Before the Internet, you knew where your virtual body was – it was at the tax office or the police station, or at school. And if a revolution did take place you could go and burn those records, but now people put all their data on different platforms and different machines and think it’s fun. All the hype about Twitter and online identities is nothing new, except now it’s on a different platform whereas before it would have been on a stone tablet. But what happens if the police knock on you door, as they do in Iran or elsewhere and even in the UK, and say, ‘You’ve been on these websites and are involved with certain activities so now we’re arresting you’. So, the virtual is more important, because it’s actually becoming more difficult for people to see their traces. Their actual true nature gets misrepresented or codified or enslaved through the Internet. Things happen in a much more sophisticated way, whereas before you could burn a piece of paper or tear it up: Goodbye body.
From: http:/