(Title Screen)
Report Mainz, with Fritz Frei.
(Moderator)
"Good evening. Second Life, that's the name of the brave new world on the internet where I and you can become residents too. Today, more than 6 millions of residents are registered world-wide, and the community is growing on a daily basis. Second Life is extremely popular here in Germany: Finally being able to live our lives in a way that we are unable to in the real world - that's fascinating.
Of course, big companies were quick to discover Second Life for themselves, even an employment center can be found there; built by Germans (TN - translator's note: failed joke about the high unemployment rate in Germany). But Second Life also attracts the evil: Weapons, harrassment and, as Thomas Dauser and Nick Schader found out, even child pornography - and this to an extent which leaves even hard boiled prosecutors speechless."
(Second Life footage, commentator)
"Only a few mouseclicks are needed to create an own avatar. From that point on, everything is possible within the second, virtual life: holidays at the sea, night life in the city, shopping in posh shops. And everyone wants to be present in the brave new world; even the (German) federal state Baden-Württemberg recently opened an agency here. Second Life - a better world?"
(Cut to a playground)
"We're venturing deeper into the virtual second life. A children's playground in Second Life. A man approaches a little girl and addresses her:"
(On-Screen titles, no sound)
"Would you like to cuddle for a while?"
"May I give you a kiss? You decide where I kiss you."
"My sweet little girl."
(Commentator again)
"The man passes some money to the child, only a few Euro in conversion, and takes her with him. What happens next is shocking: Report Mainz are the first to document (TN: a blatant lie) how players meet in Second Life to abuse children." (TN: no one ever mentions that these "children" are adult roleplayers).
(Cut to an interview partner, commentator)
"Trauma therapist Lutz-Ulrich Besser has years of experience working with sexually abused children. We're showing him the scenes filmed in Second Life." (TN: and of course we also won't tell him that these children aren't children).
(Mr. Besser, trauma therapist)
"It's simply harrowing. It's simply harrowing, and when you imagine that real persons are behind these avatars, persons who, so to speak, control these characters and the commands, and the sexual exploitation and humiliation happening there, er, then these things are really instruction manuals for sexual exploitation and sexual crimes commited to children." (TN: no, I didn't try to make him sound like a dork. That's exactly what he said. Perhaps he was simply too shocked to make much sense).
(SL footage, commentator)
"There are places in Second Life that are crammed with fetishes of the child pornography scene. A playroom; a girl in a white dress tied with a ribbon. Pedophile criminals playfully act out the sexual abuse of children here, probably hundreds of times in a row." (TN: that's how demagogues add emphasis to their messages; I doubt they stayed long enough to witness the supposed "hundreds of times in a row"
.(Cut to Mr. Besser, a trauma therapist armed with a projector)
"Scientific studies confirm that such game scenes are downright burned into the human brain. The inhibition threshold of pedophile criminals is lowered, not only within the game but also in their real life."
(Projector shows a human brain, to prove this is proper science. TN: most of the target audience of the ARD reside in retirement homes and don't need references to these supposed scientific studies. "Scientific" sounds meaningful, that's enough).
(Therapist Mr. Besser)
"This opens doors for them (the pedophile criminals) to, so to speak, while hiding behind a virtual person in these chatrooms or virtual Second Life worlds, rehearse action-guiding behavioral patterns in order to easier find new victims. That means, so to speak, it's a playful preparation to become either a victim or an offender." (TN: he still doesn't know that the "victims" are controlled by adults).
(Cut to a computer screen, commentator)
"The pedophile scene is long informed. An internet forum. German pedophiles share their ideas here. They also talk about Second Life. One of them writes: 'A porn movie that you can direct yourself, now that would be something.'"
(Cut to SL footage)
"This is what it looks like in Second Life: Inside of a house we witness how a 13 year old girl is repeatedly raped. (TN: the TV audience must still think that she's really 13 years old, and that rape is technically possible in SL). Other players are watching."
