Slashdot Mirror
Is Virtual Rape a Crime?
cyberianpan writes "Wired is carrying commentary on the story that Brussels police have begun an investigation into a citizen's allegations of rape in Second Life. For reasons of civil liberty & clarity we'd like to confine criminal law to physical offenses rather than thought crimes but already threats, menace & conspiracy count as crimes. Could we see a situation where our laws extend?"
virtual rape is not a crime.
if you are being virtually raped you should log off.
there. that's fixed.
This
I don't even understand how you could ask yourself the question. Of course it isn't.
As someone who spends a lot of time online, I'm usually the one pointing out that despite the fact a conversation takes place over the internet, human emotion is still involed. One shouldn't assume that their actions have no social consequences.
However, in the realms of RPG, one should come to expect that there are people who seek to disrupt the experience for everyone else and move on.
I also disagree with the suggestion that threats are unjustly illegal.
Rape is literally penetration. If there is none, it's battery, harassment or assault. So no, there is no online rape.
Was she virtually asking for it?
Don't flame me, I know it's awful.
Does winning a match of CounterStrike make you a mass murderer?
Everything about TFA is ridiculous.
You could get sent to virtual prison.
It is just script-abuse. You can report the user for it, but that's it.
If you don't like script-abuse, stay in areas that don't allow script execution.
Your physical body was not violated, so rape was not committed.
If there's any trauma, it's because someone has over-personified their online avatar. Imagine someone totally into those "choose your own adventure" books and really identifies with the character. Someone takes their book and where it says "A large woman shoves a sandwich in your pocket and sends you on your way" and they cross out and replace a few words so it now says "A large woman shoves a large stick in your ass and sends you on your way". Is that sodomy?
At any rate, online "crimes" in a game should not be dealt with in real life. There should be an in-game mechanism just like there's an in-life mechanism. Have an in-game jail or just simply ban the offender -- this should be decided by the community.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
"Hey! What the hell are you doing to my character>!?!?!"
"You said you'd f*ck me! It's in the chat logs! It's consensual! You have nothing on me!! HAHAHAHAHAHA"
Teabagging after a good round of pwnage will be illegal now.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
If you get tricked into clicking a goatse link, can you sue for ambush and rape? Some guys are in deep shit then!
This is not a court case. It's not a first-hand account. It's not an outraged person.
It's a blog.
Not even a blog by someone it happened to. Just a blog trying to gain attention.
Rape in online games is almost impossible to pull off. You have to Get the person to stand still for it, not report you, and not log off. Even assuming that you are camping the Sword of Killing and you've been sitting there for 5 hours, it's hard to believe you'd let something happen that scars your very soul to get it.
That's what rape is. A scar that's so deep it marks your soul.
No, what they're really talking about is simply harassment. Calling it rape is an insult to anyone who has ever been raped. Someone saying naughty words to you in a video game, or even having their character make nasty gestures, is NOT on the same level as rape.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
and offenders should be sent to virtual pound-you-in-the-ass prison.
nt
This kind of "crime" should be covered under the TOS of the service. The only time this should get escalated is if it meets the criteria of real world criminal code covering harassment via electronic means, such as phone calls, email, etc.
This should not ever be considered an analogue to real world rape. That would be a mockery of the real world crime.
If your Second Life wife didn't have dinner ready and you beat her, could you call that spousal abuse? Sure, it's a lot of fun but...
One thing that I learned from the Duke Lacrosse case is that in most US jurisdictions, and possibly elsewhere, Rape is legally defined as including penile penetration. Thus when the accuser changed her story and said that she thought she might only have been penetrated by an object, the DA was forced to drop the rape charges to sexual assault. Online, penetration with anything is impossible, although abuse and assault have much broader definitions which certainly could include online speech and actions.
If being raped in Second Life is a crime, then we need to invent new punishments for what happened to me on Furrymuck.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
I love hearing about stories like this. It's always nice to know that our hard-earned tax dollars are being well-spent in truly making society better.
sigh...
I mean, did he physically threaten her to stay and not log off? If so, then how? If not, then why's she so dumb NOT to log off?
The law should protect the innocent. NOT the stupid.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"In other news, ScuttleMonkey Industries reported that their profits were at an all-time high thanks to continued graft payments from the creators of Second Life to continue greenlighting stories about their company on Slashdot..."
Crow T. Trollbot
I don't see how the laws can help but extend to the virtual world. While the crime isn't directly equivalent to the crime in the real world, at the very least harassment has been committed. Depending on the laws of the countries in question, it's probably a real world crime. And regardless of the persons ability to log out at any time, a "crime" was committed against them.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
Did they check the DNA of the pixels?
What kind of a retard would get the REAL police involved in a VIRTUAL rape? What a waste of resources that could go towards investigating REAL crimes. If this sort of thing is a serious problem, then perhaps Second Life needs to have virtual police to do virtual investigations and virtual arrests, to send whatever virtual offender to a virtual prison. And then he can experience virtual prison rape! This is getting virtually rediculous!
...there should be virtual punishment.
And that is all.
TLF
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
In the US "Rape is probably the most underreported crime in the United States" with that being said... If the person who was "e-raped" was a victim of a physical rape, the psychological effects of the rape can likely cause all sorts of mental issues. Its one thing to role play, and another to impose a view. My stance on it (as everyone's stance could ONLY be an opinion) is, if the victim was willing and playing along with a conversation, then no crime (if one could call it that) occurred. On the flip side, if I was sending unwanted images, audio, video, or anything else describing sexual actions against someone else's will, then I could side with maybe sexual harassment, or even aggravated sexual harassment. The definition of rape legally is defined as intercourse, which could never occur unless of course you've already discovered SoIP
Infiltrated dot Net
I don't even understand the author's statement that "virtual rape" (whatever that means) could be traumatic. There's none of the implied threat of, say, harassing phone calls, or somebody on the street making cat calls (assuming that your virtual persona is sufficiently separated from your real world persona that a person harassing you online isn't stalking you for real). You certainly can't be physically hurt. And if somebody is saying or doing something you don't like, you sign off, or go to another area. So how could this be traumatic AT ALL, much less traumatic to such a degree that warrants comparison to rape?
One of the definitions coming back from the Google search 'define: rape' is this:
The crime of sexual intercourse without consent and accomplished through force, threat of violence or intimidation (such as a threat to harm a child, husband or boyfriend) (emphasis mine).
I argue that at least force, and probably threats of violence, cannot be considered immediate and real when transmitted across the internet. If in some dark future you were blocked from logging out, walking away from the PC, or whatever then I'd say you could be raped online. Today, I say you cannot.
You are awash in a sea of fiercely stated opinions. Obvious exits are: 'File->Quit', 'Reply', and 'Page Down'.
Is virtual rape analogous to real rape? Of course not. But it may be possibly be considered harassment or cyber-stalking depending on the circumstances.
http://www.juliandibbell.com/texts/bungle.html
is happening all the time on the net as well, you don't see me running to the police.
By the way, how does it work? Does the rapist do a strength check to see if he can overpower the victim and the victim does a agility check to see if he/she can run away? I would like to see a rapist encounter Vorpal Sword +5!
The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity....Calvin
So... when I play Counterstrike it's virtual murder? What about when I over-power a base in Red Alert 3? Can I be taken to the Haugue and tried for war crimes on the charge of "unprovoked attack on a virtual state?"
To equate virtual rape to rape that takes place in the real-world only serves to cheapen the ordeal of real women are who subjected to this awful crime.
It's a fucking game, ladies and gentlemen. If you had to behave responsibly and legally, it wouldn't be much fun now would it?
Simon
A rape can be simulated in SL just fine, but it's stupid to compare it to the real thing. It's most definitely a reason to ban somebody, but for a lawsuit?
In SL, people can make your avatar execute an animation if you give consent. Things that involve animating both avatars, such as a hug for instance, are initiated by one of them, and the other must click "ok" to accept the offer.
Of course they could make it be misleading by presenting it as something harmless and then make the actual thing be nasty, but you can always teleport away, and reset all animations in progress (it's an option in the tools menu). It's not really possible to do something to somebody that they'd be unable to stop.
Maybe she's pissed off cos she caught a nasty virus from the encounter.
In one hand, we have people screaming "think of the children" with those kind of retarded ideas such as calling sex talk "rape" in an online RPG game. On the other, we have school officials sending kids to jail for writing an unedited essay.
It disgusts me...
Not unless it involves the FuFme...
Here, let's try an experiment.
Compare being raped by someone from an hour with not being able to go to the pizza place on the corner for an hour. Damn. And you really wanted pizza.
Maybe you should get a grip on reality.
Virtual rape is a ridiculous notion and the author of that wired article really has me shaking my head. "There is no question that forced online sexual activity -- whether through text, animation, malicious scripts or other means -- is real; and is a traumatic experience that can have a profound and unpleasant aftermath, shaking your faith in yourself, in the community, in the platform, even in sex itself." If you are that 'emotional displaced' by a goddamn video game you need some help since you have forgotten that real life and virtual life are two entirely different things. Raped in a video game, WGAF, raped in real life...now THATS traumatic. To insinuate that 'virtual victims' have endured any of the same stress of victims in real life is a disservice to the latter.
Regina Lynn is a horrible writer.
You mean Windows?
The closest thing this could be called to any RL situation is unwanted sexual advances.
/ignore the chatter and continue on with your game.
Now I've never touched Second Life, but I would imagine like most other places where one can chat with other live individuals, there is a way to filter out one user's comments.
posting anonymously cause I'm too lazy to remember my password...
