Does LL Need To Do More re: inWorld Threats?

Should Linden Labs have a clearly articulated policy of how abuse reported inWorld threads will be handled?

More than one ans. allowed.

Voted yes/please give us more info. Several friends of mine have been threatened by one individual, let us say his name is Tool. (Pretty close but not the exact name.) He has engaged in racial slurs (against his own race - little identity issue there), threatened people with violence, disclosed someone's home address by shouting it in a club, told me that I am a "marked man" (actually I think it was his friend now that I come to think of it), harassed one person's e-wife to get at him, made unwanted homoerotic advances toward me, and probably some more stuff I haven't heard about. He is still around from what I've heard. I don't get it. I've seen people get hardware-banned for making asses of themselves (but certainly not threatening people with death in the real world), yet he is still here.

I'm going to chalk it up to "there is a backlog and he will eventually be permabanned" and hope for the best.

sigh... I am the only rational person (voted no) so far.

Come on... don't you people understand the concept of the slippery slope?? The TOS is already broad enough!!!

you can ALREADY be banned for ANYTHING...

Define a threat... What is the difference between a a serious threat and joking around... or just plain hot air said in the heat of an argument?

Do you think LL can build ALL the context surrounding certain statements to make an accurate judgement?? Hell no! They don't make accurate judgements now...

They have proven time and time again that they don't review cases at all!! They just ban, next, ban, next, ban, next, ban, next... it's pathetic.

You love to tout for more restrictions but you never imagine that YOU could get caught up in the system you fought hard to establish.

Slippery Slope.

No; If you feel you are being threatened and it will result in a rl incident; contact your local authorities. They will ask LL for their assistance. LL has to protect it's clients privileged information to include; Name, address, phone number and credit card information.

LL is a great company and I honestly believe that if they were contacted by an official office such as a police dept. or the FBI that they would cooperate fully. I however do not feel that they should police all of us and release that information to subscribers.

Cat

Take a look at the Owner of said slippery slope. It's Linden Labs. They have the right to terminate service for any reason. They also have the right to *provide* service. This is what I find so funny about ideas like player rights and SL government. We are playing on the servers of a legal business. Said legal entity can kick us all off *at any time*.

If you have a problem with the way Linden Labs conducts its business...don't buy its products. This should go both for the people that are pissed because Linden Labs doesn't do enough and for the the people that are pissed because Linden Labs does too much.

I will play on the Second Life Slippery Slope, and bring an inner tube for sliding.

So what you are saying is, LL has no responsibility to enforce it's ToS?

Then why even have one?

I'm suprised Cat. I would have thought that you would definitely want LL to enforce it's own ToS. And being as how threats to one's life are about the most serious break of the ToS, it would seem logical to expect them to act in a very strong manner to enforce that area.

Whether the police should be called is beside the point. merwan is asking if Linden Labs should enforce their own ToS, and if they should enforce it very strongly in the case of theats made against another customer's health and well-being.

This is a good way to make sure the other side doesn't take you seriously.

Anyway, the problem I see is that the Lindens have been quick to hardware-ban people who use push guns and slander certain groups, but someone who issues death threats and tries to harass people's friends and significant others either gets a temporary suspension or nothing at all. It does not seem consistent. In fact it seems the reverse is true. If I have someone who griefs people in-world, and someone who is telling people he wants to beat them up or kill them in real life, and I can only ban one, it is not going to take more than a fraction of a second to decide to ban the one who is making death threats. I certainly wouldn't ban the push-gunner and leave the crank alone.

GeezesusHChrist, this is getting old.

If you feel your personal security is threatened GO TO THE COPS! Go to the newspaper! Go to a lawyer. But the key is YOU need to go do something ELSE if you are not satisfied with LL. They could easily detail all kinds of nice sounding things to make it seem like they are doing something. Is that going to pacify you? Doubtful anything will.

Some of you are so wrapped up in this "other world" bullshit that you feel LL is mother, father, priest, mistress, and whatever other person you want to either satisfy a need or to manage your problems.

OK, I gotta go get another Red Bull.

David; Of course I expect them to enforce their own ToS but no I do not expect them to make up a new ToS to define the existing ToS. I think it is fine as it is written. I also think that they are doing the best they can with them amount of employees they have.
Do we really know how strongly they are enforcing their ToS, no we have no way of knowing how many ppl have banned under the current ToS. Nor do we know if the ToS is not being enforced. Therefor without all of the information that is necessary to make an informed decision, I gave my opinion based on the knowledge that does exist.
I have faith that LL is enforcing the ToS to the best of their abilities. Do I feel I should force them to do more? No I don't think I, you or anyone has the right to tell LL what or how to do their jobs. It is a private company.
Cat

But that's the whole point. We do know that this particular person wasn't permanently banned even after making repeated threats against another customer. And this isn't the first case where a person making RL threats was allowed back in SL to do it again.

I'm not asking that they clarify the ToS. I'm asking that they enforce it, particularly in threat and hate-crime cases.

While I do sympathize with the victim here...

I did not read all the chat logs, I did not read the emails sent. More so I don't know if this is just a friend of the first person getting even for his friend. I hope you understand.

I don't have all the information therefor I cannot do anything but leave it in the hands of LL to handle. I trust the judgement of LL.

Cat

I'm not sure I see what you are talking about David...

It seems to me that they enforce their draconian broad TOS just fine. The hate crime people get banned... the pushgun people get banned... everyone gets banned.

LL can't control someone who decides to use a different creditcard to join again, or plays from a different IP. In those cases there is NOTHING LL can do.

