I thought about not publicizing this information at first, because as we often discuss at the Herald, when you publicize griefing, you often fuel the harassment because one of the things that the poor, sick fucks who grief do is take great pleasure at watching other people's fear, and shock, and pain. They love having power over other people. You can deprive them of that sick enjoyment by not giving them news coverage.
In the age of the instant blogation of just about everything and the 24/7 news cycle that's actually a hard thing to do. The Herald might decide to give a pass to the disgusting video of a parade of pink penises defacing and griefing Anshe's CNET conference; but SL Insider will pick it up as will every other blog in town (Blingsider even ran it because their sister blog in the AOL family Joystiq scooped them, using "censor" blocks). There's something to be said for not publicizing griefing actions; but in fact, that goes against everything I've always stood for. I believe firmly that publicity is the best weapon; that glasnost really is the best tool to fight human rights abuse; that sunlight is the best disinfectant. I can't imagine living any other way.
I don't enjoy making my *own* case -- it's easier to make other peoples'. But I decided that it's really wrong to go around merely telling the Lindens and a few people about the crimes of some people in SL -- real-life crimes -- and not try to be part of the force that ends these crimes through publicity -- the only thing we residents have left, given that the Lindens hold all the tools, and yet use them so inadequately.
Last week, I got a phone call in RL from Plastic Duck, who had stalked me to my RL home.
Ever since the Herald, and then Nolan Nash, began to draw links between my avatar and my RL identity, I've had a passle of fucktards following me around trying to "out" me and harass me constantly not only about my writings or avatar's gender, but about my RL work -- even linking up the *wrong* RL to me and accusing me falsely of plagiarism (that was the misfortune of another person in another state unrelated).
In the case of Nolan, I felt it was imperative to out his attempt to silence and blackmail me by being utterly public on the forums about what he was doing; he retaliated by spreading around my RL information so that more people got it and linked it and began google witch-hunts. Today, google-witch-hunting Prokofy is one of SL's chief sports, with lame-asses like FlipperPA Peregrine even finding some seminar I did somewhere a few months ago and publishing the entire transcript -- that's how lacking in real lives he and so many others are, and why stalking helps them fill the vacuum.
Somehow, by getting my RL name out of Second Citizen or the other google witch-hunters, the Canadian resident who calls himself Plastic Duck simply went through the phone book and kept asking until he hit the right one. In fact, I had seen a number calling from (416) area code in Canada for awhile and not picked up, since I usually screen calls.
But this time, my little daughter happened to pick up the phone, and when the stranger asked if this was the same person as Prokofy Neva, she unwittingly said, "Yes," not realizing at her age that this could be done with malevolence. "That's all I needed to know," said the voice, and hung up. I immediately called him back and asked who it was, and he said, "Plastic Duck" in a smirking, young man's voice. The number was likely a throw-away cell phone.
Within minutes, I got two notices in my email. First was, "Welcome to Second Life, Ol Fitzgerald!" -- the announcement of the making of a SL account which I *did not make*. Second was an IM from Anshe saying, "You didn't give this griefer penises, did you?"
Sure enough, this griefing account made with my spoofed identity, even coming to my mail box, was used in the attack on CNET's interview with Anshe Chung. The one that Chris "Petey" Peterson from the PR arm of the griefing-group W-Hat just "happened" to arrive on time for to film.
So Plastic Duck stooped so low as to get *a child* to link a stranger's identity to an avatar then attempt to spoof the ID on a griefing account now removed from the People list. He's caused RL children in a RL family to worry about their safety in their home. That's fucking evil.
I'm not afraid of this lame little fucktard; I know that the griefing and grid-crashing he has done around SL is all that he has to point to as an "accomplishment" and that he has no other claim to fame.
I've taken swift action in RL on this assault. I know full well that such things take a very long time, don't yield quick results, but are well worth doing. I won't be answering any questions about what the action involves, to ensure that it is as effective as possible.
