Please have a backbone, Linden Lab

As multiple threads have shown time and again, the SL community has no tolerance at all for hate motivated attacks against individuals or groups, be they in the form of cross burnings, racial/ethnic/sexual orientation slurs, KKK displays, or serious threats (direct or implied). At the same time, Linden Lab has been consistently weak on dealing with these issues. Members are allowed back into SL to repeat the same offenses over and over again. What on earth are you so afraid of? Loss of business? Legal recourse? Bad press? I can assure you, the benefits of handling these kinds of issues with zero tolerance far outweigh any potential downsides.

The warnings and suspensions are not working - they are an insult to those being victimized by these types of problems. I am not talking about a lag bomb at an event. While annoying, ultimately the griefer gets bored and moves on. I am talking about gross disregard for members of this community. Griefing does deserve serious disciplinary action, make no mistake, but that is not the focus of this.

It is something that affects all of us - if it has not affected you yet, don't be surprised when it does. I have been the recipient of attacks against my race multiple times, received death threats and threats of violence on more than one occasion, and have had anti-gay remarks made repeatedly as well (even though I am not gay). In every single case, those players are still in SL. In fact, one of them continued doing it from an alt account while on a 3 day suspension for making threats and use of anti-gay slurs. Linden Lab paid that player hundreds of dollars a month in developer incentives. The player making death threats against another player is also still an active account - hell they were directly in the profile. You edited the profile, bravo - but can't seem to ban someone for some strange reason.

I hope that Linden Lab will acknowledge not only in words, but far more importantly, in actions, that this is a serious problem that you have zero tolerance for. I posted a question in the Hotline forum about this, and received a pat answer to it that might as well have been a form letter. These problems continue, the players remain, and in the end, you are giving the perception that you have no regards for how serious this issue is. If you did, you would not be giving out three day or fourteen day warnings, you would be banning players.

To close, I give you a reminder of exactly what we are talking about. Be warned, this is a KKK image that was submitted from SL to my site:

http://www.sluniverse.com/images/kkk.jpg

I for one appreciate all that Linden Lab has done in providing us with the wonderful gift that is Second Life. However, that does not exempt you from responsibility to deal with a problem that has plagued SL for far too long. If there is no deterrent, the behavior will just continue unabated - and the behavior you will see is players moving onto environments where these types of problems receive more than lip service discipline, even if they are less compelling than SL.

IN - you said it all Cris

Does anyone remember the 'concentration camp' episode? Just because those morons had no nazi regalia on either themselves or their build LL would'nt tear the place down UNTIL I actually went on the web and pulled up the photo of the crematoria complex at Auschwitz that they had based the building on and handed it to the Linden at the scene.

These two morons were even in uniform for goodness sake!!! Did they get a ban?.......guess

I could go on and on with the horror stories but is there a point? Pathfinder I think, has given us a little hope that there is.

Cris,

I am very sorry that you are suffering this treatment.

I do not understand the standards employed by LL when assesssing conduct and sanctioning. Members have been suspended and perma banned for less offensive conduct.

Why not have a panel of members review offenses and make resolution recommendations to LL.

We really need predictable, even handed application of rules, with firm guidelines and resolve when it comes to sanctions.

Well said Cristiano. There are some things that should have zero tolerance!

All I have to say about the matter is that this 'hands off policy' may indeed backfire on LL.

I understand that they want to be VERY cautious in setting a precedent.

But I do think, that to some extent, they have been too cautious. So cautious that there is often no action.

But, I have to wonder. Does LL believe, or are they concerned, that if they do, for example, ban a KKK group, that there could be some *RL violence comitted against LL*?

With events like the murder of that judge's family being loosely tied to a white supremacy group, in the news these days... I have to wonder if it does give them pause.

A giant company like Sony or EA could enforce such a thing; there's little chance of retaliation.

But when you have a small company, where everyone knows the employees, and everyone knows where it's located, and its just a small group of folks, there are different vulnerabilities.

Just something to think on. I highly doubt, that its a matter of LL *IGNORING* it.

If anything, they are being too cautious, or at least 'very cautious', and are not sure as to what to do at this point.

There's also the matter of getting outside legal people involved in cases like this. The American Civil Liberties Union, god love'em, is known to take on cases on behalf of entities like the KKK when they feel their right to free speech has been violated. I have no idea what sort of bearing that has on a private company like LL; however, as SL grows and becomes more of a public space ($9.95 for a lifetime membership is CHEAP and accessible to an ever growing number of people), the ACLU and other legal professionals may be able to argue that SL is a public place where certain ideas cannot be censored. This topic has been hotly debated in courts in regard to other semi-public spaces like malls, and I have no doubt it will, soon enough, involve virtual spaces, as well.

Edit: This is certainly not to say that I agree with how LL has handled many of the complaints that Cris has mentioned in the initial post of this thread. I find things like public displays promoting or propagating White Supremacy and anti-gay dogma to be repulsive and destructive.

