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Is Virtual Rape a Crime?
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Fri May 04, 2007 11:33 AM
from the because-/quit-is-so-hard-to-type dept.
from the because-/quit-is-so-hard-to-type dept.
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?"
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Technology: The Elevator Effect In Second Life 167 comments
There is an good video on NPR about how real human reactions translate to the virtual world. It's interesting in view of the question posted here about rape in Second Life. The video covers a little experiment in SL where a reporter gets together with a psychologist to see if some unspoken human rules apply in the virtual world — such as staring or standing too close to someone. Perhaps surprisingly, in this world where you can be or do just about anything, you can't break these unspoken rules with impunity.
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No (Score:5, Insightful)
if you are being virtually raped you should log off.
there. that's fixed.
Re:No (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:No (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Think about that. (Score:5, Insightful)
It ain't rape, but it ain't right.
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Re:Think about that. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yeah, not in public. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Yeah, not in public. (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sorry, this is slashdot. I need a car analogy in order to understand your point.
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Re:Yeah, not in public. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Yeah, not in public. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Think about that. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Think about that. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Think about that. (Score:5, Funny)
With Virtual assrape!
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Re:Think about that. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Think about that. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:Think about that. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Think about that. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Think about that. (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, are we all suddenly a bunch of pussies? If someone starts calling us names online, we can't have the sense to block them on our messenger of email or forums or wherever else they're bothering us? Are we that fucking mushy and pudgy and brainless and spineless that all we can do is sit there and take the supposed "abuse" until some heroic legislator shows up on a white horse to save us from this life-changing and horrifying crime?
Here, let's try another experiment:
Someone writes "I am inserting my penis into your unwilling vagina" to you via instant messenger and you click "block this person" and never hear from them again.
Or . . .
Someone lures you into a private room at a party and then forcibly rapes and violates you. You try to cover yourself enough to escape the party afterward, go home and sit in a shower and bleed while inspecting the bruises that were left on your body and then when you go back to your group of friends, you feel compelled to pretend that nothing ever happened and even be civil to that person around them, because you somehow feel guilty for what they did to you and you spend the rest of your life being affected by the physical attack and it impacts your every thought and action - especially with the opposite sex - for the next forty years.
Yes, I can see how the two are alike.
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Re:Think about that. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes.
Do you read the news and see what people are whining and complaing about?
So... yes, it certainly seems that way.
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Re:Think about that. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Think about that. (Score:5, Funny)
This is slashdot. Perhaps you meant "I'm inserting my virtual penis into your unwilling virtual mangina".
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Re:No (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Agreed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Agreed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Agreed (Score:5, Interesting)
OK now that someone has explained how rape could be punished in second life.
Can someone please explain to me how the hell one character can rape another in second life?
What did they do?
Walk off for a coffee came back to find three guys going to town on their their second life character?
Having never played the game, my limited knowledge of the game's dynamics tells me "rape" as I know it is a little hard to accomplish in second life.
Parent
Re:Agreed (Score:5, Informative)
There are certain situations where your avatar can get "stuck" -- I got stuck between a hammock and a wall once and it took me about 5 minutes to extricate myself. Another time, I got stuck in a "dancing" script after clicking a button and then losing track of where it was, and couldn't stop dancing until I found the "off" button for the dance.
Usually, it's all fun, but scripts have a high potential for abuse if you make them hard to turn off.
Parent
Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Lame (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Lame (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Lame (Score:5, Interesting)
n.
1. The crime of forcing another person to submit to sex acts, especially sexual intercourse.
2. The act of seizing and carrying off by force; abduction.
3. Abusive or improper treatment; violation: a rape of justice.
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Re:Lame (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Lame (Score:5, Insightful)
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It depends... (Score:5, Funny)
Don't flame me, I know it's awful.
Re:It depends... (Score:5, Funny)
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Laughable (Score:5, Insightful)
Everything about TFA is ridiculous.
Re:Laughable (Score:5, Funny)
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Sure (Score:5, Funny)
Nope (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:That's overlooked by most of the designers. (Score:5, Insightful)
In SecondLife (which is apparently what the article was about), you have the ban tools available on your own character. You can literally ban people from entering your land and there is not a lot they can do about it. If they try real hard to harass you anyway, then you can involve the Lindens and have them sent to the cornfield, but that measure is almost never necessary since the regular ban tools are generally enough to get the point across.
The whole article reads like this to me: The proper response was a slap to the face, not a 2000 word post on your blog about the atrocities of "mental rape".
Parent
F*ck you! (Score:5, Funny)
"You said you'd f*ck me! It's in the chat logs! It's consensual! You have nothing on me!! HAHAHAHAHAHA"
Looks like... (Score:5, Funny)
Much ado about nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Much ado about nothing (Score:5, Informative)
Eh...in Second Life it's a little different. Users can create customized animations that can be very detailed and last a long time, and their environment is a working physics simulation. You can use that physics to harass others -- knocking people into orbit is a common form of griefing on SL. Or you can trick someone into accepting and running your animation -- all it takes is for them to click on an object you control once. If they do that, you gain the ability to make their avatar do anything you want, as if you installed a rootkit on their avatar. So 'standing still' isn't a problem. You can be tricked into cooperating.
As the article mentions, 'logging off' isn't always an answer, especially if you're doing business on SL. Logging off then means closing up shop, and that's a bad solution.
The good solutions are reporting it to Linden and getting a (hopefully) swift response, or using common sense and anti-griefer tools to protect yourself. I think this is all going to boil down to 'should we protect people with bad judgement online?' And I think the correct answer is, 'If they're adults, then No.'
Parent
Is it against the TOS? (Score:5, Insightful)
This should not ever be considered an analogue to real world rape. That would be a mockery of the real world crime.
Rape must include penetration (Score:4, Informative)
Is 'causing nightmares' a crime? (Score:5, Funny)
"12 Million WOW Players Arrested for Murder" (Score:5, Funny)
"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
If it's virtual rape then... (Score:5, Insightful)
And that is all.
TLF
Moronic (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
you can't get "raped" in Second Life (Score:5, Informative)
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?
Re:depends (Score:5, Funny)
(i am so getting modded down for this)
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