Collisions between the online and offline - the hierarchy in the spider's web.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/12/nick-cohen-twitter-facebook-screcy?CMP=twt_gu
"Now, potentially anyone with access to the web can find embarrassing photos, evidence of minor crimes and foolish Facebook updates or tweets. The gawky girl is no longer bullied only by her vile classmates but vile strangers too. Iranian revolutionaries learn that the apparently liberating web allows the secret police to monitor them and discover their contacts. An employee such as Adrian Smith, a Christian working for the Trafford Housing Trust, finds that opposition to gay marriage on his Facebook page allows his employers to lop £14,000 from his salary. They do not try to argue with him or warn him that he must not let his prejudices affect his work. He has uttered "controversial" opinions his colleagues do not like and that is enough to damn him.
The utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer says we should welcome the exponential increase in the possibilities for surveillance. If others know more about us, we know more about them. We will move to a free and open society. We will be less ashamed of our secrets and less censorious of our neighbours. Disclosure will bring the greatest happiness to the greatest number.
Although many want to share details their ancestors would have regarded as private, Singer does not understand that western democracies remain hugely hierarchical. The managers of private and public bureaucracies justify their elevated status and salaries not only by attempting to run efficient organisations (a task that is often beyond the poor dears) but by monitoring and intimidating those beneath them. The web gives them unprecedented power to police information that once would have been beyond their reach."