Gotta wonder what this does to the rest of the TOS and CS.... If someone burning a cross just outside of your land is OK, is pushbumping someone just outside of your land OK too?

Or would you be the only one in the wrong for 'defending' against it?

... LL's lack of input makes it even tougher. I understand they want to have a 'hands off' attitude, but 'lack of input' isn't the same thing.

Yup, I agree, Michi. It's one of the reasons I think that the pro-government group led by folks like Kathy Yamamoto will eventually convince a lot of people (and LL) that they are right in that SL will eventually need some other form of intervention and law enforcement than the LL employees. Think of the legal and fiscal responsibility that LL could delegate if they someday *DID* allow a citizen-run review board to take over policing and punishment of SL. However, would anybody actually want to take it on then, if it meant a legal responsibility to see that all SL members' rights were protected equally, instead of just meaning a way to satisfyingly zap griefers into the ethers of perma-bans?

No space you hav to pay to enter is public or could even be called semi-public. Second Life is still a "game" owned and operated by Linden Labs. When(if?).... WHEN they do decide to make it open to the public in whatever incarnation, we will then be able to claim some rights pertaining to free expression. As it stands I've never been put down for my expression in SL and I find them very tollerant which is a GOOD THING(tm);0

One theme I have noticed consistently regardless of the topic (whether it be zoning or events or griefing or whatever) is that LL would like SL members to take control of their own destiny here in this virtual world.

That certainly works for me, but we need the tools to be able to have real control. The analogy that comes to mind is of a mother telling her son to drive himself to soccer practice but refusing to hand over the keys because she is afraid he will crash the SUV.

Can't have it both ways, MOM.

In the public realm, free speech is sacrosant, and should be protected at all costs. And yes, that includes "hate speech". I know that many people disagree and there are even some countries that have censorship laws against "hate speech", but censorship in the public realm is wrong.

However, SL is not the public realm and LL gets to make the rules. Banning of "hate speech" is certainally within LLs right and indeed desirable. I'd like them to be a bit more proactive about it myself.

-AP

I know they don't want to interfer. But all that leaves for us is mob justice. That shouldn't be the only recourse someone in SL has. Just to get a bunch of people together and harrass more than they are being harrassed. That's stupid and right now its one of the only ways to get people to leave you alone.

deleted

Well-expressed, Cris.

Absolutely. These anti-Conservative threads in the forums have been going on for far too long. It's high time that we start being completely intolerant of intolerance.

I'm gratified to see that people are finally taking a stand on this issue.

Your snarky remark marginalizes the worst types of crimes. Hate-crimes and political sniping are absolutely unrelated. No matter how ontological you want to make the argument, I will not start a back and forth with you on this. Please note that I will not reply to your response to this, as I feel that derailing a thread like this is dangerous.

As to the topic at hand, this issue is unrelated to free speech. LL is a privately held company, and they may allow whomever they wish onto their servers. By not immediately dropping racists, bigots, and people making threats of violence against others as customers, LL is insulting the community as a whole.

Yes, please get a backbone.

what is the difference between poor taste in private and poor taste in public?
and when does harm occur?

how one answers these questions is among the determining factors of how one views hate crimes and speech.

Snarky. I like that.

I wasn't aware that we were discussing crimes. I thought that we were talking about prejudice among the SL population. Have there been prosecutions stemming from any of these "hate-crimes" in SL, like the concentration-camp build or the "say no to rainbow flags" incident? As far as I can tell, these are easily TOS violations, but I wasn't aware that they were illegal. Perhaps you are inflating them beyond their actual size in order to balance out my "marginilizing snarkiness"?

I wonder if the same people who want more the Lindens to become more involved and harsher with incidents where residents use their creative powers to insult and demean, also want the SL interface to become a metaverse. Do you want this meta-game to become something like a 3D realization of the world wide web, and if so, do you think that it can do so if Linden Labs enforces content control to ensure that racist or sexist or anti-Yank or anti-Kerry content gets kept off?

No, what I want is for people to be free to think whatever the fuck they want, but when they cross the line from thinking to pushing that shit off on someone else, they get their ass spanked and booted out of the game, permanently, because this place isn't about getting your hate on, capiche?

Let them go build a virtual world where all their concentration camps and swastikas and related bullshit can 'fly freely' and they can all sit around some smoking building and commiserate about how terrible it is not to have people around that think differently to antagonize.

Your right to extend your arm stops at my face. Them's the rules. If you can't live by the rules, go live somewhere else.

That's my opinion and I'll cheerfully flay the skin from anyone (verbally, of course) who tries to tell me I have no right to hold it, or that Linden Labs, by virtue of being a service provider with a clear cut TOS that prohibits this behavior, should do anything other than ban the twisted fucks who can't be happy unless they're trying to make someone else miserable.

"That's all I got to say 'bout that." -- Forrest Gump

As far as I'm concerned, people can demonstrate or do whatever they'd like, so long as others aren't forced or compelled to be subjected to it.

