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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.
Does winning a match of CounterStrike make you a mass murderer?
Everything about TFA is ridiculous.
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
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.
It ain't rape, but it ain't right.
You can't take the sky from me...
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.
Sentence them to Virtual time in a Virtual prison.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
But, the article brings up an interesting point, one that I didn't really know:
"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 this is in fact, the case, then apparently sexual content in a virtual setting, already IS a crime...which to me is a slippery slope. It seems strange to me, that if you have not committed or tried to commit a physical crime...that just insinuating and talking about it online, can be a crime. To me that borders on thought crime.
In the case of the quoted part about sexual 'preying' on minors, while disgusting...and I'm talking more about plain text, I'm not sure how it can be illegal? How could the person on the other end know it really was or was not a minor? If it was not a minor they were talking to (but, instead a cop), then what crime was commited since no minor was exposed to the content?
To stretch it out further. Murder is a crime. Is it a crime to write about an explicit murder of a real person, and post it online, if in fact no threat to actually carry it out are given? What about other illegal activity...illegal sexual activity...is it against the law to write about it and publish it?
I dunno...I'm having a hard time with something done in a 'virtual' world...where no physical activity has been commited or even threatened, can be criminal. Not pleasant? Sure...but, a prosecutable offense? I don't think so.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Happens all the time though. Plenty of "Pedophiles" set up dates with "Teenage Girls" and end up meeting FBI agents and going to jail. On the intent to have sex with someone who didn't exist in the first place, and was just a persona of an above the of age of consent FBI agent. Stew on that for a while. "Terrorism" and "Think of the Children!" are a very, very effective Denial of Service on our civil liberties.
Yes, you're right. This is clearly an insult to victims of FIRST LIFE (ie, real life) rape. 'VIRTUAL RAPE' is just another term coined by 'SHITTY LAWERS' who need to make more money. Nobody felt violated and physically hurt by this action. If anybody else think otherwise, they should get a REAL LIFE and stop being so bloody stupid. I dare anybody with an IQ higher that 60 to challenge me on this.
However, it would be totally appropriate for Linden virtual justice system to order virtual incarceration complete with virtual prison showers. Or even virtually lethal injection whereupon your virtual assets are given to the victim and you are never allowed to apply for another account.