As reported by Wired’s Regina Lynn: Controversy is brewing in virtual reality world Second Life over the occurrence and potential illegality of online rape. The 3-D virtual world, built and owned by its more than 6 million users, currently allows members to engage in a wide range of sexual activities. You can buy S&M gear and solicit strippers, escorts, and prostitutes (all of whom are in fact other SL users). While individual avatars are supposedly prohibited from taking control of other avatars without permission, savvy users can still use scripts to force submission. As a result, Belgian police are now investigating an SL user’s allegations of a sexual assault that took place entirely online. Here’s what Lynn has to say on the matter:
If it is a criminal offense to sexually abuse a child on the internet, how can we say it is not possible to rape an adult online?
But I have a hard time calling it “rape,” or believing it’s a matter for the police. No matter how disturbed you are by a brutal sexual attack online, you cannot equate it to shivering in a hospital with an assailant’s sweat or other excretions still damp on your body.
Meanwhile, Salon‘s Broadsheet reports that SL rarely and barely punishes abusers, while noting that most U.S. states have enacted statutes calling for real-life punishment of extreme online harassement. Crime in Second Life isn’t a new phenomenon, and users have criticized SL’s slow response to complaints of “illegal” activity, while SL creator Philip Rosedale has reportedly been reluctant to start policing the virtual world. Still, when issues like sexual assault start sparking real-life police action, it sounds like a case for some necessary introduction of retribution to remove incentives if ever there was one.
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I think harrassment is more appropriate than rape. Regardless, it raises an intereting question.
Why, if SL has too much freedom, and users want a more policed experience, doesn’t someone just make an alternative that where “illegal” activity is punished/prevented etc?
Why would you want to modify SL if you can offer something superior? Just offer the superior product.
“Introducing retribution?” Since when is tampering with or rigging a market a good idea?
I think harrassment is more appropriate than rape. Regardless, it raises an intereting question.
Why, if SL has too much freedom, and users want a more policed experience, doesn’t someone just make an alternative that where “illegal” activity is punished/prevented etc?
Why would you want to modify SL if you can offer something superior? Just offer the superior product.
“Introducing retribution?” Since when is tampering with or rigging a market a good idea?
….so we’re up to reason #884 not to waste your time in second life
….so we’re up to reason #884 not to waste your time in second life
Fascinating. Clearly, the utility lost from SL rape is less than the utility lost from first life rape. But nonetheless, there’s some utility foregone. Maybe this is a great place for economists to recommend alternative forms of criminal punishment than imprisonment. For instance, Becker proposed in his original JPE article “Crime and Punishment” liberal use of fines to deal with crimes, as opposed to imprisonment. That the former was more efficient in many cases (though I think rape and murder were instances where fines seemed less approprate, but it’s been a few years since I read the article). Maybe Levitt, Becker and other crime economists should advise SL on efficient ways of policing. Sounds like it’s become an environment where “natural experiments” can become real experiments, too.
Fascinating. Clearly, the utility lost from SL rape is less than the utility lost from first life rape. But nonetheless, there’s some utility foregone. Maybe this is a great place for economists to recommend alternative forms of criminal punishment than imprisonment. For instance, Becker proposed in his original JPE article “Crime and Punishment” liberal use of fines to deal with crimes, as opposed to imprisonment. That the former was more efficient in many cases (though I think rape and murder were instances where fines seemed less approprate, but it’s been a few years since I read the article). Maybe Levitt, Becker and other crime economists should advise SL on efficient ways of policing. Sounds like it’s become an environment where “natural experiments” can become real experiments, too.
This doesn’t raise an interesting question. This is stupid.
Getting beat up in a video game isn’t an assult and getting killed in a video game isn’t murder.
This doesn’t raise an interesting question. This is stupid.
Getting beat up in a video game isn’t an assult and getting killed in a video game isn’t murder.