Age-Play Scapegoats

Filed under: society

11 May

As we all probably know, two residents were caught couple of days ago doing the age-play. Machinima and snapshots were made and published in media. Linden Lab reacted, identified them and banned permanently from the Second Life. It is, however, not the end of the story. But, let's stop for a minute. Question is who is the victim in this case. Something smells like privacy violation here. As usual, crowd is willing to hang somebody about all this. Let's face it, crowd is not so morally right and not so child-protective as it might seem. Crowd just loves to be on the right side, and right side is the one that has the better chance to win. The right side is the one that media declares as right. Crowd just wants to be the crowd. And yes, crowd wants to hang someone. It feels nice to be the righteous one. In the sea of rants, rare are those that think one strep further like Pixel Pulse Magazine:

But the important thing is that when it takes place among people's avatars, and those people are consenting adults who are abiding by any laws that apply wherever they happen to live, it would seem to me that forbidding it arbitrarily in a place like Second Life is tantamount to thought-policing. Heck, I feel similarly about age play in real life. As long as it's legal and private and takes place among consenting adults. Same goes for depictions. Everybody doesn't have to like everything that everybody does.

Actually, the party which made pornography in this case is that reporter of the German television. The pair was age-playing in their own privacy, both of them adults, both of them knowing (or presuming) that the other is adult. What two people on the grid are playing is their own business and it should be protected by the one's right to play free and by one's right for privacy.

In this case, reporter broke the both rights. Why is suddenly allowed for media to take snapshots of residents without them knowing they will show up on TV? As I remember there was a lot of noise when Taco Rubio did series of upskirt snapshots and showed them as an art exhibition. Mind you, that wass a much less crime than actual case! At least, that case had an artistic statement. This one has not. This one is pure media manipulation and publicity chasing. And it is a nasty precedent!

Shall we allow any TV or newspaper to snapshot around showing the world what are we doing on the grid? After all, we see Linden Lab supporting that kind of violent privacy intrusion. The pair is not only harassed by media breaking their privacy, they are even banned from SL! Though they did nothing against any other resident or the community, they are used as scapegoats of Linden Lab to please the unthinking crowd.

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4 Responses for "Age-Play Scapegoats"

Nicholaz Beresford May 16th, 2007 at 2:06 pm 1
This whole thing was the most unfortunate combination of events possible. Had the TV report just been about age play (as defined in your other post) and had not possible child pornography been involved, this would have led to a most interesting discussion.

But like that, and with the carpricious way LL is dealing with things, I realy pity those two people. I don’t know if they had just engaged in role play or had real child pornography textured to their walls … but the way LL reacted on their blog, telling that they were identified and banned even before they were (as they also said on the blog) able to speak to the TV people or the attourney in charge is most troublesome.
dandellion May 16th, 2007 at 4:48 pm 2
I agree. In real-life, when evidence of criminal act is obtained in non-legal way, the whole case fails. Here we have TV reporters as only source of evidence, and then, they violated ToS (and the law of some countries) to get that evidence. Accused persons’ names are held in secrecy, which saves them from public rage and possible consequences, but that also deprive their right to tell their side of the story.

There is something else which is problem for me in this case. First we hear that two people age-played and that they were caught and banned. Two days later we hear that they were exchanging child porn photos, but that none of them were found in their inventories (which is quite suspicious). Now, there is a story that the walls of the room they were caught in were texturized with child-porn! I doubt that such a detail wouldn’t be mentioned in the first edition of the story. There is a snapshot on SL Herald which shows no photos on the walls.

We have seen the transcript of the TV story (which is school example of media manipulation) and two snapshots, but is there a video clip anywhere on the net?
yoba July 4th, 2007 at 11:59 am 3
The same TV show that broadcasted the manipulative story about Second Life also had a story about “killer games” (first person shooters) where they cut and edited scenes from esports events in such a way that viewers saw counter-strike headshots then pro gamers laughing their ass off about the violence - which they had not done in reality. this tv show is known for being manipulative beyond any degree in Germany and I do not believe a single word they say.
dandellion July 4th, 2007 at 2:35 pm 4
Thanks for sharing that. I’ll try to get that clip.

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Age-Play Scapegoats

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