Shaping the Web: Why the politics of search engines matters The Web fulfills some of the functions of other traditional public spaces—museums, parks, beaches, and schools. It serves as a medium for artistic expression, a space for recreation, a place for storing and exhibiting items of historical and cultural importance, and it can educate. Beyond these functions, the one that has earned it greatest approbation as both a public space and a political good is its capacity as a medium for intensive communication among and between individuals and groups in just about all the permutations that one can imagine, namely, one-to-one, one-to-many, etc. It is the Hyde Park Corner of the electronic age, the public square where people may gather as a whole, or associate in smaller groups. They may talk and listen, they may plan and organize. They air viewpoints and deliberate over matters of public importance. Such spaces, where content is regulated by only a few fundamental rules, embody the ideals of the liberal democratic society.