SL Bill of Rights/Constitution

No, it's called asking LL to delete a shitstorm thread. I am sure it wouldn't meet with much fuss

This is an idea I'd toyed around with earlier this year, and last year informally.

/13/31/35925/1.html

Freedom of speech is a civil liberty, meaning one has freedom from government action. In the case of the U.S. the second amendment was specifically created to prevent the U.S. government from censoring or influencing the content of personal, news, or religious sources and to allow the freedom to protest in public. It's quite clear:



Since then, its interpretation has grown to encompass not just speech but expression in general, whether or not the message relates to the government at all. However, that does not mean that all citizens have a free license to say whatever they want.

Paraphrased from Wikipedia, the right to freedom of speech or expression is not considered unlimited. In the U.S. states may still punish (but not prohibit) certain damaging types of expressions. Under international law restrictions on free speech must pass a strict three part test: they must be provided by law; pursue an aim recognized as legitimate; and they must be necessary for the accomplishment of that aim. Among the aims considered legitimate are protection of the rights and reputations of others (prevention of defamation) and the protection of national security and public order, health and morals.

Thus by both U.S. and international law, one does not have the right to unlimited speech, especially racist diatribe (otherwise known as hate speech or Hetzparole). For example, countries such as France or Germany have laws on the expression of Nazi content, as they have met the three conditions listed above.

~Ulrika~

I think several of us are missing the point, we are not looking to model SL free speech laws around RL country's laws. We want Second Life residence to have a right to freely express their views without being abuse reported. This does not mean going on someone's yard and doing a KK meeting as many trolls seem to suggest. The way I would want free speech to be implemented in SL would be very much similar to the U.S. free speech laws, but it does not need to be a carbon copy. Debating the difference between national laws on free speech is irrelavant. And that word is probably spelt wrong.

I hope you don't think that repeating the same meaningless drivel until someone gets tired of talking to you mean's that you "won" an argument.

I was going to post a similar thing... LL has to make it's own law. RL law is often complicated and beaurocratic. LL is in the position of the government at this point. while we can vote on things it is ultimately their decision to say yes or no, on this or any other matter, and I will repeat again that it always will and should be their decision to make the last call on something. As it is though, this gives us no power to make any call in a lot of matters. It doesn't even give us the encouragement.

Keep in mind that this isn't just about free speech. While it's the first ammendment to the US constitution that DOES NOT make it the most important. Just as important is the rights of the accused, and I will testify to that because I have excersized my rights as the accused. I value those rights and would very much like to see them in the utopian universe of SL as well.

The right to self-representation, the right to know the charges against yourself, the right to face your accuser in front of an impartial arbitrator and present evidence in your defense, and the right to have evidence in your defense. A right to a speedy arbitration and a right to private property. The right to be innocent until proven guilty rather than guilty until proven innocent unless the circumstances are extreme (according to the opinions of LL).

Hiro: Not to start an arguement as that we are not currently at odds, but you seem to be talking out of two sides of your mouth supporting this. Know that at the heart of this proposal is the right to build offensive things. The right to be a racist, bigot, or to have unpopular political views and to express those unpopular views on your own private land.

Yeah, what she said.

I agree with you.
I was trying to use real simple examples for Himiko.

Now, is that called for? Several members of my family are proud to call themselves rednecks. If you saw them, you would not hesitate to call them rednecks.

None of them have ever burned a cross on anyone's lawn, and (gasp) several of them aren't white. Any of them who did burn a cross on someone's lawn would not be welcomed at the next family reunion.

I don't know about their sheets; I suspect they mostly prefer colors and perhaps flower prints, but regardless, they don't wear them.

In other words, for all your pious words, you've just committed the same act you profess to hate.



No, no, no, no, no. No. Again I say - NO.

You persist in a very fundamental fallacy that really makes me question our school system.

Defense of freedom of speech does not equate to advocacy of specific speech.

Now repeat that to yourself a few hundred times until it sinks in.

The original expression of this idea comes from Voltaire:


Later paraphrased in a much more popular form - "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".

The difference between your position and mine is that you want to define what I can say and what I can't. I on the other hand won't tell you what you can say or what you can't - and I reserve the same freedom to myself in opposing your position.

Huns Valen is on my side, and you're agreeing with Huns Valen, so this must mean we agree with each other, so go to the voting page and put 10 votes in.

However STUPID or FALSE someone's arguement may be in your mind, it is not reason to insult who they are. Just disprove their arguement or pull apart their logic and move on. it's not a war between people, it's a debate of ideas. If you approve, put your votes in, if you don't approve... don't.

If you are ready to advocate the rights to free speech, I encourage you to do so. If you want to fight against free speech, go right on ahead and do that too. When you start feeling frustrated with a person or trying them to MAKE them see things the way you do, that's when you should walk away and let someone else take the torch.

As far as I know the last time a group of people tried to FORCE others to see as they did, it was called "The Inquisition" and that didn't end very well. The only thing I can encourage ANYONE here to do is to try to see it from the other side's point of view. I don't mean you have to ACCEPT the way they see it, just try to understand why they see it that way. If you can't understand the other side's point of view you probably do not belong in a debate.