(Cut to an interview partner, commentator)
"Senior public prosecutor Peter Vogt is one of the most successful prosecutors in cases of child pornography. For the first time he's watching the footage from Second Life filmed by Report Mainz."
(Peter Vogt, senior prosecutor)
"I'm simply speechless. This unambiguousity - it really makes no difference if this is a fictitious or a real event, when the objective elements of child abuse are given. This... service is a child pornography service according to paragraph 184B section 1." (TN: and thus he pronounced a judgement on SL without knowing any facts yet. We Germans are really quick to judge, especially our police forces).
(Commentator)
"By now, senior prosecutor Peter Vogt has alarmed the Federal Office of Criminal Investigation. He wants to 'get' the operating company behind Second Life." (TN: at this point millions of watching German retirees must have assumed that SL freely offers or even advertises such services. Every German who now tells their parents or grandparents that he plays SL... well, god knows what they gonna assume).
(Cut to the Linden Lab entrance)
"Here it's being programmed, the supposedly ideal world of Second Life - San Francisco, Linden Lab. There have already been clues of child pornography, acknowledges the vice president."
(Robin Harper)
"It's happened a couple of times. All in a course of... 4 years now."
(Cut to another interview partner, commentator)
"Some individuals have been banned by Linden Lab for this reason. That's not enough for Friedemann Schindler. He leads the Department for the Protection of Minors on the Internet, and says it would be no problem to prevent child pornography within the virtual world."
(Friedemann Schindler, Dept.f.t.Protection of Minors o.t.Internet)
"The operators of these virtual worlds used to call themselves Gods (TN: I guess he doesn't know that GOD is simply an abbreviation of 'Games Operation Designate' and that 'GM' is a lot more common), because of their god-like abilities to set up rules and implement all their wishes into a program. Linden Lab has some simple options to prevent the sexual abuse, simply by programming their world in a way that makes sexual contacts between children and adults impossible." (TN: we Germans are a bit behind the times, especially our governmental departments and police forces who barely started to discover the internet. And I'm sure he also wasn't aware that children aren't allowed onto the adult grid in the first place).
(Cut to an SL group member list, commentator)
"Instead, countless pedophile criminals have settled down in Second Life. During our research, a German player starts a conversation with us. He sends us images. Horrible images. Report Mainz presents them to the operating company of Second Life". (TN: a German player who trades highly illegal photos to random strangers? That's so staged).
(Cut to the poor and understandably totally shocked Robin Harper)
Reporter: "These are the images that we were provided before."
Robin: (TN: partially re-translated from the dubbed german voice, since I was unable to understand the muted english sound; if this is not what Robin really said, the ARD messed up the german translation) "They're not. These are actual children, they're not avatars."
(Cut to the RL photos, projected onto a screen within SL; commentator)
"Little girls, mistreated and abused - photos within Second Life, available for everyone. (TN: Jesus Christ on crutches. What a blatant lie). The operating company is apparently clueless." (TN: Yeah, because it's quite possible that these photos weren't around before the ARD team wanted them to be).
(Robin Harper; again partially re-translated from the dubbed german sound)
"What I would hope is that whoever found these pictures will let us know immediately who is behind them, and we will call the police."
(TN: this reaction is completely understandable, unlike the decision to forbid certain forms of consentual adult roleplay. I also hope they catch whoever shot and uploaded these photos, and I also hope the police will closely investigate the ARD reporter team as well. They might be surprised).
(Cut, commentator)
"Based on the research of Report Mainz, senior prosecutor Peter Vogt immediately initiates preliminary proceedings."
(Peter Vogt)
"We will try to find out the identity of this person. If we're successful, this person will be subject to a criminal procedure for the reason of procuration and possession of child pornography, a crime punishable by imprisonment for 3 months up to 5 years."
(Cut to SL footage)
"For the first time, a criminal investigation is going on in Second Life. (TN: The ARD team really loves to claim 'we were the first, no one else cares'). But the virtual world is continuously growing, day by day. As of now, Second Life has more than 6 millions of players." (TN: I guess he meant: 'we will be back to dig out more scandals').
