Rethinking Maps — Mumu Li (n3xta)

This is a reading response for Ingrid Burrington, Effortless Slippage

Burrington starts off by pointing out a fascinating phenomenon: ever since the internet was still “small” and “new,” people have been trying to describe it in terms of nations or boundaries. For instance, Jon Postel once assigned two-letter country codes to each domain name, as if trying to directly map real-world geographic borders onto the network. Or take John Perry Barlow’s “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace,” which waved the banner of the internet as some grand new autonomous realm, a very romantic notion.

I’m actually quite familiar with Barlow’s declaration. In some sense, it represents a kind of early internet “cyber cowboy” narrative that was bold but also naive: this “virtual frontier” would be free from government shackles, and we could create new laws and new politics here, avoiding the bloody legacy of the previous generation’s colonialism (though it never really confronted historical violence, perhaps it was just a small circle of self-professed “dreamers”). As Burrington notes, this vision ignored the vast support behind the network, public funding, research institutions, hardware infrastructure, and the “physical world” itself. Yet, in that era, it also inspired many people: the internet didn’t have to replicate outdated power structures. maybe there were other possibilities.

Maps

The article’s discussion of “ARPANet maps” and the late ‘90s “MacUser network maps” is fascinating. These early maps retained a vague sense of “zoning”: blocks on a template labeled “Government Information,” “Arts & Humanities,” “Business,” and even something as quirky as “Frog Dissection Tutorial.” Back then, people needed a “geographical” style of navigation, so newcomers could find their footing in this digital world. GeoCities referred to its users as “homesteaders,” settling in various themed “Neighborhoods,” much like holding a little town map and picking your preferred spot. That grassroots, DIY internet vibe feels quite romantic when we look back on it now.

But now, who still browses the web by clicking through “category lists”? In the era of Google and social platforms, maps focus more on “guiding you somewhere” than letting you “wander at will.”

The launch of Google Maps and “Slippy Map” technology (loading map tiles in fragments + AJAX for asynchronous refresh) drastically changed how we perceive the world, bringing stronger real-time capturing abilities (and, in turn, capturing your location anytime).

On one hand, we get the convenience of zooming in and out at our fingertips and instantly finding the nearest café; on the other, we lose the spontaneity of exploration and accept the platform’s integrated ranking of locations and businesses.

Burrington stresses that while the internet helps us “map the real world,” the network itself has become ever harder to represent with straightforward diagrams. It’s no longer the small ARPANet you could neatly sketch out as a node map—now it’s a sprawling beast scattered across the globe, hidden in undersea cables and server farms. Ironically, we rely even more on a handful of major platforms to act as our “guides,” taking their recommendations as our main—sometimes only—way to explore.

Internet companies shape the “terrain”

The article also discusses how corporations like Facebook and Google impact physical cities and reshape public spaces. eg, Facebook built a giant campus in Menlo Park and even funded a local police station, turning this “company town” into something resembling an autonomous city-state; Google wants to build 10,000 housing units in Mountain View in exchange for more office space for expansion.

These big companies actively involved in urban planning, real estate development, and public infrastructure. Remember Barlow’s claim that the internet “transcends government”? Now, it’s the corporations that are acting like governments (or as if they’re special economic zones—SEZs).

That’s exactly Burrington’s “SEZ” analogy: cyberspace is no longer some abstract “imagined territory” but a constellation of “corporate enclaves” scattered across the globe, enjoying a kind of extralegal advantage.

What really strikes me is the sense of impact: some of these companies have more money than entire small countries. If they do something wrong, they’re fined a few million dollars—peanuts compared to their market cap. And we, the users in these “digital special economic zones,” to be honest, often feel like “serfs” or “exploited labor”: yes, we enjoy the services, but we’re also stripped of privacy, data, and real choice.

Map or Marketing?

A memorable scene the article mentions is Facebook’s big-data visualization of global friend connections—those glowing arcs on a black background, forming a rough silhouette of the continents. It looks very romantic, as if all the major landmasses on Earth are linked by these delicate lines.

Burrington calls it a classic “mappa mundi”: it doesn’t actually help you navigate or explain how communities work internally; rather, it shows “Facebook has linked the entire world.”

But if you look closely, it’s mostly diaspora communities or already tight-knit regions lighting up. Places in Africa, areas of geopolitical conflict, or countries that block Facebook remain in the dark.

This image reinforces a “this is our domain = the world” mindset, giving you the impression that without Facebook, nothing is connected—while ignoring how the platform itself selects which parts of the world to include or exclude.

Much like how Google Maps shows Crimea differently depending on whether you’re viewing from Russia or Ukraine, these representations of the global map are never neutral or natural. They result from a mix of corporate algorithms and geopolitical maneuvering. We feel as though we have “the world in our hands,” but it comes at the cost of accepting the platform’s framing.

In her closing remarks, Burrington references Barlow’s own late-in-life reflections on his “Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” and how it was “young and a bit naive.” If he were to write it again, he probably wouldn’t claim cyberspace and the physical world could be completely separated. Indeed, major platforms have sunk deep roots into real-world society, and neither regulation nor user awareness can fundamentally shake their monopolies.

Does that mean users or smaller groups are doomed to survive only in the “margins” of these platforms? Burrington isn’t entirely pessimistic. she believes there’s still hope in building alternative infrastructures or scrutinizing and disrupting corporate infrastructure. That will, however, require proactive cooperation rather than quietly exiling ourselves to the “edges” of the internet.

From my perspective, you could say it’s a call to “reclaim independent thought and active engagement.” For example:

We can be more vocal in publicly questioning and protesting platforms;
We can intervene with legislation or community collaboration when corporations try to monopolize education, real estate, or city planning;
We might create alternative maps or content curation, or at least work to maintain more “open public data” spaces.

Granted, making all this happen isn’t easy. Platforms are too powerful, and society’s resources flow toward them. Many forms of resistance can be quietly absorbed or censored by the platforms. But that’s still better than viewing ourselves as pure “SEZ serfs” with no way out.