Good luck with this Jarhyn - in case you haven't read my paper on freedom of speech issues in virtual worlds, here is the link.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=565181

You've got my votes

During WWII, the United States government commissioned English translations of Nazi films. The films were so hateful that they helped convince Americans to join the war.

Beyond using shunning, how could such a document be enforced?

Some love the wide-open freedom SL offers. Others want to use that freedom to build their vision of a better world. These two groups will never agree.

The best approach isn't to force a covenant on everyone. Instead, allow residents to build their own utopias, and invite like-minded people there.

well, I started a group around proposition 407. this group is so that those who support the concept of a bill of rights can get together and actually draft one, including propositions for implimentation of each of those rights.

This group is the 407 society, after the proposition. I encourage anyone who has voted for the proposition to join the group.

According to the lindens, it is the goal of the SL administration to make government in which the residents control the world. This is a step in that direction and in my mind the most important one. A consitution affects the shape of government within the world. If this proposal gets anywhere it could very well shape the future of SL.

I am content with LL being SL's so called government. I personally don't feel the need for a bill of rights and I am vehemently AGAINST a player run government. So do as you wish Jahryn, but do not try to impose it on those of us who are happy with the current situation.

Alexa

As I said in the Welcome Area last night during our discussion, I find some of the points you made verbally interesting. Resident rights to know who accused them when they are banned. The prospect of a jury of peers to review offenses. The problem with all these ideas is that they take time and money and do not involve an "immediate" suspension or kick. I think there is a lot of thought and time that would need to go into an efficient player run process, which is not to say it couldn't be done. I am not for resident government with a president, etc...the community has debated these issues.

The problem I have with your proposition is that it isn't one, it's a nonproposal proposal. With a thread I kept getting directed to last night to debate it. I see nothing being debated of substance in this thread so much as I see people getting testy on racial issues and avoiding engaging in a good debate on the merits.This is a very vague proposal. There seemed to be some feeling that one should not have to provide concrete details, and that if you did you would be shot down. If you want a vote on alternate handling of player complaints, that makes sense. I suggested last night, as did others, about six times that we have an inworld community debate to which Lindens were invited.

The response over and over was they won't come, and that if there was a concrete proposal made that it would be shot down. I was also told a debate would attract griefers. Welcome to politics. A debate always gets protesters. That is no reason not to outline your position more clearly and to blame the Lindens for not understanding it.

Some rights for players on some vague premise....not something I can back.

I agree with some of your concerns, but not your methods or phrasing here. I also don't agree that as was said in the WA last night, the notoriety of the W Hats, for good or for bad, will raise the profile of this issue. If there were a clear resident movement with clear logic, you would get a response. I seem to recall hearing a little something about a tax revolt once....

How do you impose rights and further liberties on people? Or do you mean that you don't want the responsibility that goes along with being free?



It has been claimed many times by "authorative" figures on these forums that the Lindens do not support government in SL, and have no plans to support any such initiative. Philip Linden himself was supposed to have made such a statement. Do you have proof that a Linden goal is a player-run government? I'd like to see it.

the "immediate" action taken by lindens often takes a week to happen, and I am up for formal discussion of low-cost implimentations of these ideas. Within SL I think that it is more than possible to only slightly modify the existing system to allow for defense equal to the prosecution in an abuse report scenario.

It has been said repeatedly by phillip in town halls, etc since beta. As for recent evidence of this, Adam Linden (between his own personal statements on the subject) said as much publicly. I am sure that the others present there will concur with this.

I'm not sure what you mean by "recent evidence of this". Evidence of what? I'm not sure whose post you're referring back to.

You asked in the WA for Adam's opinion, and he asked which opinion, his personal or that of the company. My perception was that he made it clear to you that he was lending his personal views before he responded, but without knowing more clearly what "evidence" you mean I can only say

Everone opposed to this proposition who has friends who voted for it, please discuss the matter with your friends and ask them to reconsider.

It's so easy to avoid discussing unpleasant things like this bill but given it's unmerited degree of success it is important to stop for a while and work against it.

.. I dont see this as "unpleasent" as much as simply "pointless".

This is a communication platform hosted on a commercial service. There are no rights to speak of beyond basic customer/company relations. What we are getting here is a service, plain and simple.

This would pretty much be the same thing if this was NOT a commercial service, ran on volunteer servers - say, proposing "The IRC user bill of rights for EFNet" will pretty much get you either laughed at or kicked off the network.

I really do not see a reason to take this suggestion seriously, at all.

While the spirit and heart behind the proposal probably comes from very imporant and reasonably views, I think you're asking too much with this Proposal. Each issue I think needs to be addressed individually not lumpted together into a large proposal that will be picked at and torn apart. The TOS and such is already in place, instead of trying to create a single new document that will rest under the TOS, you should try to add parts to the TOS. This is a game after all, a virutal enviroment hosted by LL, and as such there is no need for a documentation called the Bill of Rights here.

Personally, I think you should mostly try to focus on the last 2 points you tried to make on your Bill of Rights. Better handling of banning and charges against players and their rights to enjoy this game should be put into effort and is something worth fighting for. While i havn't had any displinary action against myself, I wouldn't want to be banned suddenly for an event i had nothing to do with and I would like the ability to defend myself against such charges. Such a propsal adding lines to the TOS I would support.