind” again. As sound files or speech in virtual spaces have been created, the deaf have become “deaf” again. And as chat rooms have started segregating into spaces where videocams capture real images of the people chatting and spaces where there is just text, the video-unappealing are again unappealing.[11] As the architectures change, definitions of who is “disabled” change as well.
My point is not to argue that the Net should not change — though of course, if it can change in ways that minimize the disabling effect of sound and graphics, then it no doubt should.[12] However important, my point is not really about the “disabled” at all. I use this example simply to highlight a link — between these structures of code and the world this code enables. Codes constitute cyberspaces; spaces enable and disable individuals and groups. The selections about code are therefore in part a selection about who, what, and, most important, what ways of life will be enabled and disabled.
Cyber-places
We can build on this point by looking at a number of “communities” that are constituted differently and that constitute different forms of life and by considering what makes these differences possible.
America Online
America Online (AOL) is an online service provider — “by far the largest ISP in the world”[13] with some 12 million subscribers in 1998 and 27 million today.[14] But despite having the population of New York and New Jersey combined, AOL still describes itself as a “community.” A large community perhaps, but a community nonetheless.
This community has a constitution — not in the sense of a written document (though there is that as well), but in the sense of a way of life for those who live there. Its founding vision was that community would make this place sing. So from its start, AOL’s emphasis has been on enabling people to interact, through chat, bulletin boards, and e-mail. (Today, AOL hosts the exchange of more messages daily than does the U.S. Post Office.[15]) Earlier providers, obsessed with providing content or advertising, limited or ignored the possibilities for interaction and exchange, but AOL saw interaction as the stuff that makes cyberspace different. It built itself on building a community and establishing itself as a place where people could say what they wanted.[16]
This interaction is governed by the rules of the place. Some of these rules are formal, others customary. Among the formal are express terms to which every member subscribes upon joining AOL. These terms regulate a wide range of behaviors in this space, including the behavior of AOL members anywhere on the Internet.[17]
Increasingly, these rules have become controversial. AOL policies have been called “Big Brother” practices. Arguments that get heated produce exchanges that are rude. But rudeness, or offensiveness, is not permitted in AOL’s community. When these exchanges are expunged, claims of “censorship” arise.[18]
My aim here, however, is not to criticize these rules of “netiquette.” AOL also has other rules that regulate AOL members — rules expressed not in contracts but rather through the very architectures of the space. These rules are the most important part of AOL’s constitution, but they are probably the part considered last when we think about what regulates behavior in this cyber-place.
9.
See Martha Minow,
10.
See Laura J. Gurak,
11.
This is what economists would call a "separating equilibrium": "players of different types adopt different strategies and thereby allow an uninformed player to draw inferences about an informed player's type from that player's actions"; Douglas G. Baird, Robert H. Gertner, and Randal C. Picker,
12.
On making the Web accessible, see Judy Brewer and Daniel Dardailler, "Web Accessi bility Initiative (WAI)," available at http://www.w3.org/WAI (cached: http://www.webcitation.org/5IwtGZOw1); cf. "Note: Facial Discrimination: Extending Handicap Law to Employment Discrimination on the Basis of Physical Appearance,"
13.
Dawn C. Nunziato, "The Death of the Public Forum in Cyberspace,"
14.
See AOL, "About the Company: Profile," available at http://web.archive.org/web/19990202213639/ www.aol.com/corp/profile/. (cached: http://www.webcitation.org/5IwtL33CC), and now available at http://www.corp.aol.com/whoweare/history.shtml (cached: http://www.webcitation.org/5IwtNpDnW).
16.
See Kara Swisher, Aol.com: How Steve Case Beat Bill Gates, Nailed the Netheads, and Made Millions in the War for the Web (New York: Times Business, 1998), 65.
17.
As stated in AOL's Terms of Service (TOS): "As an AOL member you are required to follow our TOS no matter where you are on the Internet." Some of the other terms of service include the following rules: "Language: Mild expletives and nonsexual anatomical references are allowed, but strong vulgar language, crude or explicit sexual references, hate speech, etc., are not. If you see it, report it at Keyword: Notify AOL. Nudity: Photos containing revealing attire or limited nudity in a scientific or artistic context are okay in some places (not all). Partial or full frontal nudity is not okay. If you see it, report it at Keyword: Notify AOL. Sex/Sen suality: There is a difference between affection and vulgarity. There is also a difference between a discussion of the health or emotional aspects of sex using appropriate language, and more crude conversations about sex. The former is acceptable, the latter is not. For example, in a discussion about forms of cancer, the words breast or testicular would be acceptable, but slang versions of those words would not be acceptable anywhere. Violence and Drug Abuse: Graphic images of humans being killed, such as in news accounts, may be acceptable in some areas, but blood and gore, gratuitous violence, etc., are not acceptable. Discussions about coping with drug abuse in health areas are okay, but discussions about or depictions of illegal drug abuse that imply it is acceptable are not."
18.
See Amy Harmon, "Worries About Big Brother at America Online,"