I'm a big SL vendor. I'm in it every day, and legal issues are very much in the minds of at least the producer community of SL these days so I've been following and researching this case for a couple weeks...
Let me state this; there can be no rape in SL. I've thought long and hard about it. In order to perpetrate VIRTUAL rape in SL, you have to get the person to do something. You can virtually hump someone but in terms of the congress of two bitpeople... both bit people have to run some software for the illusion to work...
Not only that, you can easily move away, teleport to a different location, or if on privately managed land (most of the land in SL), ask the manager to eject / ban the offender. The mere idea that in this environment someone could commit a nonconsensual sex act is ludicrous.
Someone could certainly commit nonconsensual sexual harrasment however - but when that happens IRL we don't call it rape, and we shouldn't call it that in SL either. In addition, there are in world avenues to report such transgressions (and corresponding in world punishments) The only time I would think you have legal grounds for a RL case is if threats against your person, safety, or welfare were made - for instance, sexual harassment isn't a crime unless it carries a threat to the person unless its tolerated - something like losing your job for example. I see no reason the same standards shouldn't apply here.
-merlinjim (aka Merlin Alphabeta)
If people use second life to do the things they feel too inhibited to do in their first life, might that not lead to them gaining the confidence to try those things if they are successful? Someone who successfully commits rape on second life might then decide to try it for real. Should the virtual rape be investigated to head off a real one?
This paper was written many years ago about an analogous event on a text based 'Second Life'. It's a worthwhile read, not for the legal ramifications, but for the social ramifications which may be why we need legal ramifications.
_ voice.html
http://www.ludd.luth.se/mud/aber/articles/village
DLS
People are friggin pussies
while playing Quake.. over and over and over again.
...could be as simple as, oh, I dunno, logging off, perhaps?
There is simply too much glass..
In the Real World, there are all kinds of mechanisms that the community can employ when an individual breaks the laws, rules, customs or taboos of that community. The individual has a presence 100% of the time.
Online, those mechanisms do not exist.
The offender can log off or create a new account. The offender only has a presence when the offender chooses to. Which means that the offender has more power to affect the community than the community has to affect the offender.
Virtual life sucks. Deal with it. Choose not to play in those systems that don't conform to your standards. It's as simple as that.
If there is such a thing (and there is not), then I'm going to warn you Hollywood; each and every time I pay to watch a movie, I feel virtually raped.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
But is that the legal definition of rape in Belgium?
I know that is the definition in Massachusetts (or, at least it was 25+ years ago when my uncle graduated law school), but what is the definition that applies in this case?
And, assuming for the moment that a crime occurred, which court would have jurisdiction? The court that would have jurisdiction over the place where the plaintiff was a the time of the incident? The court that would have jurisdiction over the location of the servers? If this crossed state and/or national boundaries, how is this handled?
how do you rape someone in second life? that implies not only are avatars endowed with genitalia, the second life developers put in some kind of functionality to not only have sex, but also forcibly have sex.
ive never played second life though, can anyone clarify how this virtual rape was even possible?
To think that people will let a game get mixed up in real life. This is worse than the GTA thing. Totally bizarre.
What?
... saying that this somehow "proves" how evil all role playing games and their ilk are, showing how the brain supposedly doesn't distinguish between what is imagined and what is real.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I'm a 22 yr guy. My advisors (there are two:( ) fucks me everyday. I'm being raped badly. They expect me to do a lot of work and publish tons of papers. Is real rape a crime ?
...a virtual crime. As such, it should only have virtual punishments.
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
By saying "I am raping you!" Sort of like the Kids in the Hall "I'm Crushing You" gag.
why do people who have never been raped think they are in a position to talk about it?
saying "she could have just logged off" is no more logical then saying that a IRL rape victum could have "just ran away / called for help / fought back". Rape is NOT just a physical crime (though it may be legaly defined as such), it tears at a persons mind (be they male or female) to the point where they are often unable to act. If a person has previously been raped they are FAR FAR more likely to simply shut down to prevent the same psychological damage from happening again.
so please, people who have never had the horror of being raped, plese stop and think for a second about what you are really saying.
the preceding post was not spell checked... suck it.
Until some game/VR codes routines for the avatars to have virtual sex with each other, even the appearance of virtual rape is not possible. Until then, it's just talk.
Sooner or later, some game/VR will code sex routines, if they haven't already. At that point, if they don't include a mechanism for each avatar to refuse consent, they are asking for trouble.
But, it still won't be rape.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
Someone who does those things online might be likely to do them IRL.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The same as if someone called your house every day at 3 AM and called you a f.ck.ng sl.t
It should be treated as harrasment, with is usually done with a warning for first time offenders, and then some kind of court protection order.
On line that would be probably be best handled by a warning, then if the behavior persists having the offender kicked off Second life and legally ordered not to rejoing.
If they did, then they would be in violation of the court order and be sent to jail.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Rape implies a loss of power to another person, sexual manipulation without consent, etc
/. masses.
"Virtual Rape" implies watching a graphical avatar that may or may not represent you have another avatar try and have sex with it. No worse than some of that "3D Porn" that pops up online, only its supposed to be criminal because you are in control of one of the avatars?
I am disgusted that this article was even approved. If groundless, thoughtless speculation is what passes for "News For Nerds, Stuff that Matters", I may need to take a few months away from the site.
ScuttleMonkey should be ashamed for even allowing this to float. I understand by your department quip that you obviously find the idea silly -- why approve it, then? It's not like you're censoring the poor fool by not allowing him to pass along his useless article to the
content! WE NEED CONTENT!!!
Apologies for the rant, but this kind of thing is up there on the pet peeve list.
~Vexed and loving it!
Yes. It's a virtual crime.
'nough said.
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
I have to put away my Virtual Wizard Hat now?
Just had a panel discussion at RIT regarding computer ethics. One of the readings assigned was by Julian Dibble titled "A rape in cyberspace". You may wish to read it to help you wrap your arms around this question. Here's a link:_ voice.html
http://www.ludd.luth.se/mud/aber/articles/village
May be using virtual laws supported by virtual evidence, heard by a virtual judge ...
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
If it is, I'm guilty on all 69 counts.
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
That Regina Lynn wrote the article. I have an RSS feed for Wired News. I hate clicking on a new story to find out it is one of hers. Not only is her writing clunky, it is dull. She reminds me of the easy girl in high school that always liked to talk about Dr. Ruth, just so everyone would know how available she was. Or maybe, to be more accurate, more like the writer that did the sex column for the college newspaper. The writer has no expertise, just a lot of experience.
You may all go to Hell and I will go to Texas - Davy Crockett
Do the avatars have genitals and stuff?, is there malicious code that can lift a skirt or pull your virtual pants down, is there underwear? I don't have an account with second life and don't really know all this little details, but it seems kind of funny. I doubt that they can really make it a crime, at best just suspend the offenders account.
It's a shitty thing to do to someone. But it's not a crime.
What is and isn't a crime changes based on the norms of acceptable behavior in a society. Consider the U.S.:
Slavery used to not be a crime, now it is.
Sodomy between consenting adults used to be a crime, now it isn't. (In most states)
IANAL, but my guess is that virtual rape is not a crime . . . yet.
Will it be a crime tomorrow? That is the real interesting question to arise from this article.
Read any good sonnets lately?
We are indeed sometimes punished for "thoughts", albeit, only as an extension to another crime. Hate crimes carry higher penalties than comparable felony assault charges or misdemeanor vandalism. Espionage charges can have treason tacked onto them if it's proven that the motivation was substantially more subversive than for other gain (e.g., financial).
For example, if I spray paint a peace sign on your car, that's probably misdemeanor vandalism. If I spray paint a swastika on your car, it's likely to be prosecuted as a hate crime and probably a felony. The content of both is protected. The difference in the crime is based on what I think.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
Furry A: Give me all your virtual money!
Furry B: No!
Furry A: Then I pull a virtual gun.
Furry B: Then I pull a bigger virtual gun.
Furry A: Then I pull the biggest virtual gun in the virtual world.
Furry B: OK, here you go.
[Insert pithy quote here]
So a better example would be ...
... of some kind ... right?
Compare being raped for an hour
to
not being able to go to the pizza place on the corner because there's some guy there that the management refuses to kick out who will scream obscenities at you.
Yeah, yeah, I know. That's the place where you were supposed to meet a new client. So it has to be a crime
Which is why we have "civil cases" and "criminal cases". Not everything that happens to you is a crime.
This really isn't news, and if the commentator who wrote the article would have actually done some research on the topic, she would have found that this debate goes back nearly a decade and a half, to the era of the MUDs. (Multi-User Dungeons. Think "Everquest as Zork." Oh wait, chances are you're even _less_ familiar with Zork, so, never mind. Suffice it to say that when I was your age, we had to READ our games! *whippersnaps* ). Anyhoo. I recall way back when the debating the same issue.
Is it immoral? Absolutely. Any act of non-relatiatory force against another's person or will is inherently immoral and evil, as that force (be that force of a physical nature, or threat, or guilt, or manipulation, etc...) requires that the victim sacrifice their own will to yours, furthering your life and your goal instead of their own. (Yes, I am a Randbot. If that offends you, too bad.) "Virtual Rape" is no less immoral than verbal abuse (which is itself a kind of "virtual" -- in the sense that the virtual is the non-physicial -- abuse).
Is it a crime? No. Why? Because nobody's actually made it against the law.
