In a thoughtful but deeply worrisome posting, Greg Yardley poses a scenario about the The conservative nature of Internet 2.0, in light of the Niall Kennedy affair:

Let’s take a look at the actions of both Niall and Dave Sifry. Once the controversy developed both behaved perfectly rationally, choosing the path of least resistance and greatest common sense. Sifry acted as he did out of concern for the company he’s painstakingly built; Kennedy acted as he did to preserve his reputation and good relationship with his employer. Since both chose the path of least resistance and greatest common sense, the outcome isn’t an abberation - this is a ‘dog bites man’ story, not the other way around. Yet the lessons Niall learned and eloquently communicated to all were undeniably conservative.

As the popularity of blogging, podcasting, video blogging, blog search, and so on grows, many more people will learn the same conservative lesson that Niall did. Some predictions for the future:

1) Blogging will provide an increasingly clear rewards for individual bloggers. Employers looking to hire will increasingly favor those with well-established blogs - all the better to learn about the proclivities and abilities of their candidates. Because of this, more and more people will publicly blog, using full names and accurate biographical information. Most individuals will happily surrender their privacy for a greater perceived benefit.

2) Since blogging will provide an increasingly clear benefit to the individual, the number of bloggers will mushroom. High school guidance counselors and college-based employment centers will begin giving blogging lessons. Career-minded young people will begin cultivating their blogs with the same diligence they currently give to the accumulation of community service and extracurricular activities.

3) Advice along the lines of Scoble’s will become commonplace. From USA Today to evening newscasts, individuals will be told about what is acceptable to blog and what is not acceptale to blog. The consequences of blogging inappropriately will become common wisdom.

4) Affairs like Niall’s or Mark Jen’s will become commonplace, and therefore boring. Because ‘proper blogging etiquette’ will have appeared from everywhere from USA Today to Oprah, the public’s sympathy will lie less and less with the individual blogger, who ‘should have known better.’

5) A new generation of individuals, starting with the high school students of today, will automatically associate successful employment with blogging, and successful blogging with considered self-censorship and image management. Outwardly professed values will become internalized. Truly controversial stances and opinions will be suppressed for fear of real or imagined economic consequences.

6) The tipping point will be reached when radical groups and individuals stop embracing the Internet as a venue for organizing and start shutting themselves off from it - either hiding in access-controlled enclaves or abandoning online life and technology altogether.

No doubt I’m exaggerating; perhaps I’m missing something fundamental. If Internet 2.0 turns out to be a conservative force, it won’t be because of the intentions of its creators. Yet who can fully predict the consequences of their actions and the uses of their creations? If I leaned left or libertarian, I’d be worried.

As a avowed leftist, however, I find this Orwellian future terrifying. Corporate messages controlling our internal self-image, making us into conformist robots spouting corporate bilge in place of personal convictions, and the apparent inevitablity of all this because of the rational self-interest involved -- it's a dystopian nightmare, not something to be accepted.

Greg is right about the people's tendency to cave when coerced. That is why we have laws to ensure various freedoms, so that those with less power (the employee) cannot be compelled to relinquish personal freedoms in order to work.