Cyberspace Isn’t a Place

So Ideas Of a Sheriff Are Off-Base

In the early days of the mass Internet, John Perry Barlow–the Grateful Dead lyricist turned digital activist–penned an influential “Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace,” proclaiming the birth of a virtual nation: a separate, anarchic, and sovereign space unencumbered by rusting “industrial” governments. Today, Barlow’s metaphor is more often invoked to repudiate that Declaration, either explicitly or implicitly. Now we routinely hear that the lawless frontier must finally yield, notwithstanding the hopes of a few naïve romantics, to the civilizing power of government.

The question we should be asking, though, is …