Will they? My guess is: probably. You see various governments slouching toward the taxation of virtual property, for instance. If virtual property becomes as taxable/seizable/whathaveyou as physical property is, you simply have to have consider virtual life and virtual liberty along with it, as all three are interelated. Will it be called rape? Likely not, my guess is it'll end up as some kind of sexual assault or sexual harassment. (sp?) Unless they try to make it some kind of "hate crime," what fucking ridiculous notions those are, but then, ya gets the huggy-feely morality you deserve. (Or at least _you_ do. I don't buy the notion that any one particular motive for a crime makes the crime any more heinous for a moment, myself.)
Yes, it's enough to make your head spin. It's why I tend to like spending my time in the physical world. Here, the debate over rape ( excepting so-called "date rape," a debate for another day.) and violent crime is pretty much settled, and my very non-virtual firearm allows me to quite a bit more protection from it than simply "logging off" would.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
crime: not in this instance, though doing it repeatedly on to a particular person could be construed as sexual harassment or if the target is a minor, it could qualify as "corruption of a minor" or something.
virtual crime : yes
in my definition, virtual crime would be anything against the rules (laws) of the virtual world, and thus a banable/virtual jail offence.
virtual jailing would be an interesting concept to add. as sort of a temp ban, slap them into a virtual jail with other rulebreakers. maybe add the ability to attempt to escape, with suitable consequences if caught.
could be an interesting dimension to things.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
I was on IRC the other day and someone typed "/me fucks your ass" while in the channel! I am now traumatized, virtual rape should be a crime!
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
There's an old paper called "A Rape in Cyberspace" that covers this pretty thoroughly. It concerns a very similar event that occured on Lambda Moo (a MUD/text based virtual world).
_ voice.html
Circa 1993:
http://www.ludd.luth.se/mud/aber/articles/village
If the Sims were more sexually satisfying, I think rapers wouldn't even bother to go to Second Life to find a victim.
...then every teenage boy is going to jail.
Is virtual theft prosecuted as theft? Is virtual killing prosecuted as murder? Then, we have our answer. For now.
But, here's the thing. Providers will have to spell out carefully what behaviors violate the Terms of Service. The more people become invested in their online identities, the more they will expect from the provider when they are accused of a crime. Suppose Second Life (or something like it) becomes an accepted platform for transacting real-world business? Reputable merchants will not put up with things like slander, harassment, or stalking from their detractors. On the flip side, reputable merchants will not look kindly on being banned by the provider because a detractor accused them of something. The issue of VR 'law' is just getting started.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
How about a Tag for: Boy oh boy I'm sure not going to waste my time reading the comments on this one!
Three Squirrels
Anything done in Second Life or Habbo or anything else like that is not a crime, unless they threaten your PHYSICAL self. That said, POOL IS CLOSED!
We're all going to die. i intend to deserve it.
And killing someone in Quake should be considered murder.
0xfeedface
With that thought, I have a few million people to sue from years and years of FPSing it up...
Maybe I can get them all on grave robbing to.
How about no?
Unlike reality, Second Life allows you to, for example: log off, teleport, take a screen shot of the incident to report it to admins (as opposed to "his word against yours" type situations), DENY an animation script if you believe said person is being abusive (mind you it may say it's a "hug" script and turn out to be something else).
This didn't happen in real life. This needs to be delt with on an administrative level. The most said person should be charged with is harassment if it continues after admins have banned him.
Pancakes. Oh I blew it.
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?
The reason why some online interaction with kids is a crime in some places is because society has decided to not recognise the consent of people under a certain age. If the kid sticks around, it's because they consent to the interaction, and that consent is not recognised.
The same thing cannot be true for adults, because if they stick around (consent to the interaction), we recognise that consent.
The only reason the two situations aren't the same is because it is possible for kids to consent to stuff without that consent being legally recognised. Since that's not true of adults, the same situation cannot occur.
Yeah, I pretty much agree with that.
The only issue is what happens when the guy starts another character and does the same thing again? From a different IP address. And so forth.
Here's a novel concept (I'm being flippant). Why not allow the people in those systems to set their characters to automatically ignore (not see at all) other characters who have not provided some link to their Real World selves? I know this might not be easy, but it's the easiest way for the other users to avoid the harassment from the anonymous griefers.
Some people like the anonymity offered. Some people don't. Allow the users to choose.
Rape is any sexual act that the woman later regrets.
If you don't believe me just ask the Duke Lacrosse team. Oh, that is right, there wasn't even a sexual act there. They just got totally Nifonged.
I am being victimized by pixels! Someone do something! Think of the children!
Yeesh. Crap like this is pushing me to believe in therapy culture. Here's a hint, folks. If you see the word virtual, replace it with pretend. Then you'll have your perspective about right. Pretend rape can only hurt you if you let it hurt you. Sure, your would be pretend rapist may be a jackass, but it's just pretend. Unlike the real world, there aren't any power differences. He can't hold a knife to your throat and coerce you into jack shit. It's your imagination. Nothing says you have to go along with the pixels on the screen. You always have the ability to terminate the encounter, by, if nothing else, turning off the computer. Modern virtual communities have numerous tools to allow you to screen out the griefers. And hell, since it's your imagination, you can pretend castrate him when he tries to pretend rape you. Bottom line - take some goddamn responsibility for your feelings and imagination. This isn't the real world where someone can literally overpower you and coerce you into things. This is the virtual world where you have unlimited control over your pretend person.
is that we are spending so much time talking and thinking about something so fscking stupid.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
I think everyone who is paying real $$ to use SL is getting raped, financially
TFA says that Police have begun an investigation...
/.
Remember, this is Belgium, where legislation enacted in 1993 and 1999 the courts to prosecute foreigners for certain offences committed abroad, including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity...
How long before they expand that to virtual rape, spam & Goatse on
Bring it on!
I was raped in Second Life by a gang of thugs dressed up as Ham! /me rapes the reader
I asked them to stop, but all they said was: "HAM HAM HAM? HAM! HAM HAM HAM HAM!"
I tried to teleport elsewhere, but I glitched and couldn't move.. all that ham.. I was trapped in HAM!
Eventually they left... but the damage was done. I couldn't sleep for weeks afterwards... I still have flashbacks...
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Forgive me, I've never played Second Life. Is it a game or something else akin to that virtual world from Snow Crash?
Anyhow, does Second Life have sexual activity built in or something? I mean how can this actually happen? Wouldn't the programmers kinda, um, need to build it in?
Remember kids, if a strange man starts touching you inappropriately, either FLY AWAY and start screaming or teleport to a random location on the grid!... This is serious business.
Virtual rape is a heinous crime- it's not like you can just quit or teleport or fly away when someone starts....
oh wait. Yeah you can.
NOTE: This is an insult to anyone who's ever dealt with "IRL" rape- you know, where they can't quit. This is such bullshit. Someone needs to slap the shit out of whomever's leading this rally.
When we get to the point to where a virtual reality game projects the events of the game directly into your mind and you are immersed in a body suit ( or similar ) with sensors and feedback devices to where the game feels extremely real to you then maybe we can come back to this discussion. Of course when that arrives we may have people dieing from heart attacks if not from excessive suit feedbacks when your opponent cuts your head of in game with a sword or shoots you with a gun. When such immersion into the game is possible then sex will likely be a big seller for some of the games. Until then there isn't much difference between online gaming and IRC except the improvement to ASCII art.
Imagine if we ever get to where have holodecks. Does having sex with a hologram that looks like someone in real life constitute rape? What if the person resembling the hologram sees it happen or a recording of it?
This may take awhile but I'll get to the point.
In one particular MUD I used to play, if you died there were painful consequences such as huge xp loss and loss of all your equipment. As a result, you really wanted to avoid dying and it made the game very exciting. In addition, players could PvP freely. Since you could keep all the equipment of any character you killed, it made pure PvP a very profitable exercise.
Now, people would form groups of "randomers" and walk around the world randomly killing characters. Some people would be assholes by killing people that didn't have any equipment, were clearly newbies, or just wanted to kill monsters. The randomers found it exciting and were having fun, but obviously the player on the receiving end did not enjoy it. The randomers would try to excuse their behaviour by saying "its just a game, I can be an asshole," which is wrong.
Everyone personifies their character to a degree. They spend hours playing them, leveling them, and imagining their surroundings as they do quests. Its like how you suspend disbelief as you read a good book or watch a movie. So, when these high-level randomers come around and your character dies and you lose a lot of hard earned progress, it hits you pretty hard emotionally. I would compare it to the "virtual rape" the article talks about, since the randomer has complete power over you and he's taking pleasure in your "rape". Even though its just a game, you can't argue that this is a moral thing to do.
One obvious solution is to not get so connected with your character. This, in my opinion, is a poor solution because the connection is what makes the game interesting. As an aside, I found that the loss of this connection is what turns someone into a randomer.
A better solution is to educate the player so they are not so easy prey and can use in-game mechanisms to avoid the problems. Using the MUD as an example, the player needs to realize that they can be attacked anywhere at any time and should be on the lookout. Once you're an informed and experienced player, you'll rarely get randomed. Another example: "In Second Life, flying penises may appear during your press conference, do not be alarmed." In real life, it would be like knowing not to walk around seedy streets at night wearing skimpy clothes.
Griefers, rapists, and jerks will be ever present in games and real life. You won't be able to avoid them all, but if you're smart you won't be burnt so often.
And if there are any griefers reading this, please stop being jerks. It ruins the game for everyone else.
I've shot probably 1,000 or more people in the last week in Battlefield 2. Could I be convicted of murder? assault? Some of them may have survived.. I hope now that they did. I've deleted the game from my computer for fear of possession of munitions charges for the C4 I had in the game and now I'm going into hiding.
These issues aren't that hard to solve technically, are they? We used to have problems with PKs killing players in places where that wasn't acceptable. Most of those bugs are now solved. We used to have problems with traders cheating. Now, some systems have secure mutual-consent trading mechanisms.
