"Islamic militants are suspected of using Second Life, the internet virtual world, to hunt for recruits and mimic real life terrorism." -- Rep Jane Harman, at Congressional hearings on telecommunications and the internet
I wonder how may Second Life dollars it costs to buy weapons of mass destruction? And what island you'd have to go to find to get weapons grade uranium?
...and to think that only a few years ago we were all so worried about the threat of Tellytubbies perverting our children's minds...
*shrug* I fail to see the significance of this statement in terms of stupidity. It isn't stupid, is likely to be true (probably true for any "social network", though those of a decidedly large Muslim membership had been the usual... recruiting grounds so far). Is it news that looking for impressionable youths has been the best recruitment method for any terrorist organization? And is there anything stupid or laughable in stating that for a "game" which is essentially an attempt at creating a virtual reality?
They, along with Barney need to be put into a rocket and launched into the sun. Bear in the Big Blue House can stay though. I like bear. I'm on the fence when it comes to The Doodlebops.
I think it's just yet another reason to hate the video game and website surfing culture for the fuddy duddies of society. No doubt people are getting PMs and being enticed into some kind of violence, or terrorism even, on a lot of these places, some young people may even join them hoping to be, but to single out any particular game or website is pretty stupid and, to me anyway, demonstrates the ignorance and buck passing mentality of some politicians and media types. They might just as well say "don't worry though, we're also recruiting people to join the SAS and Navy SEALS so they can storm buildings and jumbo jets and annihilate the terrorist". I'm sure you could argue that games like Battlefield 2, Counter-Strike and a whole plethora of similar games are subversively recruiting young people into the army. In fact they even have ads on TV with soldiers using xbox-like controllers to fly UAVs, which is pretty powerful advertising but I don't think kids are going to join the army in droves because of it any more than Second Life is going to create an increase in terrorism.
Um, all *I* see here so far is an attempt to bring attention to the fact that the "web culture" is pretty vulnerable to terrorist recruitment - and it is. It's pretty much the single most active propaganda and recruitment tool in developed and developing countries, and is thus worthy of attention. I think Second Life was brought up because it works as a fine illustrative example - because of Second Life's unique aspects. No one here said that Second Life is a Tool of Satan and thus must be cleansed in purifying fire, and I don't see any responsibility-dodging here either. This is about awareness, not about blaming games for bad education. Second Life isn't a game, and neither is anyone claiming that the *game* "subverts poor impressionable people". What was said is that *people* are using Second Life as a medium, both for recruitment and for some half-assed terrorist/spook training programme. In this, Second Life actually went a step further than various social networks, and thus serves as a prime example of the dangers of the net - at least as far as terrorism is concerned. This is would be no different than saying that paedophiles are using social networks as hunting grounds (they are, by the way, and it's no less scary). A parallel in Second Life would be if some pedos tried to use it as a testing ground for real-life stalking, along with hunting for kids who faked an adult's account.
Second Life Goes to Washington From this article, it seems to me that the debate was about virtual worlds in general (more of a future trend than a current trend in my opinion, but seeing someone debate the future for a change is actually a positive change from the usual attempts at solving yesterday's problems), with Second Life being the central item on the stage as it is the most known, and possibly largest, such virtual world in existence. The more I read into this, the less funny it becomes. This isn't about games at all, folks. This is about VR, the good and the bad.
Well that's the sick thing, they already are using Second life for sick things like that, I remember reading about a whole group of people being prosecuted for simulating pedo sex acts (the "children" involved were adults who created kiddie avatars and got off on the whole thing) in Second life... if you have something that imitates life like that, then people will use it for all the things they don't dare to do in real life (hopefully they don't)...
Its not that strange the biggest business on the internet is still porn. It seems all new technologies are first used by the sex trade and they eventually make it to the mainstream... You could probably argue that the porn industries adoption of VHS was the death knell for Beta...
Yes, I have heard that about VHS before. I have noticed the mainstream affects porn as well, after I heard about a Fox news personality raising concerns about a certain act, I noticed an increased frequency of that acts portrayal, not that I'm a porn fiend or anything. I do check it out from time to time just to see what the boys and girls are up to.
There was a Supreme Court case which said that it is OK for adults to play the roles of children engaging in sexual acts (as in a porn movie where an adult actress dresses up and talks like a little girl). I don't know if there has been new precedent set since then, or how the issue of misrepresentation affects this. I can't imagine someone trying to sue the boy they had cyber-sex with because he said he was 14 but was really 18.
I think it was rather that the acts were taking place in a non-private part where anyone could witness them, rather than the actual identities of the participants...