They are not the law enforcement... they can't track the person down, storm in with a team of paramilitary agents, and detain the person at an unknown location... not yet anyway.

I believe LL needs to have at least some staff who are able to look for patterns, look up above the clutter and stream of thousands of ARs pouring in, and see the bigger picture.

It often happens that a really bad actor in the game has a cluster of bad behaviour. They have lagged their sim to a standstill. They have stolen designs stolen as their own. They have also threatened and harassed people. The millions of ARs streaming through the system don't seem to cluster well so that the Lindens can see who alts are, and see patterns of bad behaviour. They can seize on the wrong thing sometimes, or they can miss entire reams of bad behaviour if it is perpetrated by an alt.

The threats that someone might make aren't always of the crude kind like "I'm going to get you, I know where you live." They can be more insidious and methodical. Someone might systematically destroy your enjoyment of the game in all kinds of ways, and even publish something on their profiles, or in notecards, or wherever, to the effect that they know something about your RL, let's say, and will publish it, or some how use it to harm you.

I think LL needs to have some sensitivity for the ways in which various types of threats can happen, what an ominous and menacing climate can be. They need to look at clusters of incidents.

It's also true that the entire system can be misused. A player can all too easily scream that you are "threatening" or AR you because you ascribe threatening behaviour to him, etc. etc. -- it's endless.

Shouts seem to reverberate so much longer and louder in a Virtual World than in RL.

I voted "No" as well. LL can not protect you from RL harm. And it is difficult for LL to distinguish the difference between a RL threat and an SL roleplaying threat.

The simple advice is to log all communications with a person who you feel threatens RL bodily harm. Of course, file and abuse report with LL. Then, contact local authorities (not 9-1-1) to register an official complaint. Beyond this, there's not much you can do. Even in the real world, you can't go to the cops and have a restraining order issued without significant proof of threat. Allowing restraining orders to be issued with little evidence would unfairly punish individuals who haven't been convicted of crime.

Ultimately, if you feel so strongly that you've been threatened, you can choose to leave SL, cutting off ties to the person who has threatened you. While I'm sure LL takes RL threats very seriously, how is LL to determine whether a threat is against a RL person, or that person's avatar.

I witnessed a Linden remind a group of avs that all killing must take place in the combat sims. This was after the Linden was summoned to the scene when one of the avs threatened to kill another. In fact, the av admitted to being paid to kill. The hitman av followed the victim around, and the scene with the Linden took place at the victim's SL home. The victim became very disturbed and threatened to call the RL cops. Long story short, the victim finally gave in and let the hitman kill him. After that, the two became SL friends and hung out together. It was basically a one-sided roleplay, but was scary to a new SL resident. The same thing happens when these so-called organized crime families go to owners of malls and such and threaten to wreak havoc unless certain conditions are made. This is illegal in RL, but part of the game in SL.

LL has to walk a line between going too extreme and banning everyone for one reason or another, or not policing the world enough that the majority of residents quit SL do to the lawlessness.

The concept of a "slippery slope" is reffered to in logical as a fallacious argument.

combining ultra broad law (the TOS) with zero tollarance... (that is what is being asked for here with regards to threats) is definately part of the slippery slope argument! It opens the doors to allow practically anyone to be banned under the guise of a supposed "threat".

People pay real money to be here... that changes the game. That should allow someone rights to some kind of honest and OPEN review. If I invested over 100 bucks a month in this program I would not want someone to be able to kill me from this place so easily without any kind of open review. It's not like LL gives you compinsation (in $$) for time lost due to some PC whiner intent on "cleansing" this place.

You repeatedly misrepresent what is being asked for, because the truth of it does not seem to suit your argument. This is a REPEATED offense of ongoing harassment and threats of violence/death. No amount of money that you pay to a company gives you a free pass to harass and threaten someone and that is a sickening justification. We get it - you will remain an apologist for this to the bitter end. Try not misrepresenting it as you do make excuses, please.

They are not banning - if they were, this would not be repeatedly occuring WITH THE SAME SCREEN NAME AND ACCOUNT. Where is all this mythical banning occuring? Please tell that to the people being harassed repeatedly and continue to make the argument about this draconian, evil, uncreative world that can only be set free if we can make death threats without repercussions.

semantics, Cristiano...

You can be banned for a day... or 5 days... or 7 days.. or 3 days.. or 14 days.. or 30 days...

All those are bannings...

All those allow you to come back onto the same account.

Then there is the perminate ban... now these really are only for people who get in trouble after a 30 day banning... or underage people...

The system sucks.. but you have to be fair about it... If he fucks up after the 30 day ban he is gone for good like anyone else.

It is not semantics - a suspension is a temporary removal - a ban is permanent. It seems even you are in favor of a permanent ban after repeated transgressions, from your own words, so what are you arguing about?

uh... good way to end debate...

I propose a simple, clear policy:

Commit a felony using SL, banned for life.
including:

stalking
child porn
fraud
grand theft
conspiracy
etc

You are implying that Linden doesn't have a clearly articulated policy in this area.

Linden may make different judgement calls than you think they should. That means you disagree with their policy, not that there isn't a policy.

Linden has to be careful not to become an unwitting participant in somebody's vendetta. A dispute can involve two balligerants that act out in different ways. Linden must approach these situations with skepticism, lest residents start wielding abuse reports as weapons against their "enemies".

Buster

I think I pointed out to you in another thread, that you are NOT a rational person. Just grossly misinformed.