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'Second Life' dreams of Electric Sheep
April 3, 2006 -
'Second Life' scores $11 million in funding
March 28, 2006 -
Name that metaverse
October 6, 2005 -
'Second Life' for teens: 3D fun sans the brothels
August 8, 2005
(continued from previous page)
I've seen "open chat messaging along the lines of 'Daddy's going to spank you if you don't stop flirting with...'" one "Second Life" player said. "And then, 'Oooh, Daddy, I'm sorry, Will you spank me anyway?' Usually it is a young 'teenage' girl avatar and her 'daddy.'"
Another player, known in the virtual world as "Usagi Musashi," said that when pretending to work in a virtual sex club in "Second Life," she often saw child avatars trying to pick up adult avatars.
"One day in the welcome area, I saw one child" avatar, Musashi said. "This one was just posing like she wanted some action. They stand around and look for action like escorts...then (they) age play."
That's the sort of role-playing that can be quite disconcerting to some people. "I would say it's virtual pedophilia," said one veteran game designer with significant experience studying online community standards. "I've got three kids, so I have zero tolerance for these kinds of things."
But does pretending predict real-life pedophilia? One psychologist isn't so sure.
It may be a red flag if someone--say an adult male playing an adult male engaged in play with a young female avatar--is repeatedly playing the role sexually aggressing a child in the game," said Joy Davidson, a certified sex therapist and author of "Fearless Sex." "I would be concerned about someone who is continually choosing to play the role of someone sexually aggressing a child."
But Davidson said most other cases--the person playing a young girl avatar, or someone only trying out the role of the adult male engaging in digital sexual activity with a child avatar, for example--could well be the behavior of people fantasizing about their own times as a sexually active teen.
Nonetheless, Kelly Rued, who is developing the sex-themed virtual world "Rapture Online", said she thinks Linden Labs has a responsibility to address the age-play issue because the environment enables those with fantasies about sex play involving children to play them out.
In fact, "Rapture Online" itself will specifically allow sexual age-play, Rued explained, but addresses the issue by making it impossible for avatars to look like children. In short, adult avatars can be dressed in children's clothes, but it's still clear that they are supposed to be adults.
Rued, who is a regular player on "Second Life," said she recognizes that Linden Lab is in a tough situation because it would be nearly impossible to police all of that virtual world for content. And if game managers did have the wherewithal to do it, many members accustomed to being left alone would quit. That said, she still thinks the company should find a way to rein in the ability to create child avatars for use in sex or violent play that would make others in the "Second Life" community uncomfortable.
"This is one of those cases where you might want to limit the rights of a few people," Rued said, "to make the majority of the people happy."
And that's something Linden Lab would consider--if its community demanded such an action, said David Fleck, Linden Lab's vice president of marketing.
"With technology, we can do exactly that if we felt it was necessary or important to do so," said Fleck. But "the data that we have doesn't support that that's a necessary action at this time. The other thing to remember about 'Second Life' is that it is a free-form canvass. You can do what you want, and be what you want, and that's what attracts people. So as you soon as you create restrictions, including about what you look like, that in itself causes different kinds of problems because of censorship."
See more CNET content tagged:
Second Life, virtual worlds, behavior, children, law
be affected and altered by all kinds of actions?virtual or not.
YOU need a "reality" check.
It is a joke.
Who in their right mind would sell mirror eyes for $65
Looking further ahead there is other issue where the simulated spite might become so real that even killing it might seem immoral. You might say i'm talking nonsense but consider this-
Picture I transfered you into a optial computer simulation so that i could see what it was like to torture and kill you sevral times over.
Just how far can we go before those line blur to much.
reality of these online services that the affect's they will have on
our youth.
It's sad that it takes something like MySpace.com before the
Media become proactive. Maybe CNET News.com doesn't realize
the impact that they [CNet] have on society when they publish
articles like this.
Online Media Giants like CNET News.com have a big influence on
how company's and corporations handle there services as well as
there data. Article's like this scare entities like MySpace.com into
putting money back in the Web R&D necessary to ensure a safe
and effective online environment for everybody.
For this alone I would like to thank you personally, CNET
News.com for being the "Online Tech News that Makes a
Difference". I truly believe the article's that are published here on
CNET News.com truly contribute to the overall nature and well
being of the World Wide Web.
Thank You,
~Justin
PS. If I had it my way you could all take Friday off for being so
damn good at what you do!
The idea that because it is not a real child being victimized makes it somehow okay is silly at best. The reason normal people don't want this behavior to occur is because any mature reasonable adult can surmise that if an adult is creating situations by which he can watch a realistic 3-D rendition of himself having sexual relations with a 6-year-old child, then there is something dangerous about what he considers "sexy."
