In defence of walls

Danah Boyd comes to the defence of the Walled Garden – the notion that certain parts of the web be protected from external gaze. It’s certainly a relief to hear someone question the prevailing orthodoxy (open==good, closed==bad).

To reiterate some of Danah’s ground, the very notion of a “wall” has somehow acquired an inherently negative connotation. This is a shame, because it is only by delimiting states and distinguishing between them that we create and perceive value. Value, in its widest sense, is the difference between two states, one state being more desirable than the other. My schoolboy physics reminds me that energy in any system naturally dissipates until everything reaches the same level – a mean steady-state – maximum entropy. So to create localised pockets of interest amidst the bland soup we must inject energy and impose structure. And that’s where walls come in.

Brave New Worldwideweb2.0

Amidst the clamour and frenzy that surrounds whichever star currently shines brightest in the web2.0 firmament (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace et al), it seems that some old-fashioned principles have fallen by the way-side.

Long before the WWW, in the dark years of WW2, our governments took pains to warn us of the perils of spilling our beans too readily. ‘Walls have ears’, we were reminded. ‘Loose lips sink ships’, the posters warned. Citizens were urged to be vigilant about what they might be giving away even in casual conversation. After all, piece together a few bits of seemingly innocuous information and before long a more telling picture emerges.

Sixty years on, and such cares are far from our minds of course. As each shiny new social networking site comes along, we’re happy to reveal all in exchange for a ticket to ride on The Next Big Thing. Once aboard, we do it all over again by giving it up for our 2479 new best ‘friends’.