What are the free speech limits on an offensive 9/11 build?

yes, all 120+ of us are of a hive mind and think the exact same things and commit the same grievous acts and never have any dissenting opinions on anything EVER.

Hiro please show me who said that people of 9/11 deserved it. All I've seen is what someone thinks of distorted perceptions, something which you hold very dear to yourself, and that's about it. It is in fact your distorted perception that made you believe of someone saying that.

As for me, I'm simply apathetic to the whole thing. I'm from New York, I saw the towers on smoke and i saw them collapse with my own eyes. I would rather not feel anything, than feel mad, sad, angry, hollier than thou, or anything else, and then on top go through some sort of a healing proccess.

What you feel is of course hollier than thou, you are the pure authority on what is acceptable and what is not, therefore it is simply pointless arguing with you, and much more hillarious watching you struggle.

(edited)

It's the same thing everytime one of these threads happens. Curious pattern actually.

Someone brings up a w-hat build or some w-hat actions, like harrassment of a furry, what have you, and a whole load of people enter the thread and start claiming those stating concerns are "intolerant", "it's on our land", "it's art", "it's our freedom of speech", etc.

Oh, they talk a good game and wax all intellectual and philosophical, while playing at being dissidents. Then a couple of them will go and do something really stupid, like target Prokofy, because they knew he was particularly bothered by the display (yeah, I am sure it was an accident! Out of how many 100s of sims, you just happened to "crash" right where Prokofy was holding an event? Then you just happened to "accidentally" attach the object that Prokofy said affected him deeply? Yeah right.)

Then, we invariably get, "but we're not all like that".

Then, things settle down for a while, until another person questions the "artistic" merits of w-hat actions or builds. RRL.

I can accept it when told, "we're all not like that" - but, each time one of these threads ends up with some w-hatters doing exactly what they claim not to be doing, that capacity diminishes.

What you need to understand, is that most of us were not born yesterday. We have seen all manner of excuses from people who recuse themselves from responsibilty through whatever means, and for whatever reasons. You're nothing new or revolutionary. You haven't discovered the meaning of life. There is no, "they don't get it, but we do - *Nudge, wink*". That is simply a smokescreen, and another excuse.

Take your your shots, and make them good ones, I won't be responding further.

It was on group land, not individual land.

I'm wondering why our Jeska hasn't put this one out of its misery. It could be that she's off doing something more interesting, getting very drunk and picking up dodgy men in night clubs.

It could be that they are watching this thread and laughing - those who press buttons, those who like their buttons pressed publically, those who know that every decent person agrees with them on this issue (whatever their position is), those who agree with freedom of speech for everything they agree with, those who haven't noticed that this isn't THERE yet...

You might not believe in something.... That doesn't mean you can't allow it to be. Perhaps the group was founded on a platform of Zero censorship.. Could be!!

*yawn, stretch*

I love when people build stuff so broadly offensive that anyone who flies by can see from a long way off, then can't understand why people are speaking up about being offended. Really, I love the irony.

I'm fairly certain that this display goes beyond simple "allowing".

Any person who did not participate in it's creation who does nothing to support it or remove it is simply allowing....

5 people involved in creating it.. the other 90 members or whatever... are "allowing" That's how these things work Hiro.. Nothing at all to do with scale.

I think the exhibit was in poor taste, but I laugh at things that are in poor taste every day. I have a typical Roman sense of humor.

Oh, we understand. We just don't care, is all.

Since you are taking your time to respond without the broken record "oh, chill out" mentality as others have, I'll respond.


Nah, was just commenting as an aside. I still addressed your comments.


That still doesn't explain how the US or its civilians "may have deserved it". In that statement of yours, you were speaking from your perspective, not from an extremist perspective. Of course the terrorists thought we deserved it, however, what you said is that you thought you society "may have deserved it".


Yes, it is clear they have a warped view of morality, for a religion that still promotes kindness to all people even if they are your enemy. (Yes, Islam is a peaceful religion.)


The decision to nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki was based on the following thoughts:
A. They were industrial cities rather than more strictly residential / commercial.
B. Estimations were that it would have cost much much more American and Japanese lives had the bomb not been dropped. -- So in essence the thought was that it would sacrifice 70,000 Japanese to save hundreds of thousands, even millions more.
C. Many more Japanese were killed in the firebombing of Tokyo than in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.




Yeah, but you're satirizing the attack itself - as I said, if you want to satirize the jingoistic attitude of America, that's fine; don't, however, make fun of the actual event. That's just as bad as the jingoistic attitude itself because they both disrespect the same deceased.


Red Herring. This is not about the subjective views of two cultures. This is about respect for specific deceased civilians.


In circles? I've brought up new counter-arguments for each of yours. You are the only one here repeating the same arguments over and over.


I have a lot of criticism of America, too, but this display does not say "Hey, look how stupid America is", it says, "Haha, look at those Americans burn!"

Look, you folks are allowed to laugh at whatever you find funny.

But the moment you have a huge monument easily in view from a sim away, you're forcing your humor and poor taste down others' throats.

It should be no surprise, then, why people are pissed off.


Maybe you misunderstand the concept of group land.

Group land is shared by the community. Things on group land are a responsibility of the whole group. It reflects on the whole group. If Bub Linden put offensive content on Linden land, and the Lindens knew it was there and did nothing, they could not simply say "oh, it was Bub's fault, but we're happy leavng it there".

No, we're not. They are free not to look at it. However, you seem to think it's okay for Linden Lab, or people who are still tore up about 9/11, or whomever, to force their idea of humor and taste on us.

