Flame wars on worldnet: Early constructions of the international user

Abstract

Some of the earliest users of the Internet described their activities as predicting a widespread communication medium that would cross national boundaries even before the technical capability was possible. An analysis of conversations on Human-Nets, an early ARPANet mailing list, shows how users were concerned about providing a forum for open discussion and hoped that the network would spread to provide communication throughout the world. Moving forward to CSNET, one can also see a strong insistence that the network provide connectivity beyond the United States. Contrary to those who might tell the history of the Internet as a story of a technology that was first perfected by the military, adapted by U.S. academics and then brought to the rest of the world in the 1990s, these users reveal a strong ideology of international communication.