Panopticon

A “panopticon” (pan-OP-tih-kon) – from the Greek for “sight” – is a building (a prison, hospital, library, etc.) arranged in such a way that all parts of the interior are visible from a single point.

Example (as used by Mattathias Schwartz in The New York Times): “Almost everyone [on the Internet message board /b/] posts as ‘anonymous.’ In effect, this makes /b/ a panopticon in reverse – nobody can see anybody, and everybody can claim to speak from the center.”

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