I've also taken action regarding another W-Hat griefer engaged in RL crime of libel -- Chris "Petey" Peterson. On his blog, he's printed a number of falsehoods about me anyone can easily fact-check and refute. He's claimed I'm some kind of "former" this or "former that" -- all false, as I remain very much "current" in these things and more. He's claimed I'm some kind of "academic" which I never was. He's claimed the most outrageous falsehood about me at all; that I gave up affecting change in RL to play in SL. All false. I work in causes and projects that a lame little asswipe like "Petey" can't even begin to comprehend -- nor is it his business, nor will I be giving him or other rubberneckers cause to peer even further into my exposed RL.
Most of all, I believe the causes I work on in SL are very much tied to a RL that all of us will be experiencing more and more of in the times to come -- and unfortunately, from what I have seen so far, we have a great deal to be concerned about. I don't think anybody who disagrees about the nature or uses of SL, and prefers to see it as "only a video game," gets to terrorize people using these methods like calling up a child in RL to make their point -- much less grief somebody inworld and destroy their events, their income, their property just because they think it's pixels. It's not. It's sick, and it's deeply fucked, and those who have any proximity to this need to rapidly disassociate themselves from it.
Some other anonymous asstard has posted on here that I am "challenged" by Petey and "how do I plead" now "guilty or not guilty"? I don't do shit, either way, because I don't take part in kangaroo courts and troikas where falsified charges are presented by terrorists to try to silence dissent.
Something Awful is a substrate for terrorism in SL -- it's a site where griefers in SL find comfort, haven, advice, moral support, publicity, readership, sustenance. W-HAT is a group that recruits, guides, encourages, griefing in SL. As such it is related to criminal acts involving DNS attacks, grid crashes, harassment of people, and even stalking them in RL, and even libeling them in RL. That's because griefing that happens in virtual worlds and online, law-enforcers often find, very often *does* have a correlary in RL. If a griefer can't get the scare effect he wants to in virtuality -- he will reach into reality. Of course that will make it all the more likely he will be caught.
I want people to realize that their goofing around and flirtations and indulgences of W-Hat and its spin-offs is part of what sustains its criminality. Each time the libsecondlife gang starts protesting that there are only a few bad eggs, they enable this criminality to continue. Each time somebody threatens others trying to discuss both the criminality and the enablers of criminality, they help it to continue -- and frankly, that's what happens when the Lindens ban me from the Blog for trying to confront Cory Linden over his sustaining of a group where griefing occurs again and again
The person Cory and other Lindens and top SL scripters let remain in libsecond life for months under the name "Gene Replacement" is the person stalking me in RL and attempting to scare and harm me and my kids; the person who made IBM's roof in their much-publicized build is attempting to scare and harm me and my kids in RL; the person who is interviewed with such impish glee by Tatero Nino in the Blingsider is attempting to scare and harm me and my kids in RL. All of them make this sickness possible to continue. Do they benefit from it or something?! Because it is impossible to understand why they do this.
Criminality is also enabled when you try to silence people when they discuss it. That's what happens when Akela threatens me for confronting "Petey" on SL Insider over his HIGHLY tendentious and misleading version of the Anshe press conference. They are helping to enable criminality to continue. Huns Valens and other long-time SL members who keep victory-dancing around the edges of W-Hat parties in the shadows and claim to have plausible deniability of their griefing are part of what enables it to continue in each new permutation. This constant Eddie Haskell routine where scores and scores of griefers passing through libsecondilfe and W-Hat keep bringing the grid to its knees and keep saying "Gee, Mrs. Linden, what a lovely dress you have!" even as they use reverse-engineering to harass people -- ALL of it is what enables criminality to continue.
Tonight, Partyhats Loll, an obvious new W-hat alt, and member of libsecondlife who has been in it for some weeks and who has already griefed me on occasion, sent around a card with false information claiming libelously that Cubey Terra and Pathfinder Linden were "Griefers" in a fake "help card" that could be mistaken by newbies. What does Eddy Stryker and Baba Yamamoto do about someone like Parthyhats Loll? No confrontation, no expulsion from the group -- no nothing. Just like they did nothing for months when Gene Replacement and some 20 other constant, deliberate, well-documented griefers were inside libsecondlife and then finally permbanned. Just like no nothing about other W-hat alts that still live in libsecondlife and are documented as doing a whole host of bad things like putting cut-off bloody furry heads or the tub-girl particle script on my lands to horrify my tenants. That's real criminality.