Just as SL is being used by UC Davis to train medical staff and being used by groups helping troubled teens to learn to socialize in a healthy manner, SL activities can potentially also be used to dangerous ends. Just like those troubled kids will hopefully bring back their positive social skills learned in SL to the real world, a grown man role playing child sexual abuse will likely also bring back his practiced behavior to the real world.
for a majority of computer pornography enthusiasts, online sex
was better than whatever else they were into before, like sex
with their spouses. Often, this leads to broken primary
relationships, as sex with a real partner outside of marriage also
often does. Ardor is not so much cooled as fastened onto
another. Real or virtual, I would expect it to be uncomfortable
for the abandoned partner.
I may be old fashioned. I've been with the same woman for 35
years and I helped computers become what they have, and for
me there is nothing I could get from looking at any image on
any screen that could be as good as what's available in real life.
I also fail to respond to video games for the same reason. To
me, there is no way you can simulate the sensations of actually
driving or skiing or flying aerobatics, at least not with stuff on
my desk. I do have an idea for a digital virtual suit of clothing
that would transmit and receive tactile data - in other words,
feelings - thereby allowing new levels of personal online
interaction. Virtual capitalists take note. The real Killer App is
at hand. Make the check out to Jack, and Let's Roll!
Once again, the uptight idiots want to control the sex lives of others. If you ask me, that is what is really perverted and sick.
Think of it this way if you have children, would you care if your child's 3rd grade male teacher is role playing with his wife? No, most of us couldn't care less. How about your child's teacher going into SL every night to role play him having sex with 8-year-olds for 3 hours a night?
Use common sense.
they don't spill out into the real world and hurt anyone in real life,
we should just leave them alone. Who cares if the cyber-act is
offensive? Just stop looking at it and ignore it.
If people got rid of everything they found offensive, then there
would be no one left. Just live and let live.
If someone takes part in a virtual orgy with a room full of naked people, is it not safe to assume they find that a hot scenario?
What if your next door neighbor spends hours every night finding virtual 6-year-olds to have sex with?
Second Life does not exist in a vacuum. Every person engaging in activities that are by definition pedophile behaviors, lives in the real world and deals with real children.
The definition of a pedophile is someone who fantasizes regularly about children under the age of 13. Being a pedophile is not the crime, it is the illness that leads to a crime.
Giving pedophiles the tools to further enhance their fantasies and role play them out with visual imagery that makes it more realistic for them, simply adds to the chance that they will soon victimize a real child. Almost all child sexual predators start by viewing child pornography and work their way up to the crime of victemizing a real child.
Plus I wouldn't mind if law enforcement got involved somehow like with MySight I think.
From MySpace to Safer Space:
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2006/tc20060411_341338.htm?chan=technology_technology+index+page_today's+top+stories
The biggest problem that started in the 90s is people encouraging others to break the law becaseu of indirect modes of communication
struck down as being unconstitutional.
Either simulated violence causes real violence or it does not. The rest is your moral agenda.
It is a game and it has rules. You can't spew out hate speech and yet you have every right to do so in the real world.
Pedophilia is a mental illness characterized by "thoughts" or fantasies of sex with children under 13. Pedophilia is not a crime, but child sexual abuse is a crime. Child sexual abuse is the result of a pedophile acting out on his fantasies.
A private company that makes up rules for its game has every right to say that the game may not be used to pass on hate speech and it may not be used to create 3D images and videos of virtual child sexual abuse.
For you to confuse real world laws and online game rules, is ridicules. Your charges of thought crimes and Orwellian nightmares are hyperbole and you know it. Is it an Orwellian nightmare that you can't put houses on your Monopoly property until you own all the colors for that land? No, it is just game rules.
real children either, but people still get arrested.
These role players probably need to watch out and
make sure they aren't being set up too.
Within Second Life, every player knows that every other player is 18 or over; LL guarantees and enforces that, and the "Reasonable Person" is entitled to rely on that.
Is that such a bad thing? I honestly don?t think so. It would be a shame if someone thought they were ?role playing? into a confession for Police resulting in their arrest for something they never did. It would hardly be the first time for someone to get arrested for something they didn?t do though.
That being said, I think that the easiest solution to keep people from being offended is to create "zones" for "perverted" activity. Anyone not wishing to be offended would be able to play freely with little risk of seeing anything offensive. Action in the "perversion-free zones" would be strictly limited.
How limited, though, is anyone's guess. Some people are offended by viewing same-sex acts - so would this be disallowed? Some people are offended by group activity. Some people are offended by the use of "props." For that matter, some people are offended that "Second Life" even allows sex acts at all.
It's the classic cliched "slippery slope." Once you give in to one group, the rest get offended that you didn't cave in to THEIR demands.
The simple solution is to have a stated policy that child avatars are not to be used for sexual fantasy play and that those caught doing so will be banned from SL.