People can take from that what they will, but I find it to be a simple litmus test in matters like these.

IMO, there's two different ways to handle this kind of speech.

1. Community policing/enforcement. While it seems the TOS would prevent "fighting fire with fire," I think that there is another way to go with this. When I was a kid, my mom would tell me, "If you ignore them, they will stop." She wasn't always right, but it does stand to reason that reacting to hate speech or prejudice may be exactly what the people putting that content out there want. Although the stuff is persistent, ignoring it can defuse a lot of the power that the speech possesses.

Unfortunately, this won't make the content go away. It might not make it go away, but non-reaction is also not necessarily validation. This doesn't seem to be a path that many residents would be willing to take, largely because of the fact that SL is home to many diverse and often victimized communities.

2. Direct Linden involvement in the form of bans. This seems problematic only because unless LL gets better at tracking down alts across multiple credit cards, etc. it will be difficult to prevent someone from regaining access to the game. Additionally, while the "slippery slope" crowd seems to be a bit extreme to those who have heightened sensitivities (or regular sensitivities), there is a valid point. The reason why most anti-hate speech legislation has been found unconstitutional (at least in the U.S.) is that it is hard to draft sufficiently narrow legislation that passes constitutional muster. While LL is not bound by the First Amendment (case precedent seems to indicate that they are not a "public space", even a bright-line rule can be overly broad.

Additionally, should LL be the arbiter of what is "proper?" Certainly, it seems that LL prefers to make players handle these kind of issues amongst themselves. Unfortunately, I think the TOS hamstrings players a bit. We aren't allowed to name names on the forums. However, if there was a list somewhere of residents who produce objectionable speech, and the type of speech they produce, it would be possible to bar them from our land at our discretion. Perhaps instead of hosting SEXY_AV_CONTEST01, perhaps host an event that celebrates diversity. Make it very publicized. Club owners could collaborate and do the SL equivalent of a pub crawl to have some kind of roving protest/event.

I don't think that these two approaches are mutually exclusive. I do understand LL's apparent desire to not set out bright-line rules. There is a slippery slope. Additionally, it is quite possible that differring ranges of sensitivity could make it very hard without specifically saying, "Here are the kinds of speech that will get you a perma ban."

While LL needs to show more backbone for obviously offensive speech, I think the community needs to police itself and ban these asshats from every piece of land that offended residents own. If major land barons banned these people from their zoned sims and nightclub/shopping centers, eventually the people who produce hateful content will be unable to travel easily. Their hate will become small, ineffectual pockets within SL. Adjacent land owners could build walls to hide the content. Sure, to some extent, this is the attention these people want, but it would do a lot to cut down on their ability to permeate SL with this crap.

Your mileage may vary.

Although I do agree with the orignial poster about this, I still find it weird that one would be offended by mere text or a digital image on a digital screen, when someone insults my religon on the internet (im not gonna say which one) I dont feel directly offended, I dont feel compeled to retaliate.. why? What are they gonna do about it? They dont know me, they dont know where I am, basically I am anyomous around here save for the screename.

If they threaten to tell others that you are not afraid, why WOULD you want to be friends with, or be respected by someone who hates you for what you do or what you look like?

LL has ignored player concerns, and refused to seriously discuss this problem with us for far too long. I suspect they have a super pc lawyer they are getting bad advice from. I also suspect that this problem will soon bite them in the ass AND the pocketbook unless they grow a pair, and actually start banning trouble makers like all the other game companies do. There should be AT A MINIMUM a 3 strikes policy. And certain offenses (hate 'crimes', death threats) should be an automatic permaban. I love LL, but I can believe how incredibly weak their performance has been in this area.

Given the widespread popularity of racial bigotry and homophobia, I worry that attempts to impose standards about such things might backfire. The banning of homosexual marriages, as an example, seems to have a lot of support. If tolerant anti-racists and anti-homophobes can get LL to kick out racists and homophobes because the tolerant people are more profitable than the the intolerant, what happens if the balance of dollars swings the other direction?

Despite that concern, my view is that LL owns the place and can kick out whoever it wants for whatever reasons it wants. Racism and homophobia are utterly repugnant to me, so kicking out racists and homophobes isn't going to bother me in the least, and if there's no way to get the intolerant to behave themselves in a proper manner, I'd vote for booting them.

I do have a question. I am an anarchist, and in particular I am opposed to the existence of nation states and the nearly inevitable nationalist bigotry that occurs as a result of judging human merit on the basis of which govenment one was born subjected to. I have long supported the idea of holding flag burning ceremonies as a ritual celebrating the solidarity of billions of sovereign individuals. Does the dominant nationalist majority get to kick me out of SL if I virtual burn the symbols I feel are used to build and justify nationalist bigotry that strikes me as the same sort of collectivist hatred as racial bigotry, sexual orientation bigotry, and religious bigotry?