If your place happens to be anywhere within 1 sim of someone's land, they are forced to see it.

If your place happens to be anywhere within 1 sim of a route between a telehub and a destination someone is going, they are forced to see it.

No one is saying you have to not build this - only that it should not be out in the open like that.

And it sure the heck is okay for Linden Lab to tell you not to display whatever they deem against TOS. Everyone agrees to the TOS when they sign up, and they agree to abide.

p.s. - edit - You say "still" tore up like it's unnatural to still be upset about 9/11.

You musunderstand the concept I have put forth.

Please see these examples:

American Civil Liberties Union @ http://www.aclu.org/

Electronic Frontier Foundation @ http://www.eff.org/

No, you misunderstand.

please see www.If you put huge monuments that can be seen a sim away by everyone, it is a public viewing and therefore can be censured under certain 1st amendment exceptions such as fighting words .com

also see: http://www. Linden Lab is a private organization and has put forth speech standards in the TOS that you have agreed to abide by, including a clause about "broadly offensive" builds that this build was more than clearly in violation of .com

edit: p.s. - the ACLU has turned into a extreme leftist organization that has far departed from its noble roots during the Civil Rights Movement. For example, they went after LA for having a tiny cross on their city seal, even though there's a huge pagan goddess in the middle and the town was founded as a Christian mission - discrimination? Yes.

And the EFF would agree that public displays don't get the same Free Speech protections that private websites would.

Oh? When did llTakeCameraFrom200MetersAwayWithoutPermission() get implemented?

My problem is that they said it was OK before, and now they're saying it isn't. It seems rather arbitrary. I don't think they ought to do it.

I wish I had Hiro's computer. I have to keep my draw distance so low, to maintain a usable amount of performance, that I'd gladly view something offensive a sim away if I could just view things from a sim away.

But I, for one, welcome good taste being regulated by The Man. Maybe that will mean I don't have to look at furry avatars any longer.

It's not hard to recognise a plane crashing into two large towers at 196m draw distance.

I do have a nice p4 3.2ghz though.

It's not so much free speech.

It's controversial art.

Sometimes it shocks individuals, sometimes it makes them think, sometimes it makes them laugh at the dark humor.

If this were "The First Republic of Second Life" -- then you might be able to have representation as to what "is" and what "isn't."

It's not. We've gone round-robin on this discussion for ages.

You pay to play.
You pay to own land.
You pay to create content for this online community.

You own nothing and have absolutely no rights.

What Mommy and Daddy Linden say is the law, subject to interpretation and change at the the flip of a coin.

Heads, you lose.
Tails, you lose.

Only when you can truly say "this land is my land, this land is your land..." and you have true ownership and rights thereof, can you begin to decide what is right and what is wrong.

You have 15 more years of this until SL reaches the "legal age" to vote.

I agree. Though I'll point out an example of a sculpt I did in RL that used the Towers as an example. Shortly after 9-11, for some reason the police here in Brooklyn were arresting people who had those plastic milk crates (You know, they're just so handy to strap to your bike or make bookcases). As a protest, I erected a Twin Towers sculpt of plastic milk crates in a park nearby with a sign that simply read "remember". Within hours it was surrounded by candles and flowers, and cops who should have dismantled the whole thing for being an illegal build were walking by and bowing their heads, they also stopped busting people in the neighborhood for possessing milk crates.

Umm... because "Linden Lab" and "consistency of principle, policy, and enforcement" are incompatible concepts?

I think what most of you are doing here is taking this way too seriously. Find the humor in the build, but stop trying to find the humor in 9/11. Yea its a little sick and morbid, but it isnt 9/11...its a build in an online video game, lighten up.

It's false to say that the attack on my event in Baileye -- we pulled together a discussion group on the 10 percent incentive for group land at the seafood restaurant -- was "an accident".

This flyer made several passes, hovering around. One guest said something like, "Oh, I've heard about these guys, but now I'm seeing it." I didn't know what he meant at first, I just saw the usual asswipe in an aircraft buzzing people's heads -- you get people doing that a lot. Sometimes they are just newbies who haven't learned to fly. But when I saw that he was persistently following me, I reached up to try to freeze and eject him, got his object instead, and then returned it -- I wasn't sure there was a person in it right then. When the cliche Islamicist terrorist dropped from the sky and started screaming "Allah" etc. I realized what I had on my hands but had still not tied it to these offensive purveyors of 9/11 snuff porn.

Whatever "accident" this first attack was, the second one, when he came back later again *with the offensive building* and attacked me again , rushing at me in the sky with that horrible thing, was NO accident. Others were witnesses. When I first saw the building, I didn't even realize at first what it was, I even though for a moment, oh, this is just a neighbour trying to situate a build.

So this hiding behind "accidents" is bullshit -- it was deliberate, it was aimed at me. And I'm not going to claim any special insights or experiences around 9/11 in this regard, it was a national horror with thousands of people far more affected by it than me, it's just that they aren't here in this video game to speak up.

Now, am I going to get into an argument about the RL 9/11 with this asswipe? No, because to accept that this should be a discussion about 9/11 in RL is to accept the violent, sectarian doctrine of Bakunin and others regarding "the propaganda of the deed". I do not. Just as I do not accept an Islamicist death cult subjugating both women and men as an antidote to whatever "American cultural imperialism" someone might experience, a model that became attractive precisely because it is among the most tolerant and open in the world, and has capitalized on such openness to grow a wealthy society.

These perpetrators can forever tell Philip Linden that they sparked "an interesting an needed discussion by arrogant Americans about their cultural imperialism" -- and you know something, Philip Linden might just buy that, that's the scary part.