Life just keeps getting sillier and siller. I hope The Goracle is proud of himself
UNITED NATIONS – Earlier this year, one animated character in Second Life, a popular online fantasy world, allegedly raped another character.
Some Internet bloggers dismissed the simulated attack as nothing more than digital fiction. But police in Belgium, according to newspapers there, opened an investigation into whether a crime had been committed. No one has yet been charged.
Then last month, authorities in Germany announced that they were looking into a separate incident involving virtual abuse in Second Life after receiving pictures of an animated child character engaging in simulated sex with an animated adult figure. Though both characters were created by adults, the activity could run afoul of German laws against child pornography, prosecutors said.
This is not being investigated by virtual cops, either.
Simulated violence and thievery have long been a part of virtual reality, especially in the computer games that pioneered online digital role-playing. At times, however, this conduct has crossed the lines of what even seasoned game players consider acceptable.
In World of Warcraft, the most popular online game, with an estimated 8 million participants worldwide, some regions of this fantasy domain have grown so lawless that players said they fear to brave them alone. Gangs of animated characters have repeatedly preyed upon lone travelers, killing them and making off with their virtual belongings.
Maybe we can get Tanya Roberts to say "reality is calling" (think about those annoying commercials she does for Las Vegas hotels).
Julian Dibbell, a prominent commentator on digital culture, chronicled the first known case of sexual assault in cyberspace in 1993, when virtual reality was still in its infancy. A participant in LambdaMOO, a community of users who congregated in a virtual California house, had used a computer program called a "voodoo doll" to force another player’s character to act out being raped. Though this virtual world was rudimentary and the assault simulated, Dibbell recounted that the trauma was jarringly real. The woman whose character was attacked later wept — "post-traumatic tears were streaming down her face" — as she vented her outrage and demand for revenge in an online posting, he wrote.
Folks, it is a fantasy life. Sure, the Internet has sucked us all in, and we can all get a little crazed, but, things like Second Life are fake. These folks really need to get a third life, something grounded in reality.
Super. Now we have fake virtual hookers and fake virtual porn. Nice going, Goracle!
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