Michael - glad you brought this up. This also connects with the increasing digitalization of finance that Dan Schiller wrote about in Digital Capitalism and also shows how neoliberal governmentality spreads through everyday micro-practices and networks of seeming "play" I look fwd to reading the blog post and maybe commenting more. r On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 8:42 AM, Michael Gurstein <gurstein@gmail.com> wrote:

This may be of interest.

http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/is-facebook-a-human-right-egypt-and -tunisia-transform-social-media/

If we see human rights as seamlessly encompassing activities and associations in both physical and virtual environments perhaps then we must begin to look at the virtual world as something other than a normless wild west which to this time has been the broad perception . Rather cyberspace should be seen as a "place" where the kinds of protections and regulatory frameworks (including existing human rights legislation) would apply equally as for off-line behaviours. It follows then that owners of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube should be seen not as owners of the space and behaviours being manifest through their systems but rather as proprietors of virtual venues where these behaviours are taking place.

Comments/critique sincerely welcomed...

Best,

M

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