Can't a game that codes for player on player sex put in a couple of 'do you consent' dialogs? No, no, but 'do you really consent?' 'Are you double-secret-probation sure you consent?'
Can't a game that allows children to have accounts simply code the child's account so that they can neither participate in sex nor even be aware of sexual actions by other players? In VR, we can do such elegant things to mask a player's vision of things going on around them that they don't want to see. Such masking could even be optional for adults who don't want to participate in the sexual part of the game.
Heck, we can put in a kill-file, such that you can tag anyone who so much as annoys you, rendering them invisible to you forever after.
In short, we can do in VR what the real world only aspires to do: require mutual consent for all player to player interactions.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
Yes, if I, as a lawyer, see a chance to extend my bill to you.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
We need more data, virtual rape may not be a crime, but harassment is. If this person is unable to log onto Second Life without being harassed, then she (or he) has a legitimate case.
This sort of reminds me of the "Greater Internet Fukwad Theory"....can't remember where that is from though...I want to say Penny Arcade, but I'm not sure.
I know, I should just Google it, but then I'd deny another "Fukwad" the opportunity to say, "Why don't you just Google it?"
A goal is a dream with a deadline
Time after time in developing an applications I have to remind individuals that a business plan or a non-virtual simulation of most things are possible and should be done first. Most of the things we do in computers at one time where done on paper. Email is just the digital form of snail mail. Instead of writing something and putting it in a mailbox I send it via SMTP servers. Even a game could be played out via a board game or in real life essentially. Life simulators could definately.
So if I was in a more traditional setting and I left an annoymous note next to a teenager and she/he opened it and it had sexually explicit content targeted at that individual I would get in trouble.
The biggest difference is that you are unable to see the individual you are targeting. If I walked up to a character in MMORPG and asked if they where a teenager, and they said yes, and then I went about chatting them sexually I would be breaking the law. If they lied to me and said they where not, and then I went about my business I would have a defense.
We had this argument for years when it came to annoymous posts, even on Slashdot, Slashdot is not responsible, the end user is. The same holds true for online play. The game compnay can take steps to protect their players if the players demand it, but they are not. The post office does not get in trouble when someone sends a bomb threat thru the mail... Second Life should work with the authroites to give as much context to the story if possible ( if it even happened ) and then find out the people involved and the intent. If the perp was in fact targeting teenagers to get off he should be punished the same as if he where doing it in public.
I do have a major problem calling it rape. Rape is physical, straight up. It is harrasment. The same laws that apply if I walked up to a teenager and started talking to him/her sexually should apply. We do not need new laws.
Lastly, I think that game companies should be responsible and not allow for sexual interaction in these sorts of games. Not chatting, but actually being able to sleep with another character. They are just asking for trouble. If I could go up to someone in a game and actually rape them if I choose ( a real person not a AI character ) I think the game company should be held responsible.
So when I PK (player kill) someone in a game, does that mean I'm committing murder in the legal system? :p
It is not, there is always options that may or may not be present in the real world. 1) Log off 2) Contact the admin and report the incident (probably considered sexual harassment not 'rape') 3) Boot them (if you own the system and/or land in the case of SL) 4) Ignore them (most places have built in ignore/ban features to filter unwanted people) The only way to be a victim is to let yourself be victimized.
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
+2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
If looking at a woman makes you want to ahve sex with her, she should be stoned to death.
Easy peasy.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
until it gets its own Lifetime Original Movie.
im in ur sekund life, rapin yer wimmin: The Fxylady69 Story. Starring Judd Nelson as Rapeman666.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
What if you are pwning in Counter-Strike though?
Can someone explain how it actually happens?
"rather than thought crimes"
A "thought crime" would be somebody penning a rape fantasy. Since what we're talking about is somebody actually imposing their will on their intended victim (regardless of the venue), this isn't a "thought crime," this is "sexual assault" (though perhaps not "rape" per se). Whether or not it should be prosecuted is another matter, but this stuff is clearly harassment of another individual, with the explicit intent to harass.
And maybe it's just because I've talked to more women than the average Slashdotter, but personally I think it'd be nice if internet communities didn't take this "boys will be boys" tolerant attitudes towards such acts, insisting that the victim simply isn't doing enough to protect herself.
Ever since the IRC days online has been popular with adult chat rooms, at the more extreme end are chat rooms that deal with imaginary rape.
Ok its not everyone's thing but I personally know several women that do fantasise about it - its a thrill, something they are afraid off, they have morethan enough sense to know not to do it or even realistically crave it in real life but they enjoy being able to act out a role as a victim online.
I've never played second life but I've heard eough about it to know that this kind of role play is equally pressent there.
Its story telling, fantasy, imagination.
I agree, doing it with a minor should be illegal, but adults are able to make their own choices, and if you don't enjoy it or want it you can choose to leave, click ban, log off or pull the power out of you computer if you are that desparate. A crime it certainly is not!!
$_="Slashdotter";$syn="OTT";s;..;;;sub _{print shift||$_};s!ash!Perl !;s=$syn=ack=i;tr+LLEd+BLAH+;_"Just Another ";_
This just in, KopyKatUber1337 of Undercity was arrested today for virtual genocide of Gnomes. He's quoted as raving "Pink-haired Gnomes, gotta kill'em all" while gutting any World of Warcraft toon under 3 feet tall.
Put their online persona in a Virtual Prison, where they will be unable to leave on interact with anyone until their sentence has been served.
Thus, the Virtual predator is taken of the Virtual streets.
I know you were probably being a smart-ass, but your solution has merit.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
...that I was sued for cutting off the arms and legs of another character in AD&D with a vorpal sword. They were looking for 87.2 megakagillion dollars in damages. At the time my character was a level 129 half-god so I only had about 12.3 megakagillion dollars. This lawsuit set an imaginary precedent for fake virtual crimes everywhere. If it were real I might have remembered what the outcome was.
FLR
911? I'd like to report a murder in World of Warcraft please.
Just log off! Or give them a virtual ass whooping.
Alt + F4. Done.
No words of wisedom here.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"the psychological effects of the [e-]rape can likely cause all sorts of mental issues."
Name one.
Whats a /. post without a good MS bash? (on-topic perhaps?)
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
is there like a virtual virginia tech somewhere in second life? anyone opened fire on it yet? boy, that'd really get the crybabies going, wouldn't it? are guns even allowed in second life? maybe someone could just go on a big virtual VT raping spree, whee!
We're not talking about the real world here; the laws of physics do not apply. How hard would it be to simply make a character rape-proof and/or assault-proof? Maybe an unbreakable bubble that forms on command and overrides any other programming or animations. Or just the ability to "freeze" the avatar at it's current status or to teleport away from the problem.
If a "rape" -- in any sense of the word -- is possible, it's because the rules of the sim make it possible. Change the rules. End of problem.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
Here's an idea http://www.getafirstlife.com/
ok, second life (and other similar games) has a so called 'economy', but really is there a law in the game that says rape is a crime? If not, then why are we applying laws in the physical world in this game that promtes a different universe (hence a need for a law system).
"A rape can be simulated in SL just fine,"
Assuming the programmers allowed such a thing.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
How the fsck did this get moderated as funny?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
im sure the trauma of a rape would be bad, but does that also include me immolate/conflagging some alliance priest, killing her, make her totally messed up?
if so. OMFG IM SO SORRY ILL PROTECT YOUR SHARD GOOD
but seriously, you escape 1 reality to goto another, theres always dangers around. get a good online gun:)
If your neighbours roof is flying past your window, you know it's cyclone season.
Virtual RapeX? http://www.rapestop.net/
and get some mind-pepperspray.
They coded rape into a game? WTF?!
Download free e-books, lectures, and tutorials at bookgoldmine.com
Once upon a time, a poll was sent around my college campus asking respondants to define "sexual assault." One girl's definition ended, "...or even just unwanted flirting."
It's people like this -- the above respondant, and this Belgian woman -- who trivialize sexual assault, and who trivialize rape. I wonder what actual victims would think of her claim.
Rape is a serious crime, a kind of real violence. That you felt uncomfortable does not mean that you were raped. At most, you were harassed. And in a virtual world -- where it is understood that committing acts normally considered to be crimes in the real world is just part of the game, and where people consent at each moment to remain in the game by choosing not to log out at that moment -- it's hard to even say that.
I wonder if part of the problem is that we as society really haven't bothered to understand very well what various sex crimes really are, and why they are actually bad. We see the word "sex" and stop there, letting the connotation "sex = bad" do the work for us of explaining why some act is wrong or some person is bad, instead of actually thinking about why the word "crime" is there, and about what makes an act a crime.
Depending on the location of the offender, a crime MAY have been committed, but that crime was not rape.
If the offender was in the United States, for example, he (or she) could be found in violation of US Code Title 47,223 -- "Obscene or harassing telephone calls in the District of Columbia or in interstate or foreign communications":
Consider:
"Whoever--
(1) in interstate or foreign communications--
(A) by means of a telecommunications device knowingly--
(i) makes, creates, or solicits, and
(ii) initiates the transmission of,
any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication which is obscene or child pornography, with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass another person;"
However, we should NEVER use the word "rape" for this sort of offense. I don't care how goddamn upset someone was about it. It's NOT the same thing, and we should not dilute the word by extending it to obscene harassment.
nuf sed
Table-ized A.I.
