A British judge ordered suspected gang members not to associate with each other online.

A judge has banned gang members from posting photos of themselves together on the web. The landmark ruling means they can appear alone on Facebook or other social networking sites. But they cannot be pictured jointly with any of 10 named men involved in a court case. The condition was attached to their convictions after they all pleaded guilty to affray at Manchester Crown Court. The men – all members of the `Fallowfield Mad Dogs’ group – could be locked up if they break the condition.

In another case, a British schoolteacher found herself suspended after making a slightly disparaging remark about the behavior of classes on her Facebook page.

A teacher faces the sack after complaining about the behaviour of her class on Facebook. Sonya McNally, 35, has been suspended on full pay since calling the 13-year-olds ‘bad’ in a private conversation on the social networking site. In a post on March 20, the supply teacher wrote: ‘By the way, (class) 8G1 are just as bad as 8G2.’ Another teacher involved in the discussion, Kirsten Allenby-Moore, took offence. She complained to the council’s human resources department, writing: ‘I found the comments personally insulting as the 2 classes mentioned where [sic] both mine.’

You can make the argument that the only reputation that matters any more is your online reputation. Databases increasingly define your character definitively. In a world where you buy things online, deal with strangers over the phone, apply for jobs by email and run for political office on TV a credit rating, criminal record and the tone of articles written about you not only help describe who you are; it is who you are. Your physical reality will be less definitive than your online one. Perhaps in the future we will experience the virtual equivalent of those documentary inspections that were the staple of wartime and Cold War fiction. Paperzz plizz. Paperzz.