Ralph Willis went about his routine daily life—working and then interacting in the global VR connected network that replaced the old-fashioned Internet.

Ralph kept getting alerts for his mischievous actions, but he gladly ignored them to embrace what he considered his right to self-expression. Though many connection points outright banned him for his inflammatory remarks and behaviors.

Despite him operating under supposed anonymous personas, the underlying technological model traced his true identity.

As Ralph plugged into the system, he watched an interactive virtual hologram of Congress passing the Corporate Freedom Of Expression Act. Like others, he felt bewildered by what that meant, and lots of discussions surrounded its interpretation.

————

After a couple of weeks, Ralph received his electronic paycheck with itemized payroll deductions, and he saw a penalty line:

⁃ $2,342 (CFEA)

Ralph dug further into what it all meant. It turned out corporations appealed to Congress about ‘loss of revenue due to controversial employee behaviors.’ So the CFEA permitted financially penalizing said employees for ‘marketing to compensate and restore their commercialized identities and reputations.’