Virtual rape? Isn't that when some /. story writer links to a poor little webserver without consent and millions of slashdotters hit it? They rape it and leave it for dead.. a smouldering pile of melted components.
asking himself how they did manage to rape someone virtually ? if second life allows that is flawled, and should be fixed, I would use a software that allows anybody to rape my against my will, that's it
I'm positive, don't belive me look at my karma
Coincidentally, this week's "Savage Love" ponders the question of whether Second Life sex can be considered real-world cheating -- which is at least more plausible.
Bill Gates has been virtually raping me for years.
Is Virtual Rape a Crime?
It's a virtual crime, only punishable by playing "Law & Order: The Video Game".
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
This is fucking stupid.
If someone tries to virtually rape you, get a virtual can of virtual gasoline and a virtual road flare. Then, throw the virtual gas on your attacker and light his/her virtual ass on virtual fire.
Hell, code up a virtual lightsaber and cut them into little pieces.
Or, just get a real life.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Are you restricting the character, forcing her to partake in the experience and making that all she or he's doing?
Didn't think so. I don't know how Second Life works, but typing "Sticks his big dong in you" is very interactive. If you replay "hates this" then your participating. There's multiple ways to handle this such as...
Ignoring the person with in game tools
Going somewhere else
Logging off
All of these should be preceded by "informing the admins".
To my knowledge there's no way for the person to stop you and force you to interact (again I don't play second life, my primary life is annoying enough). This IS harassment, and since it's sexual most games allow for banning for that type of of harassment. However a crime? Not unless spammers, or people who troll are also a crime, and it's been pretty clear they aren't.
Contributing to the delinquency of a minor is a crime in the real world and the virtual world.
Receipt of child pornography is a crime in the real world and the virtual world.
Sex with a minor, to actually go through in court, requires the physical act. Just typing, "Yeah baby, I'm fucking you." may go through as contributing to the delinquency but doesn't fit the definition of sex with a minor.
Transporting a minor across state lines only applies if you physically do it, not if you chat with a minor interstate.
Grooming a minor is a crime in England regardless of whether it happens on line or off.
So, in all of those cases, there's an existing law that's being violated. Laws based on physical acts still require the physical act to happen. Laws based on non-physical, mental acts specifically state that.
Thus, it's not a crime to sexually abuse a child on the internet. There are a variety of laws that cover the sexual abuse of children, some of which cover non-physical acts and thus don't care about whether it's via the net, letter, phonecall, in person or via pidgeon post.
Rape, in its strict definition, requires a physical act. You can't say, "He raped me with his eyes!" and have someone arrested for rape. If someone keeps phoning you and describes raping you in graphic detail, you still can't charge them with rape though you likely can have them arrested for a bunch of telecom violations, making terroristic threats, etc.
So, no, there's no specific crime about using the internet for child abuse and there's no way rape, as it's currently defined, is committed when it's purely virtual. There may well be a bunch of other harassment laws that are more broadly defined to include non physical, emotional assaults - but rape isn't one of them.
There is no way you can get "raped" in Second Life, not even virtually. People can't hold or imprison you against your will; you can always teleport out with no consequence to your avatar. People can't even remove your clothes; you always have to undress yourself. You don't "lose your investment in your avatar" or anything else, and you don't need to change your identity.
So, if you don't want to have sex in Second Life, just keep your clothes on. If nudity offends you, stay out of areas where people run around nude. Simple enough?
If they want to go after crime in second life, they should go after gambling. In second life, anyone can create a slot machine or a black jack game and tweak the odds even more to the house's favor. There's no regulation, and although linden labs insist that their lindens are completely worthless, people are spending boatloads of money to buy them and use them for the "simulated" casinos. The US government and most state governments in the US have strict laws about this kind of thing, and that's the crime that should be pursued. A lot of the casinos cheat, and they cheat very subtly in order to not draw too much attention to themselves.
I'm anxiously awaiting the outcome when this goes to trial. With the help of my virtual lawyer, I'm initiating wrongful death charges, hoping to right a horrible injustice. The case of The Freeman Family v. Combine Soldier #651273 must be heard!
Ask me about my sig!
There is no question that forced online sexual activity -- whether through text, animation, malicious scripts or other means -- is real; and is a traumatic experience that can have a profound and unpleasant aftermath, shaking your faith in yourself, in the community, in the platform, even in sex itself.
It sounds like they are trying to suggest that this "forced online sexual activity" may equate to rape. And if that's what they're saying, then when a website displays an unwanted porn pop-up, does that mean that the owner of the website is raping me?
Is unauthorized use or manipulation of a digital work a crime?
Is virtual rape a form of vandalism like graffiti?
Does a person have a right to the use of their avatar without unasked for and uncivilized interference merely for the entertainment and pleasure of others?
I can just imagine the conversation: Or should all of this impolite interaction be explicitly be part of the disclaimers for participating?
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I first recall this issue being discussed in Julian Dibbell's article A Rape in Cyberspace.
Gotta love the world we live in.
Police investigate "rape" on in a freaking computer game.
Police investigate/arrest someone for making a Counterstrike(another freaking computer game) map.
So, to avoid getting arrested, may I recommend going out for a nice walk on the VTech campus?
No, wait, depending on the timing, that suggestion would get you killed.
I'm going to go hide in a cave.
It is a crime to sexually approach a child in any medium, whether you intend to have sex with them or not. Those laws were specifically written to include non physical forms to stop people from getting away with arguing they didn't actually commit the physical component so the child's unharmed.
The internet has nothing to do with it one way or another. It's simply an additional communications medium and laws that don't require a physical compontent still effect you whether it's spoken, phoned, emailed, IM'd or sent via pidgeon - the internet itself has nothing to do with it and no unique crime.
Rape on the other hand does require a physical component as the law is written. There are other harrassment laws you're likely violating but you don't meet the criteria of rape here.
The article's premise is flawed. They're looking at there being certain laws that don't require a physical componentand falsely associating them with laws that do. Sure, we could run with the analogy endlessly but, given its founding premise is wrong, that'll only lead to equally flawed conclusions.
While it is debatable whether this is a crime carried out virtually, I would think that someone commiting these kinds of acts online has a higher probability of actually trying to commit them in the real world ... so I would hope that police *would* look into them (probability of this seems pretty low here int he USA). In all probability our legal system is totally unprepared to deal with the implications of something like this (notably, prevention is not particularly high on the the PD's list of priorities).
-JoeBoy
You've obviously not kept up on the Duke case at all.
The DA - Mike Nifong - was fired from the case.
The special prosecutor not only dropped all charges, he declared the lacrosse players INNOCENT.
Crystal Gayle Mangum - the accuser - was full of DNA from multiple males. And none of it matched any Duke lacrosse player. Not a single one of them.
At least one of the players charged had an airtight alibi - ATM photos of him miles away, taken at the time the "rape" was supposed to have happened. (Of course, that was Mangum's first "rape" story - once presented with that alibi, the DA "interviewed" the "rape victim" and concocted another story. That was when the rape charges were dropped...)
By leaving all those particulars off (and there's actually a whole lot more...), you give the accuser - Crystal Gayle Mangum - implied credibility. She has none, and doesn't deserve even implied credibility.
Yeah, this is off-topic.
But what Crystal Gayle Mangum and Mike Nifong did was wrong. Mangum used racism to "get whitey", and Nifong used racism to get re-elected. And they did it by framing a bunch of innocents.
And you implicitly supported that, by failing to mention the current state of the case.
And let's make sure we send all those FPS players to the electric chair! And all GTA etc players to jail. That'll keep our computers clean.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Should website defacement be treated as "rape" too? Rape is rarely done for purely sexual reasons, but is instead done as a way of demonstrating one's own power over another to the point of violating that person's body directly. If it's possible to extend rape to an avatar used by a person, why not a website they use as well?
Having a site you've worked hard on get "h4x0r3d" or "pwn3d" by an unauthorizd person or group, just because "they could" is a pretty clear example of abuse through perversion of power.
8==8 Bones 8==8
if this crazy shit doesn't stop, a person isn't going to be able to turn around without "victimizing" someone. why are we all such a bunch of whiny pussies?
(1) This is a virtual world that has the power to draw in the user's imagination as if they were participating in a real world. Can a rape-like experience in a virtual world be emotionally traumatizing to the victim? I definitely think so. But as much so as in real life? I doubt it.
(2) There is a much different dynamic between two anonymous people who interact on-line than there is between two people on-line who have a history with each other (on-line or off). Negative behavior in the latter situation has more emotional and potentially traumatic potential than the former.
(3) Then there is the question of the player whose sole purpose for playing is to get off on simulating rape with other players.
I think current criminal law already covers cases like (2) and (3)--stalking and harassment laws, etc.
I do not buy the "just log off" argument, because by the time that happens, the victim already knows what is going on and the damage has been done.
So, if this sort of logic continues... by fragging someone in UT or Quake I could get charged with homicide? Why is there even a discussion about this. Being a jerk != being a criminal.
In Soviet Russia jokes are formulaic and decidedly non-humorous.
While I realize that not all online apps have the feature, but it sounds like Second Life (and other communities) need a better way to ignore people. Since whoever is harrassing you can still bother you when you are off property you can ban them from, you should be able to ignore the player outright. Your client won't display the offending player's Avatar, chat, or any other effects they invoke. This might also prevent some of those spam attacks. The Ignore/Mute features in most games work well enough. Although I've never played it, it sound like Second Life needs to go a step more. In short, if theres a jerk screaming obcenities at you while you walk to the pizza place, just don't render him.
I have no problem with treating crimes in the virtual world as crimes, but they should be prosecuted in the virtual world according to the laws of the virtual world and by the virtual law enforcement officials of that world.
