I found two interesting articles yesterday.  The first was information from research done by blogger Danah Boyd on American class divisions in relation to use of Facebook and My Space. The second is from the NYT technology section and deals with gated social networks.  Both highlight how social networking sites can impose the same biases we encounter in the physical world.  

From these articles it seems as if we’ve used our complex and often arbitrary set of societal rules in setting up our virtual societies. It’s an interesting counterpoint to much that’s written about how inclusive and democratic these sites are. I am arguing back and forth in my head whether exclusivity is a funciton of the fact that people with same interests tend (I know it’s not an absolute) to be somewhat homogenous or because we feel a need to separate ourselves from people not like us.