Plague premonitions

"Besides technologically conceived viruses, cyberspace is an amenable medium for what Douglas Rushkoff calls "media viruses," which refer to the ways ideas infect the masses at rapid speeds and in novel ways through electronic media. The delivery system of the Internet makes possible the dissemination of ideas that bypasses the traditional intermediaries of editorial control, paper publishing, material transport, and so on. Of course, this can be used for good or ill; but particularly virulent ideas can pollute people's minds in unprecedented ways through cyberspace."

Douglas Groothuis, The Soul in Cyberspace, 1997