The control which code grants the owners of virtual spaces over their real estate is a power to define undesirable activities within those spaces out of existence, to add or to omit options to the menu. Code determines the gravity, the inertia, and the architecture which govern life in cyberspace. It defines the laws of physics for that reality but nonetheless remains a product of the human programmers who create it and embodies the values they choose. Code is unlike physics in that it is purely artificial. The values which exist in virtual spaces exist only because someone chose to write them there.
Some virtual spaces exert high degrees of control on their participants, others less so.
America Online, for example, watches its visitors closely, gathering information to create more personalized content and to evict those who violate the company's acceptable use policy with offensive speech or inappropriate action. Other virtual spaces such as most newsgroups on Usenet or most channels on Internet Relay Chat may rely exclusively upon social sanction for enforcement. That is assuming they even have any rules. Utter profanity in a chatroom on America Online and you will be forcibly disconnected from the service. Those who are offended will have little recourse.