After discussing Second Life on Tuesday I wanted to take a deeper look into this alternate world. I found an article published in time about the problems that Second Life deals with. The list of problems that Second Life offers are more than we saw in the video during class. According to this article from Time, the FBI had to shut down the site for a bit due to their illegal gambling as well as issues with child pornography.
I find these issues more than appalling so I took a deeper look into the alternate sex life that Second Life offers to its users. I found this video on Youtube that the Early Show did about this interesting, to say the least, way that people have found to engage in questionable acts.
People use Second Life to engage in sexual behaviors and even purchase sex. Prostitution is very common in Second Life. A mom of two reveals that she is, for lack of a better work, a pimp on Second Life, and the most disturbing thing about this woman is that she is also on the PTA, and doesn't care enough that people could trace her back to her house, not even for the security of her own children.
Sex in Second Life is quite desirable. After reading this article and watching this video I thought about all of the scary issues that surround Second Life. Someone could potentially design their avatar to look younger than 18 for older, child rapists, to engage in sex with. I remember discussing digitally created child pornography in Media 321. A judge ruled that since digitally created children for child pornography did not have a victim, and also due to free speech and expression, and therefore could not be deemed child porn. To me it seems that courts are having difficulty keeping up with the internet and new technology. Second Life may be an outlet for rapists and sexual perverts to express themselves, all of this is just extremely frightening to me.
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For some reason this did not put in my links again, here they are:
ReplyDeleteFirst is the Time Article:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1651500,00.html
Second is the Youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruMi3MAGkvc
That video is crazy and very informative. I cant believe people can become so addicted to a game like this. I agree with you that it is all very frightening.
ReplyDelete-Liz
I agree with both of you. That video was crazy, I was shocked that people were using second life as a way to obtain money by participating in escort type actions and such. What is really frightening, is how popular and accessible it all is.
ReplyDeleteHaley
I agree with all of these comments, i have been against this whole second life since we began discussing in class recently. I hope second life will die out just like most popular fads do...
ReplyDeleteI agree. Since I watched that I have seen a few other videos and they just keep getting creepier. If you want to see another weird video/report, check out my latest post, the video I posted is pretty strange as well.
ReplyDeleteI really never thought the internet would amount to something like this, a mother putting her children's lives in jeopardy so she can have some fun. It is reassuring to see that other people agree with me.
ReplyDelete