Censorship through Social Networking Platforms

As a nonuser of typical social networking sites (e.g. facebook and myspace), I am consistently overcome and amazed at how often they are referred to: the ever continual intertwining of virtual and real world realities. As these two realities merge, can social networking platforms be used to censor. At first, this notion of censorship through such open platforms seems counter intuitive and almost preposterous especially in free societies.

Danah Boyd points out in “Viewing American Class Divisions through Facebook and Myspace” and Jason Falls argues in “Social Classes and Social Networking” the existence of virtual social class divisions (active members of specific social networking platforms). In this article, Danah states that Myspace’s primary users are mainly from one of the following segments: lower class, LGBT community, teens, uneducated. Danah also states that Facebook’s primary users are not from any of these groups. Whether or not her argument is true, the point is that each social networking platform is a business and in business one must segment the market. This segmentation and targeting of the market should (theoretically) split inadvertently the real world society into virtual social class divisions. Moreover, the more incumbents entering the market will further segregate and delineate virtual social class divisions.

Danah goes on further to introduce that this virtual social class division exists within the U.S. military and that the military used this social division to censor or mitigate one of the class divisions through restricting the use of social networking sites to specific platforms. The military’s official statement was that DoD’s computer networks were being clogged through the use of these sites. Regardless of the true reason, Danah’s argument that the military censored a large community is theoretically true if social networking platforms are segregated into virtual social class divisions.

The real point is that through segmentation of the social networking platform into virtual social class divisions, uncontested legal censorship and if I my dare to say uncontested legal discrimination are “theoretically” possible through social networking platforms. How often are users of social networking sites unknowingly censored or discriminated against through these platforms?

Valasek, Rochelle.(unknown). Internet Social Networking Etiquette. http://www.life123.com/parenting/tweens-teens/social-networking/internet-social-networking.shtml.

Hare, Breeanna.(2009). Does Your Social Class Determine Your Online Social Class. http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/10/13/social.networking.class/index.html.

Falls, Jason.(2008). Social Classes and Social Networking. http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/2008/01/23/social-classes-and-social-networking/.

Boyd, Danah.(2007). Viewing American Class Divisions through Facebook and Myspace. http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html

Rosencrance, Linda.(2007).DoD blocks military access to social networking sites. http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9019479/DoD_blocks_military_access_to_social_networking_sites