So, most people who play SL are sort of acting out a fantasy they wish they could act out in real life. Some people create a female lesbian freak punk rocker nun (the real person being male) because deep down they have some twisted fantasy of being that person they created. For whatever reason, some find their own life woefully inadequate and look to fulfill that desire. SL gives them the opportunity to freely explore that. I think here is something to be said about the mental state of someone who tries to virtually rape another character..maybe they secretly urge to do so in real life. Whatever the reason, their account should be banned (yeah they'll create another one - so ban by IP?). How long before they setup a virtual court system with a virtual judicial system that is just as F'ed up as the real life counter-part.
Murder is worse than rape. If you disagree, just kill your wife and end her suffering. If you're right, she'll thank you for it.
I don't want to sound like I don't care- I really sympathize with you and your wife- but you should be thinking "at least that creep idn't kill her" instead of "I wish she had been killed".
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
Is virtual murder a crime? Is virtual bank robbing a crime? Well I'd say it is a crime, although the obvious punishment is sending your second life character to the jail for a life, and not you to the jail. But hey, that's just an opinion.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Women have the right to vote. What do you expect?
This is not a free country. This is a woman's country.
Can you be charged with a felony for engaging in a Second Life simulated avatar on avatar sex act with a minor, even if the minor in question misrepresented themselves to you in the game? Kinda makes the whole simulated sex scene a bit unnerving... even with things like credit card verification in place.
8==8 Bones 8==8
Since you're asking me, no there is no way to commit rape in cybersex
for the lack of physical genitals and the lack of ejaculation of male
semen. The definition of the rape in many a jurisdiction not only requires
penetration of the female vagina with the male genital but also the
ejaculation and will treat the unaccomplished act as sexual battery.
Whether lewd comments on the web may be deemed sexual battery is questionable
in itself. Therefore there is no case here unless you really need to
have one say because you have it "on good authority" that superior courts will
back your decision.
Please tag this story with "no".
Question everything
Finally I may have some real world recourse against all those 12 year olds on Test Drive Unlimited that feel the need to constantly crash into my car with their cars. Virtual harassment!
Virtual(tm) Rape is a Virtual(tm) Crime, and falls under the jurisdiction of the Virtual(tm) Police.
These real world schmucks have no business sticking their real world-non-pixilated-noses where they don't belong.
Move along citizen, there is Virtually nothing to see here.
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
So much Dr. Pepper, so much ruined keyboard...
The equivalent offense in the real world would be a more serious crime, obviously. And not everything that's a crime in the real world is a crime (in the real world) if you do it in a game world. If it were, everyone who's ever played Zork would be a thief, and clearly that makes no sense. Shooting your opponents in a Doom deathmatch is perhaps an even more obvious example; I'm not a big fan of FPS games, but I certainly do not consider playing them to be the same as murder.
So you can't take real-world laws and prosecute game-world actions under them directly.
I don't think that implies, though, that nothing anyone could ever do in a game world could ever be real-world criminal. Virtual rape could possibly be considered a form of harrassment (of the other player, not the character they are playing; game characters have no legal personhood) or some similar crime that, while not _rape_, might nonetheless be prosecutable. If the victim is (in the real world) a minor, then virtual rape would, I would think, be at least as serious as luring them into sex talk in a chatroom, which is criminal in many jurisdictions and _may_ even be considered statutory rape.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
In case of virtual rape ... you do virtual time. (And probably get a new subscription.)
I don't want not to mock rape because that's one of the most inconsiderate and hurtful things to do. However, taking virtual stuff too serious gets on my nerves. I still can get around people being taxed for materializing virtual assets into real dollars but criminalizing virtual rape is plain pathetic. Most perverted acts performed virtually without involving living creatures can at worse be found disgusting but cannot be an offence. Also, I'd rather see perverts sodomise data structures than living creatures.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Lets ask a real rape victim what they think... see if they think that something virtual compares remotely with a real attack. Otherwise there are rules in place regarding disrespectful and inappropriate behavior, they are called the TOS. Also how exactly can an avatar virtually force action of another avatar without their consent? Also i think anyone who cannot seperate a virtual attack (that does not include a threat against their physical person) needs to re-evaluate whether they should be participating in these online communities. After all i kill a few hundred people every month in Battlefield 2142 and have never even been arraigned on murder or attempted murder or harassment.
Running from the law definitely wasnt as easy as they made it look on the Dukes of Hazzard --Joy, My Name is Earl (2006
I'm appalled at the uses of the terms "cunt" "pussies" and other parts of the comments on this post. It makes me wonder how many women read slashdot and how fucking offended they must be. If you want to be taken seriously by the whole community (including the women), at least don't lower yourself to frat-boy style commentary. ~ former frat-boy
If virtual crimes are just as illegal as real crimes, then God help me.
I just launched an 18 nuke offensive against a GLA stronghold in the Command & Conquer internet game I just finished.
Whoops.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Man, I hate it when some nuckfuts on my team throws a nade in right when I'm about to capture the enemy's flag!
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
(1) Rape is a crime.
(2) The activity described isn't "rape," virtual or otherwise. It's closer to "spam."
--I'm so big, my sig has its own sig.
-- See?
But was he/she digitally penetrated? The case would seem to turn on this question.
How does one virtually rape another?
If this flies there's going to be ALOT of trout slapping litigation. Wait a sec, I got shot in the face the other day with a rocket launcher at a LAN party and I'm quite certain it was intentional.
This is a joke, right?
If someone offends you, just close the damned window. Or walk away from the PC.
geesh
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Could someone explain to me how on earth you can rape someone in a virtual world? I mean, you can send people explicit messages (the equivalent of a shady figure sidling up next to a real life woman in an alleyway and talking dirty for a few seconds until she wanders off unharmed), animate your avatar in their general vicinity (like if the aforementioned shady figure started vigorously humping the air a meter away from the helpless victim, who is still free to wander off unharmed), or trick them into allowing you to animate their avatars, which they can cancel at any time (Mr. Shady Figure offers a hug, the woman accepts, he tries to cop a feel, she says no, and he immediately stops and can't touch her anymore).
I'm not seeing any rape here.
Even assuming that there is such a thing as "virtual rape", it leaves no scars. Avatars don't really have the concept of virginity -- having someone's e-peen clip through your avatar's bum doesn't change anything, physically or otherwise -- and if you identify so strongly with a pixelated version of yourself that a few naughty words or an animation that you can easily walk away from is enough to cause "trauma", you need help. Seriously, if you think you've been e-raped, and you honestly feel that it was a "traumatic" experience, gtfo the internet. You need sunshine, fresh air, something to get you back into reality. If a kid drew a couple of stick figures having sex and labelled one of them as you, that wouldn't be rape, would it? Of course not. That's what Second Life is. Imaginary. A world where rape can't happen. So stop treating it like it's equivalent to the real world -- it just trivializes the suffering of all the real rape victims out there.
Also, if you accept a sexually explicit animation from someone and don't stop it before anything happens, you can always change avatars to something weird like a squirrel or something and gross out the "rapist". It's hard to grief anyone with a sense of humour, so they'll leave you alone.
No.
Is this stuff really that hard to figure out?
You are almost correct - it happened in Norway a year ago. The man was furious because he was in a relationship and had nothing to do with the woman that "raped" him. People might make fun of it - but he felt violated. .
.. if a school kid can get arrested for bringing some fantasy violence into his schoolwork (on request of his teachers, no less).
It seems there are a great many people who really, really need to get a life..
Maybe further back; I wasn't on the 1988-vintage MUDs, but got on in 1989. And from the get-go, I'd see things like this:
Barracan has entered the room.
Barracan gropes Tourmaline.
Dallingham has entered the room.
Barracan gropes Nymph.
Dallingham masturbates Nymph.
Barracan slaps Dallingham.
Barracan says "that's MY ho!"
Yeah, and PK'ing is a crime, it is murder and should be punishable by death.
ZOMG! HEALP PK!
YOU KILLED MY NIGHT ELF YOU BASTERD!11
I think that these sort of cases border very strongly on entrapment. By bordering, I mean that if the person has already gone to the trouble of cybering a (to them) 12-year-old, often replete with webcam pictures and/or nasty photos, it might not quite cross that very thin line. This would mean that the officer misrepresented his/her identity, however if they have not acted lasciviously or asked for nude photos, then the actual point at which the perp arrives is just the pick-up and crime(s) have already been committed. However, I believe that the chances are in favour that somewhere in there the officer crossed the line into enticement/entrapment.
As far as the underage person not actually existing, well it's still a crime to fully plan out a murder, it doesn't depend on successful execution, and you don't have to actually get to the point of killing somebody before they can stop and arrest you. Sometimes these cases too get muddled, but it's the same concept.Many people might lead this into thought-crime, but as soon as you start putting the idea "out there" it's no longer a thought but a plan. The real hard part comes on discrimination between an off-remark like "somebody should toss him off the bridge in concrete boots" VS actually planning to pick somebody up and attach them weighted on the bottom of a lake
To throw a similar-context analogy, if somebody plants a bomb that doesn't work (or the parts turn out to be fake), then that person is still guilty of having tried to commit the act as to his knowledge he was going to blow something up, knowingly committing an illegal act. By the same count, the people in question are in their own minds are in fact committing an illegal act, it's only circumstances beyond their knowledge that prevented it... not much different from pulling the trigger on somebody without realizing the gun was out-of-ammo.
Again, the big line is what crosses into entrapment, and whether authorities have in their own actions encourage the illegal act. Entrapment at times often seems to be a case of "were the authorities aiding and abetting"... and would the crime or a similar crime ever have occurred without their involvement.
