Is Virtual Rape a Crime? 690
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?"
Seriously, wtf (Score:2, Interesting)
it's happened before... (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:No (Score:2, Interesting)
I vote 4chan to write our Constitution.
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.
Another perspective and ingame solutions (Score:4, Interesting)
In one particular MUD I used to play, if you died there were painful consequences such as huge xp loss and loss of all your equipment. As a result, you really wanted to avoid dying and it made the game very exciting. In addition, players could PvP freely. Since you could keep all the equipment of any character you killed, it made pure PvP a very profitable exercise.
Now, people would form groups of "randomers" and walk around the world randomly killing characters. Some people would be assholes by killing people that didn't have any equipment, were clearly newbies, or just wanted to kill monsters. The randomers found it exciting and were having fun, but obviously the player on the receiving end did not enjoy it. The randomers would try to excuse their behaviour by saying "its just a game, I can be an asshole," which is wrong.
Everyone personifies their character to a degree. They spend hours playing them, leveling them, and imagining their surroundings as they do quests. Its like how you suspend disbelief as you read a good book or watch a movie. So, when these high-level randomers come around and your character dies and you lose a lot of hard earned progress, it hits you pretty hard emotionally. I would compare it to the "virtual rape" the article talks about, since the randomer has complete power over you and he's taking pleasure in your "rape". Even though its just a game, you can't argue that this is a moral thing to do.
One obvious solution is to not get so connected with your character. This, in my opinion, is a poor solution because the connection is what makes the game interesting. As an aside, I found that the loss of this connection is what turns someone into a randomer.
A better solution is to educate the player so they are not so easy prey and can use in-game mechanisms to avoid the problems. Using the MUD as an example, the player needs to realize that they can be attacked anywhere at any time and should be on the lookout. Once you're an informed and experienced player, you'll rarely get randomed. Another example: "In Second Life, flying penises may appear during your press conference, do not be alarmed." In real life, it would be like knowing not to walk around seedy streets at night wearing skimpy clothes.
Griefers, rapists, and jerks will be ever present in games and real life. You won't be able to avoid them all, but if you're smart you won't be burnt so often.
And if there are any griefers reading this, please stop being jerks. It ruins the game for everyone else.
Re:Lame (Score:4, Interesting)
-matthew
Re:Think about that. (Score:3, Interesting)
It could actually make the game world more interesting IMHO
Re:Stupid (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Think about that. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Think about that. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Stupid (Score:4, Interesting)
As an example, think of Jessica Lynch. Yes, lots of lies have been told about the events in Iraq. But, without question, she was rapped and severely injured on her mission. Does she sound like a victim to you? I hear she got married and had a daughter shortly after coming home.
Re:Think about that. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Think about that. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Think about that. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No (Score:3, Interesting)
However, if people want to take this seriously, I suggest that they take the virtual rapist who stuck his virtual penis in her virtual vagina and put him on virtual trial where he can perhaps be virtually convicted and go to virtual prison. Maybe at that point people would realize this is virtually retarded.
Instructions please (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not seeing any rape here.
Even assuming that there is such a thing as "virtual rape", it leaves no scars. Avatars don't really have the concept of virginity -- having someone's e-peen clip through your avatar's bum doesn't change anything, physically or otherwise -- and if you identify so strongly with a pixelated version of yourself that a few naughty words or an animation that you can easily walk away from is enough to cause "trauma", you need help. Seriously, if you think you've been e-raped, and you honestly feel that it was a "traumatic" experience, gtfo the internet. You need sunshine, fresh air, something to get you back into reality. If a kid drew a couple of stick figures having sex and labelled one of them as you, that wouldn't be rape, would it? Of course not. That's what Second Life is. Imaginary. A world where rape can't happen. So stop treating it like it's equivalent to the real world -- it just trivializes the suffering of all the real rape victims out there.
Also, if you accept a sexually explicit animation from someone and don't stop it before anything happens, you can always change avatars to something weird like a squirrel or something and gross out the "rapist". It's hard to grief anyone with a sense of humour, so they'll leave you alone.
Re:Think about that. (Score:3, Interesting)
Terminology will be a problem here since in many legal systems, intent matters. The key difference between thought crime and other classes of crime is crossing that threshold of thinking about something, wanting something, and doing something about it. That is, projecting that thought outward to a victim.
Conventionally, the projecting outward is a physical action. However, in some cases, simply communicating with the victim is enough. Free speech doesn't cover credible threats to harm someone, extortion, etc.
In the case of threats, the reasonable belief of the victim can make all the difference. If I tell some random person I'm going to zap them with my Flash Gordon destructo-ray it's not a crime because they have no reasonable belief that they will be harmed. Same threat but with a .38, and I have comitted a crime even if I don't actually own a .38.
The large difference between involuntary manslaughter and first degree murder rests entirely on intent.
True thoughtcrime is the criminalization of intent even in the absense of any action whatsoever. Criminalizing online predation is NOT thoughtcrime because in addition to intent, the perpitrator must take some positive action (logging in and sending messages). In your example, they take the further positive action of arranging a RL meeting and then actually going to the meeting as arranged.
Beating someone with a bat is battery, telling them you intend to do so is assault (if a reasonable person would expect them to believe you).
What this comes down to is that the law already recognizes that taking an action (any action) with the intent to cause someone distress IS a crime. There's plenty of gray in the law here (for better or worse). Generally being an asshole and enjoying creating annoyance is often not seen as a crime (for example trolling or flamebaiting). The law is not perfectly clear on the threshold where online actions rise to the level of criminal or even civil liability (though there IS a point where persistantly trolling singled out individuals can be interpreted as harassment).
So virtual rape IS a crime if a reasonable person would anticipate that it would cause distress. That is a question the courts have yet to address. People DO get quite wrapped up in virtual characters. Often they identify their avatars as a part of themselves. Virtual rape is not thoughtcrime since it also requires specific acts towards a victim. If virtually raping an AI were a crime, then it would be thoughtcrime.
IMHO it IS reasonable to expect virtual rape to cause distress.
Roe v Wade in 3D! (Score:2, Interesting)
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.