Web 2.0 discourse demonstrates what is called "digital exceptionalism," the idea that the internet is different from other forms of communication and therefore not bound by the same legal and market forces. … During the mid-1990s, "cyberspace" was frequently conceptualized as a sphere separate from daily life. This "disembodiment hypothesis" suggested that internet communication freed people from their earthly bodies, allowing for pure communication unfettered from discrimination. Theorists like Sherry Turkle and Sandy Stone hypothesized that digital communication could transcend structural power relations like sexism and racism. (Research instead indicated that internet communication reflects the power relations of the people communicating.)

Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, loc. 58