Now in this case, it's not an issue of entrapment but rather more one of intent and damage done. Would a reasonable person have suffered harm in this event, and does it equate to a similar crime in the physical world. In this case, no, as virtual rape is in no way a comparable violation to real rape. Depending on how often it happens, the real-world equivalent law might fall more under harassment or stalking (if the player persisted in attempting to engage the "victim" despite obvious unwillingness).
That people take this virtual shit way too seriously. Well, people take a lot of shit way too seriously, but the virtual stuff is just insane.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
This is one of the reasons I'm careful about the company I keep, where I sleep, and what I consume in mixed company. Women today seem much more aggressive than days past.
As a man, I have found that at my current age (26) I am constantly running into women who are more sexually aggressive than I am comfortable with. These women, within days or even hours of knowing me, have gone quickly from a friendly (non-sexual) conversation to jumping on my laptop and grinding, or attempting to undress me. In some cases I have pretty much had to push/throw these women off of me. If I were ever to be inebriated to the state of unconsciousness (never happened, never plan to have it happen, but possible under unexpected circumstances), or slipped a drug, I know I would feel emotionally damaged if a woman were to perform sexual acts upon me without my permission.
Part of this is just the issue of violation. It doesn't matter if the woman is attractive physically, as I do not find being sexual forced attractive. There is also the issue of disease and/or other related issues. You can get herpes or other nasties from oral sexual. You can get worse things from standard sex. That means half a year or more of wondering/worrying whether you have been infected, as a woman who is willing to act in such a way is likely also reckless in her exposure to such nasties. On top of this are many other issues, reputation (I'm assuming it wasn't exactly the man's relationship-proper), feeling of personal-control, and for a man... the sense of being "manly" could be very damage by this, compounded on the damage to one's personal security.
So yes, the physical damage is less than if one is penetrated. However, penetration does not always necessitate a painful experience so much as an emotionally damaging one.
Is it rape? Damn straight it is. While the letter of the law comes from a book, this is why we have a court system to deal with cases and interpret intent of laws in addition to "the letter."
Virtual Rape solved by Lorrena Bobbit Patch. Easy to install the scissors or knife just get within range and snip snip...
So, if my female avatar gets virtually raped and becomes virtually pregnant, is she virtually protected by Roe v Wade in getting a cyber-abortion? Also, if my avatar enters a virtual-virtual world and gets virtually-raped 2 levels in, is that a crime, too? What if some stick-figure dude icon stands next to my stick-figure babe icon and the message "you got raped!" appears in all caps in the console panel playing Ultima 3 : Exodus Online in my Apple 2 emulator?
Virtual Rape will become a crime when owning virtual property is a law-sanctioned RIGHT. Right now it is a PRIVILEGE that people pay for. You pay Linden Labs to get your virtual property, to exist in their virtual world. That existence is a privilege you pay for, and it can be revoked at any time for any reason by Linden Labs.
This is similar to any business... you have no RIGHT to be there, just the privilege to do so if the owner allows it. That is why casinos can kick you out for any reason they like... they cannot arrest you or hurt you for counting cards or being a dick, but they can punt you from their property.
Now, let's imagine there is some future virtual world that is sanctioned and governed by law. It is your right to purchase 'property' there or to maintain your virtual presence. Once there are laws in effect that grant you the right to be there, then we will quickly see it become unlawful to harass someone when they are in their virtual world.
We have already seen this with services like the phone... in most states, there are actual laws that give you the right to own a phone as long as you pay your bill. The phone company can't arbitrarily deny you phone service just because you're unprofitable or something. The US government subsidized the deployment of phone lines to reach everyone. Having a phone is a right, though not as fundamental a right as things like free speech. Thus, if someone harasses you on the phone... calling you late at night, calling incessantly, etc... there are legal recourses you can take.
Once your virtual presence becomes a right protected by law, then virtual crime like harassment, rape, and theft will also become punishable by law.
Until then, anyone claiming that this was rape is an idiot.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
If you virtually prick me, do I not bleed?
"We shall grapple with the ineffable, and see if we may not eff it after all." - Douglas Adams
Is sodomy a crime in Indiana?
Are you adequate?
- There is a crime of "rape," defined (roughly) as a man using force, the threat thereof, or deception, to have penetrative sex with a woman of good morals that is not his. (Yes, this implies that a wife can't bring charges against his husband of rape; and of course, promiscuous women don't have good morals...)
- There is a crime of "sexual assault," defined as rape traditionally was defined, but eliminating the obectionable pieces thereof (the man vs. woman assumption, the wife and "good morals" defenses, the requirement of penetration by the penis)
The distinction you're reporting between "rape" and "sexual assault" in some jurisdictions is simply a jurisdiction that, for whatever political reasons, has not fully switched from (1) to (2). If you look through the responses to this post, you'll find other examples: e.g., apparently in Indiana, man can't "rape" another man (which presumably means that the actions in question would be prosecuted under a different charge, either sodomy or sexual assault).If you live in one of these jurisdictions, really, you should ask your legislators to stop making silly distinctions and just toss out the "rape" laws, frankly.
Are you adequate?
Actually I'd like to point out that it would not be exactly the same. Because the incident happened in Norway which like most of the world has a Civil Law legal system. The article does not explain properly how it differs from Common Law - but the judge is only allowed to "interpret" within a very limited scope. It would take a book to explain it all. The penal code section the verdict refers to covers any "person" incapable of "consenting". It's all about equality. Our system also allows for such things as the right for men to seek alimony from their wives should they get divorced et cetera.
So unless you have ruling in your local US state this protection is not afforded American men. Or are you from Canada?
I think they should have virtual cops and virtual world laws take care of it, instead of mixing virtual and real world.
I got slapped with two consecutive life sentences for shagging and fragging the two hookers, but someone got a headshot on me so I'm down to one. Someone come kill me so I can respawn.
I wonder if they considered it rape when I applied my 60 story tall penis avatar that clips over everyone and everything?
Virtual kiddie porn is illegal in the USA and, IIRC, Canada.
OTOH, there's endless virtual killing.
Tough call. Most of the virtual killing is "consensual," in that it occurs in a game in which one knows killing is likely. OTOH, consent doesn't even enter the picture, so to say, in sim kiddy porn. Virtual rape inhabits a very grey area.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
There's this certain thing you can do to prevent this, you know; log out, exit and/or turn off your computer, unplug it if you have to. This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of, and I hope that the article is right and it a hoax.
Holocaust survivors decry "baptism of the dead" by the Latter Day Saints as an actual violation of Jewish sensibilities, at least as it applies to victims of the holocaust. To my benighted way of thinking, being neither LDS nor Jewish, it's hard to spot any bruises from this practice -- but apparently the nerve LDS touches has to do with forced baptisms during pograms and persecutions against Jews in history. What is clear is, the victim of a "virtual crime" is the one who has the most livid appreciation of it, whatever the rest of us might think. There is, by way of further illustration, a perfect example of "innocent" racism in the Disney film, Dumbo -- where the humor revolves around miscegenation by an African elephant and a Southern belle pachyderm. The offended, I would say, have considerable rights in defining and delineating long-standing patterns of "virtual" outrage that seldom draw blood or stretch necks, but not always.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
But it may be relevant - http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/010031. htmlp eincyberspace.html
And the original article (lots of other places, but this one works) http://loki.stockton.edu/~kinsellt/stuff/dibbelra
For those of you not familiar with it, the article in question describes a similar virtual "rape" on LambdaMOO (If you dont know, Google it.)
As to my opinion, I believe Virtual Rape should be dealt with by the Virtual Society as they see fit. It's just pixels on a screen folks, if you don't like it turn it off.
/~mikeg
"Check those URLs" it says... so of course I post without checking what I pasted.
That first URL should link to Wikipedia -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_in_Cyberspace
Grr...
/~mikeg
I once sodomized a guy who was acting like an obnoxious misogynist jerk in a chat room many years ago. He was pissed off, but not nearly as pissed as he was when he realized I was a *woman*.
What they need is a virtual Bobbit.
Karma: Bad is the liberal way of saying this guy won't drink the kool aid here on slash dot. I wear my Karma with pride
Are we talking about real sexual connections in second Life, or some typed Cyber Rape? Are these rapists running some scrips that hijacks the victims character and takes control of them, e.g. bending them over and allowing the removal of clothing, and subsequent sexual connection? In Second Life, it was my understanding the avatars started off without sexual organs, so the rapist would have to make the $ investment to have working sexualy organs added to their avatar, than they would need to purchase tha scripts which allow sexual interaction with another avatar. (to have sex with a prostitue ingame these need to be purchased. The victim would also have to have purchased apporpriate sexual organs, and ALSO purchased the appropriate scripts to allow sexual relations. Then a hi-jack of the victims character would be needed so the unwilling victim could be raped. Otherwise what stops the victim from just blocking the rapist and walking off?? It really sounds more like griefing or harrassment, which in most games is a bannable offence. It should be fairly easy for the DEVs to check if 3rd party scrpits have been used and ban the "rapist", hopefully they've spent lots of real-world cash oh the biggest penis that could find, and any additions to their character get flushed down the toilet. But no, virtual rape is not "rape", it's bannable though and is pretty low life.
This article describes second life properly.
"There is no question that forced online sexual activity -- whether through text, animation, malicious scripts or other means -- is real;"
No, it isn't; it's virtual. There is no such thing as 'forced online sexual activity' since you can't be forced to be or to remain online. Calling this 'rape' is an insult to all real rape-victims. At any moment of that so called 'online rape' you can decide to ban the culprit or even go offline, thereby ending the 'rape'; I would like to see that oportunity to real rape-victims. If this is deemed to be equal to rape, then I guess when I kill someone in a second-life-like world, I can be prosecuted for murder too. Meh.
