More power to Island Owners

It sure sounds like a great idea. Island Owners can soon choose to receive Abuse Reports filed from their island, instead of the reports going to Linden Lab. That’ll reduce the load on the LL servers and it gives the owners more freedom to act as they see fit. That’s great if you live in a happy little world full of Easter Bunnies and Tooth Fairies. But in the real world, that’s a bad idea.

A few weeks back I reported about my encounter with a neonazi. Let’s just say that our friend Titan Tornado decides to build himself an island, and let’s imagine my dear friend Emma (for whom I tracked down a most becoming dark brown skin) decides to go take a look. Upon seeing her, Titan does his ‘It’s a nigger!’ routine, and when Emma files an abuse report (as she should) Herr Tornado receives it himself. Needless to say, Emma gets bumped from the island. Because she’s a nigger with an attitude.

But, says Chadrick Linden, “The community will hold intolerant Island Owners personally responsible, and as we build out more tools that assist that to happen, you’ll see those who don’t treat people nicely will eventually be isolated on their region.” That’s just dandy Chad. Did you hear about the presence in Second Life of the French party Front National? Did I ever tell you that Herr Tornado had an entourage of people, one of which bore the group title of “NPD Führer”?

So what if these groups start their own islands? Their community will applaud them, not hold them responsible. There will be ‘islands of intolerance’ in SL, with no regard to the Terms of Service, and intolerant people from around the world will flock to SL to hang around together, as they already do on the Internet.

Welcome to Second Life 1.15. Please select your destination: Ambleside - Linden Village; Burning Cross Island; Germania - Capital of the Reich; …

Remembrance

One can have lengthy discussions about gun control and on the Internet I know of quite a few heated debates. One can try to grasp a part of the psyche of the killer. One can argue whether or not police and university staff reacted adequately. Here in the Netherlands the question in a rather cheap talk radio show (”stand.nl”) this afternoon will be “The shooting on the university in the US is a typically American event.” There is any number of ways for people to deal with the horrific events.

Last night I went to Info Island after having read the New World Notes post about a memorial there, and when we were told that the island would be restarted, I went to a sandbox and constructed a Magen David, a Star of David, to hang among the memorials made by others. As a floating text I added the Shema, in the Jewish tradition a prayer of hope and comfort and much more.

I knew nobody on Virginia Tech - in fact I hardly know people in Virginia. And I am not Jewish. But I was deeply moved by the story of Professor Liviu Librescu, a man who survived the Rumanian Holocaust only to give his life many years later to save a younger generation from a different kind of madness. Selflessly he blocked the entrance to his classroom and died there, giving his students time to flee through the windows.

We use the word ‘hero’ so lightly these days. But here’s a definition you can use in all dictionaries: Liviu Librescu. May he rest in peace, may they all rest in peace.

“And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world. ” (Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin 4:1 (22a))

Responsibility

Let me step out of my Nyte n Day skin for a second, and shed the Gurl 6 hairdo and the Enkythings shoes. Here’s a subject which is larger than Second Life - much larger.

Last night Second Voices creator Crasuss Petronius, Second Life Pride organizer Kamael Xervious, Robin Linden and myself discussed, among other issues, measures to protect kids in Second Life. And it struck me that there is something fundamentally wrong in our way of thinking about that issue.

An example from real life - in fact, life more real and twisted than anyone can handle: Columbine High School. The infamous Trench Coat Mafia had an arsenal of weapons stashed under their beds. Sure enough, after the first shock was over, the finger pointing began. It was violence on TV that was responsible for this, said one. It was Marilyn Manson who was responsible for this, said another. And of course the NRA - the National Rifle Association, the loudest voice in the US pro-weapons lobby - was blamed as well.

Noone blamed the parents. Let me run that by you again. These kids had heavy weaponry hidden under their beds and noone blamed the parents. But why didn’t they know what these boys had under their beds? Is it fear of ‘invading their privacy’? Is it lack of time, is it a false sense of security and trust in the boys’ behaviour? And wouldn’t the kids have known that noone really cared what the devil they were doing - I mean, would you have stashed automatic guns under your bed if you thought someone might look?

There you have it - double responsibility for the parents. For not keeping tabs on what their kids were doing, and in lacking to do so giving the kids the feeling that noone really cared, which may well have contributed to their behaviour in the first place.
Now back to the Internet and Second Life. If a kid enters Second Life and walks into a strip club or a private sex room, who is responsible? Linden Lab? The other Residents present? If a kid surfs the web and hits any of the gazillion unprotected, easy to find porn sites, who is responsible? Nekkid Chixxx dot com? AOL? Bill Gates? What about the parents?

Of course you cannot keep tabs on your kids 24/7. But do you take the time to talk about what’s on their minds? Do you check your browser history? Do you check under their beds, literally or as a figure of speech? Or are you one of those people who expect everyone else to protect your kids for you?

We can’t do that. As consenting adults we cannot be expected to live a Puritan Second Life just because an avatar or two is looking at us with eyes that are too young. Sex shops in real life do not have boarded-up windows either and yes, kids do look in.

You will have to take responsibility. Spend time with them, talk to them, and ’spy’ on them. Not to punish them later, but to know them. Kids are not supposed to be in Second Life. Make sure your kid isn’t - that’s your responsibility and not ours or Linden Lab’s.

Land of the Free, Home of the Brave

Make no mistake about it: Second Life is a virtual corner of the United States of America. Linden Lab’s servers are based in the US and so are you, whether you are in Mariposa, Neufreistadt or Hauwoi. And where you park your real life behind doesn’t matter much either.

And so, after the age play drama, we are now looking at a casino drama. Let me get this straight: I do not go to casinos. I do not gamble my hard earned euros or Linden dollars away. I think a lot of casinos are among the ugliest, cheapest looking, badly built and freebie-textured, lag causing horrors of the Second Life experience.

But the point is this: in ’some areas’ even virtual depictions of sexual age play are outlawed. In ’some areas’ gambling is prohibited. In ’some areas’ homosexuality is outlawed, too. Or the spreading of any religion outside Islam. Or nudity. Or even driving a car as a woman. What is next? Lobby groups will descend on SL carrying either big sticks or big bags of money. And out go the gays, the escort girls, the mosques, you name it. Land of the Free, my ass.
Because when push comes to shove, there is no US law to fall back upon for us Residents. There is God Almighty and He lives in San Francisco. Just try to enforce freedom of speech in SL, for example. Whereas I can stick a swastika flag on my house in the US, I cannot on my house in SL. That’s good and I agree with it, but it curbs the First Amendment to the US Constitution nonetheless. So how about it - does US law apply in SL or not? Either it does or it does not - and right now it does not, by the looks of it.

By bending to the will of governments, before there is even a request to do so, Linden Lab shows it’s weak knees. Home of the Brave, my ass.