Freedom of Expression in Virtual Worlds

PDHoss writes "NYTimes.com has a story on freedom of expression as it applies to virtual communities, specifically 'The Sims Online.' How should issues of free speech, community standards, and censorship be addressed in the virtual world (given that we can barely agree on those issues in meatspace)?" There's also a story in the Independent, and we've mentioned this guy before.

Comments

Sim-Meatspace

[craXORjack]

This brings up an interesting question: Could an on-line community be used to design and test completely new forms of government or economic systems? Would Karl Marx have modified his theories if he had been able to test them in a virtual world before publishing them?

We all know that our favorite republic, which we like to call a democracy, is overall the best system yet to be implemented. But is it the absolute best? Does it give too much power to the rich? Would it work better if corporations had not been granted personhood? What if employment was abolished and every citizen earned his living as though he were running his own business with the product being his own labor or creative ideas?

As MMORPG's get more complex and people's participation in the virtual world becomes ubiqitous, these types of questions can be answered. Look at A Tale in the Desert as an example of something moving in that direction but also try to imagine what will be in another ten years.

Whose houuuuse? EA's houuuuse. 'Nuff said.

[Blingin' AMD]

Community has the freedom to act as they please within the EA TOS/EULA, Muckraker has the freedom to... rake muck, Community has the freedom to complain and get the muckraker expelled from the community, muckraker's RL counterpart has freedom to embarass self by making a first amendment stink about it....