"Our laws say that an adult subjecting a teenager or child to sexual words, images or suggestions on the internet is preying on their mental and emotional state in a sexual way. Even if you never try to meet the minor in person, and even if you never touch them or expose your naked self to them, it is a crime to attempt to engage sexually with a minor. 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?"
Well, she has a point there, but only because those laws too aren't really all that logical to begin with. The reason why it is deemed illegal is because it is deemed the adult IS preying on them, not because of the images or words themselves. If it were, then it wouldn't matter whether or not an adult send them, would it? I mean, some people seem to be unaware of how teenagers themselves talk about sex in chatrooms; and it's not that they do not engages in 'sexual words, images and or suggestions'. Sometimes I think I'm living on another planet where prudes think their wishes are real. So, logically, it is untainable that the words or images themselves are harmful, otherwise kids would go in prison for saying sexual things to eachother too (mind you, the USA makes a valiant try in doing so). What is the difference between two 14 years olds sending 'dirty pics' to eachother and one 14 year old and one adult pretending to be a 14y old showing exactly the same pics? Certainly not the pics, which are supposedly doing the damage.
So there is definitely something illogical about this, because, if it's the fact that the other party is an adult, then how can it harm if it isn't noticed he's an adult? The only thing that makes sense is the preying/forcing itself...but then we come back to the first paragraph, and the fact that being forced online or forced in real life is a totally different thing.
"That's not to say I dismiss the trauma a person suffers after being raped online."
Huh? I must be on another planet again. Is the writer from the USA, mayhaps? It's at most a nuisance; ban him or complain to the moderators, and that's that. For gods' sake, if you're traumatised by something that virtually happend to your avatar online, there is something wrong with you to begin with.
"A virtual rape is by definition sudden, explicit and often devastating. If you've never immersed yourself in online life, you might not realize the emotional availability it takes to be a regular member of an internet community. The psychological aspects of relating are magnified because the physical aspects are (mostly) removed."
And here we come to the crux of the matter: people complaining about 'rape' online have a borderline syndrome, where they are unable to see a distinction anymore between their real selves and their online avatars. They have effectively substituted real life for Second Life, and that's why they think rape in Second Life is equal to rape in real life. It's rather pathetic. The only reason why a person would think it is 'devastating' is because he/she can't differentiate anymore between her real life and her avatar. People should get a grip; getting 'raped' or 'killed' online is annoying at most, but it's not happening to you; *you* have not been raped or murdered.
"But in a game, you don't want to lose the long-term investment you've made
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
If it's a virtual crime, then it should carry virtual sentencing, and virtual punishments.
It's not worth a real punishment as the mischief is pretty stupid and innane to begin with, but maybe there could be an avatar jail or sandbox in the virtualspace for those that are deemed troublesome by virtual community.
Honestly, I think even raising the question in this way (i.e. calling it rape) trivialises what actual rape is to its victims to an almost offensive extent. Probably if we had a clue what actual rape is like, we wouldn't even be having this discussion; by entertaining this "debate" as if it were a genuine debate, we're legitimising it - as if it's somehow a valid question to draw equivalence between pixels on your computer screen while you're safe in your home playing a computer game to an actual life-threatening rape/assault (all rapes are physical assaults too, except when drugs are involved) where you're physically constrained, beaten and violated. Perhaps there is something else morally wrong with this so-called "virtual rape" that is worth debating on another level, but I'd be inclined to use a different term.
So these "virtual rape victims" have to be examined by the police and have pictures taken for evidence? They have to have STD and HIV tests again and again just to make sure nothing was missed? They have to have pregnancy tests and possibly even abortions? They go through life remembering pretty much every moment of the attack?
Yes, you can get upset by things that happen online, I've been emotionally hurt through online relationships, I've seen some really sick shit that makes goatse seem like nothing, but at the end of the day none of it comes close to what a real life rape victim must go through and if things get too tough all you need to do is pull the plug and walk away, sure some of it might still effect you, but you're not in any danger and nothing in the real world's actually changed other than your mindset.
I'm pretty sure any real rape victim would gladly trade places with even the worst virtual "rape" victim.
What is a game?
/me rapes CowboyNeal
In second life, virtual rape could be rewarded. I am sure a 'rape tag' game would go down a storm on the Internets.
Inside the mechanism of the game, a switch is flicked, and a script is run, and the character_animation_state is set to 5
What does that mean? you have been raped?
Perhaps I record a taunting pose, you mistake it for a rape pose, and suddenly you ***determine*** that you have been raped.
Does virtual rape only exist when a message 'you have been raped' shows up?
Can you rape someone on irc using:
Did I just break some law? Wait, perhaps CowboyNeal needs to be here, and hear me say it. What is different about the way in which this would happen in SecondLife?
While you all recover from that, I will just say that what ***determines*** something is important. In games, the game engine itself decides if the hit actually hit. Broken box models in some quake mods meant that on certain frames in a jump a railgun shot to the head actually missed the collision box. In SecondLife there isn't a ***rape box*** that can determine in the game if you have been raped.
we don't need to have two arms and legs. secondlife people don't have genetalia. They can't reproduce. They can have polygons bulging in the right place, and scripts can create more polygons, that can start small, and require regular feeding, but it is all merely narrativium.
Nothing real exists, there are no consequences. I played on SecondLife and found it quite easy to grief newbies by building toroid prisons around them, and boxing them in. This grows old and I was just curious as to how much freedom you can have in a world where everyone can be all powerful with the right knowledge.
SecondLife to a programmer is being neo in the matrix. even though newbs can fly, run scripts, you are free to work within a framework of mutual experience, and chance what others perceive inside the game.
At the end of the day, its socializing, circa '90s IRC chatting, combined with weak graphics, and the ability to change what is happening on the screen. a decent enough code must go into enforcing an economy where you can have > 1 mona lisa, and still have the balls to link this to 'real money' although they don't actually.
SecondLife is overblown, and it is stories like this that help that. I like the ganking story where a guy got beat up for ganking another guys wife on WOW. I only wish he had published both their names so everyone else could beat the virtual shit out of the ones who would inflict others for enjoying antagonizing others in a game.
There is nothing wrong with playing bad in games. Nothing wrong with TK and PK. If the game wants to enforce rules, then that itself changes the game theory.
playing the game and assuming social order and rules that are not in effect of the game machine adds a new dimension, trust and insecurity perhaps. Knowing that nobody on your team in AA will shoot you might make it more closer to the truth, and eradicate some really annoying moments, but you do loose a real sense of paranoia and uncertainty.
Even in AA you can kill opponents who give accidental friendly fire on previous rounds, and not be too harshly penalized in the game, so for enjoyment factor, the game theory permits some petty team killing.
That is all I have got to say, i am not going onto AA and going to virtually rape a couple of people.
Good day.
PS: Take it as read that I rape everyone who replies to this thread, and all parents to this thread. yey.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
In all the theatrics in the posts here, no one has given any proof that the virtual rape is being investigated or charged as the crime of rape. In my opinion, the most likely reason is that this is part of a harassment charge, or perhaps even stalking.
The point is who knows at this point? Amazing how much ridiculous speculation there is with so few facts.
It's not rape, it's surprise sex!
It could be that the only purpose of your life is to serve as a warning to others.
Gah! Sodomy and IANAL should never be in the same post, ever...
oops...
[Edited by togtog on 2007-07-05 1:08am]
Sure its a virtual Crime that should be punished by a virtual Prison Sentence. I guess they could be forced to log in every day and sit in a virtual prison cell. It would be more interesting to do it like colonial days and put them in virtual stocks so that the townsfolk could throw virtual eggs at them.
There is *nothing* that special about online forms of expression from other venues. You cannot say people can harass any differently online than over a phone, for example. There's various functions available to take that action, but ultimately the legal system provides a process for dealing with it, and either online should be considered under that same process, or the process has to stop being applied to anything but face to face interactions, which you have no hard guaranteed way of keeping someone away.
I personally think people as a rule should take advantage of the facilities of the medium (call block, ignore, etc etc) as possible before resorting to the legal system. At the very least, it sends a clear warning shot to someone who may not be realizing a line is being crossed without springing potentially very damaging legal measures on them. It precludes the tie-up/excess tax money spent, and from the perspective of the 'victim', it's actually the least hastle (dealing with the authorities and working to see things to the end is a lot harder than '/ignore'.
The problem is when someone persistently overcomes such measures or crosses mediums to continually harass someone. For example using alternative, un-banned identities as identities get banned, or using payphones when a home number is blocked, etc. If on a personal level you cannot eliminate the harassment without compromising your own privileges to interact with other, non-offending people, a restraining order may be the viable option. Common sense is hard to codify, but in general people should know regardless of the interaction to tell someone to back off before crying harassment, and take convenient means before harsh ones, but in the end you cannot exempt one non-face-to-face medium more than another from the process.
On the story, I absolutely concur 'rape' is an inappropriate term for any such online activity, and harassment is exactly the term to describe what is said to have occurred. I think the 'victim' just doesn't want the perpetrator to be given the benefit of saying he ought to have beeen warned before more drastic measures (the authorities) were taken.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Certainly it could be argued that online rape is a form of aggravated sexual harrassment. In fact, that's exactly what I would classify that as. But to equate it with actual rape is just plain insulting to those who have been victimized in the real world. Cheapening the real thing does no one any good.
I do not mean to belittle those who have faced online rape. The pain is very real, and it is very strong. It should not simply be ignored or swept under the proverbial carpet. But it's not even in the same league as actual rape.