Both of these articles see the internet/cyberspace in a very different but similar way--both of them see the very powerful, ambivalent capabilities that the internet can have in terms of not only finding, but impacting the "RL". In the case of Kessler's article, the worry is how actual data is used to manipulate, extort, or otherwise intrude upon the lives of the real people who use them, while Dibbell's piece was more about the psychological and sociological impacts and differences of an event occuring in the virtual, rather than physical realm. The interesting thing about both articles is that they present the picture that the average net user/interactor does not think about what they are giving away until something big enough happens to jolt them out of that.
1. Seeing as how there can be very real psychological/psychosomatic effects of the internet on the real person, can/should there be any sort of organised intervention on the internet? When should this happen?
2. How do we break people out of the passive, spectator persona/role they play on the internet? How much escapism should be allowed in an age where people view rapes and suicides and murders online, on livestream, without question or in a state of such detachment that they don't feel the need to intervene? Is this a reflection of mankind as a whole, or just mankind on the internet?