It is enforceable on one obvious level because out of the 170,000 people playing, there will always be a few who will take it upon themselves to "sting" other players that are partaking in this behavior. Simply getting screen shots of them doing so could result an investigation and eventually to their banning.
You can never stop it completely just like you can't completely stop it in real life. But an official rule regarding this would allow normal people to feel better about a game they are paying for and make pedophiles feel like it isn't a free zone for them to enhance their dangerous fantasies.
When it comes to sex, everyone gets all prickly and pissy about things. Again, here we are only talking about people "playing pretend".
I've dated women (2 in fact) that had fantasies about being raped. Yep. Role-played whole deal. They each had their own specific requirements, and honestly, its not "my thing". But being the boyfriend, I played along with the game. On other nights, I'd get to play my way, instead.
Now that was a game, you see? If you believe that these two intelligent women actually *wanted* and *actual* rape, well, you're smokin' some powerful stuff.
Rape is insanely icky stuff in reality. But as a game, they two found it exciting.
If you could scan the minds of everyone you see on the subway or bus, on the street, at work and in your church, and peek into that little file-o-fax in their brains where they keep the things that "turn them on", you'd probably freak out.
I know one guy who wants desperately to find a severely overweight woman who'll defecate on him. No lie.
In summary: Lots of people think up crazy wild stuff. Sometimes they like to play pretend ("nuke the earth", "rapin'", "naughty schoolteacher and pizza boy"). Just because some people's make-believe upsets you to imagine it ("300 lb woman dumping a steam pile on your face"), doesn't mean you have to interject your standards on others. Start banning one person's "turn on" and you'll end up banning everyone's.
Rape is some awful stuff, for example (I never knew what the two prior gf's saw in it, actually). But pretend *is* pretend.
So what this whole argument boils down to is a fight between:
"Those who have a clear sense of what is real and what is pretend"
versus
"Those who have a hard time seperating fact and fiction and want to impose this lack of understanding upon others"
When it comes to sex, everyone gets all prickly and pissy about things. Again, here we are only talking about people "playing pretend".
I've dated women (2 in fact) that had fantasies about being raped. Yep. Role-played whole deal. They each had their own specific requirements, and honestly, its not "my thing". But being the boyfriend, I played along with the game. On other nights, I'd get to play my way, instead.
Now that was a game, you see? If you believe that these two intelligent women actually *wanted* and *actual* rape, well, you're smokin' some powerful stuff.
Rape is insanely icky stuff in reality. But as a game, they two found it exciting.
If you could scan the minds of everyone you see on the subway or bus, on the street, at work and in your church, and peek into that little file-o-fax in their brains where they keep the things that "turn them on", you'd probably freak out.
I know one guy who wants desperately to find a severely overweight woman who'll defecate on him. No lie.
In summary: Lots of people think up crazy wild stuff. Sometimes they like to play pretend ("nuke the earth", "rapin'", "naughty schoolteacher and pizza boy"). Just because some people's make-believe upsets you to imagine it ("300 lb woman dumping a steam pile on your face"), doesn't mean you have to interject your standards on others. Start banning one person's "turn on" and you'll end up banning everyone's.
Rape is some awful stuff, for example (I never knew what the two prior gf's saw in it, actually). But pretend *is* pretend.
So what this whole argument boils down to is a fight between:
"Those who have a clear sense of what is real and what is pretend"
versus
"Those who have a hard time seperating fact and fiction and want to impose this lack of understanding upon others"
These people are adults doing the dirty with other adults who are only pretending to be children.
It's weird and creepy, but if these loosers are engaging with other adults, then at least they're not looking at real child porn or chatting up real children. Cracking down on age-play would likely disperse these people to places where real children go.
I know there are arguments that people might transition from age-play to real children, but I think that most of these people are just sad armchair perverts and that most of those who would transition would probably do it anyway.
I hope the department of Homeland Security's LAN/WAN team blocked acces to the Second Life's domain though, we don't need anymore high profile arests.
also schools are for learning whats this have to do with anything besides a very liberal teachers union
- You people are sad
- by bmwchild April 17, 2006 4:27 PM PDT
- To whom it may concern
- Like this Reply to this comment
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (102 Comments)You know it people like YOU! That start so much trouble of a virtual game, I mean come on man get a life, and seriously it is Fiction Fiction Fiction do I have to say it again. I rather have someone role-playing there fantasy than doing it in real life. But go ahead stir up trouble; you news people are good at it never thinking always wanting a good story.
You remind me of those people that chase off car clubs when there hanging out on parking lots, minding there own business chit chatting. People like you always chase them off I guess you rather have them go cause trouble than have a harmless chit chat.
Well to let you know people will always have fun doing fictional things and there is nothing you can do about nothing. So continue ranting I all enjoy sending you more and more stupid comment for your stupid stories.
Sincerely
Just another kid living a fictional life!