Germans Pursuing Kiddie Porn In Second Life

Several readers sent in links to the BBC, which has picked up news of a German investigation into child pornography in Second Life. A German TV station captured images of two avatars, an apparent adult and an apparent child, involved in sexual activity. The station also said they had infiltrated a ring trading real-world child porn in SL. SL creator Linden Labs is cooperating fully with the investigation, they write on their official blog: "Our investigations revealed the users behind these avatars to be a 54-year-old man and a 27-year-old woman. Both were immediately banned from Second Life." The German prosecutor's office hasn't responded to Linden's offer of help in identifying the real-world traders.

Comments

Re:The study

[theStorminMormon]

My opposition to your citation of this study comes from the fact that it's about 20-30 years old. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't a culture's attitudes change over time? This very well may not be true anymore.

First of all, this wasn't a study about "attitudes". They showed porn to people and compared their reactions based. It was blind (at least, possibly double blind) and randomized. So it really was about the impact of porn on people, not just asking them what their attitudes were about sex and porn and rape.

Secondly, ethics boards seem to disagree with your flippant dismissal that "culture's attitudes change over time" since they seem unwilling to let anyone run the experiment again to see if it still holds true.

Sure, you can say "it's an old study" but without *any* positive evidence to suggest that culture has changed in such a way that we will have a psychologically different reaction I think simply saying "it's old" is just sticking your head in the sand.