Criminality. Crime. As in not "a video game" but a RL criminal act for which there are real life consequences.
I'm also thinking about a new policy for when I come back in the new year. Last year, I reached the point where I simply felt it was not required to allow anonymous griefers with trolling, vicious comments to keep posting in the name of free discourse. I made a new policy to have people post with their SL names on this blog to stop this fakery of Nolan Nash's, where he was coming on with 4-5 nicks and making my life hell with constant, malicious, nit-picking griefing posts. Removing him really changed the tone of the blog and made a lot of really good discussions become possible over the year. It ended the near-daily diatribes from this fake female alt of Nolan's. Of course, he's likely the one who continues tiwh the bickering and vicious alts at the Herald, but at least he isn't poisoning this well AFAIK.
It might be a good idea to add to this policy banning anyone who acts so as to harm you in RL, through disclosure of RL, stalking, libel, etc. or who takes action inworld so as to cause you damages and loss of income and so on. It's been the hallmark of some of the SC regulars to do this -- not only wish harm inworld, and conjure up various griefing posses, but also to wish -- and take action for -- harm in RL, i.e. by getting someone banned. People doing that go beyond the pale in SL. There's no one for whom I'd wish that SL be taken away from them for some specious, trumped-up reasons merely to obtain revenge. So I think that when people act in this way they shouldn't be allowed to keep posting. It's a harder category to govern and it will lead to the predictable shrieks of hypocrisy and lack of freedom of speech -- shrieks you never hear about Cristiano or Pham Neutra and their blogs where control and censorship is far heavier.
I'm going to close the comments on this post because I do not want anyone spitting on me as they always do on every single post I make. And I won't be posting for awhile as I want this post to burn in really hard and make people think again and again what Second Life has been used for, and what real criminals have been able to amplify their evil and cause real harm to other people. It's not a game.
PS Although I closed comments on this post at the time, these ping-backs occurred:
http://www.3pointd.com/20070102/secondcast-48-christmas-smackdown/
Episode 48 of SecondCast, our weekly podcast about Second Life, is now on the air. We cover Christmas presents and game consoles and get into some of the more interesting corporate initiatives in the virtual world of Second Life, including the Grid Review, and Pontiac’s Motorati Life, both of which are great examples of promotional undertakings which mesh with and add to native SL culture. We wring our hands a bit over the hand-wringing about Second Life’s population, and Cristiano and I get into a good old-fashioned, chair-throwing smackdown over the issue of Prokofy Neva’s having been harassed over the real-world telephone by what seems to be a virtual-world nemesis. All good stuff. Happy new year.
http://thenewmarketing.com/blogs/thenewmarketing/archive/2006/12/27/681.aspx
Second Life PR tip: Be ready for animated pink flying penises
An in-Second Life interview with millionaire landlord Anshe Chung at CNET's in-world headquarters was disrupted when a group calling itself "Room 101" caused a flurry of animated pink flying penises to drift through the room. Attempts to reconvene at other locations were similarly vexed, but eventually the interview took place.
(The Register wonders why the reporter didn't simply call Ms. Chung on the phone when Plans A and B failed. Maybe the interview itself wasn't the real point - the fact that it was conducted in Second Life was.)
"Virtual magnate shares secrets of success" (CNET)
"Gross Genitals Grief Graef, Commandeer CNET Conference" (Second Life Safari)
"CNET interviewer assaulted by flying wang" (The Register)
YouTube video of the "griefing"
In related stories, Second Lifer Prokofy Neva says that this sort of thing isn't harmless videogame pranking, but real life terrorism; and Ed Felten ponders Linden Labs siccing the FBI on this group for creating an in-world object that crashed Second Life's servers.
What can we learn from this fiasco? For one thing, that the elements of Second Life that make it attractive to users make it a highly volatile place to work in. You can deal with nasty comments on your corporate blog much more easily than you can handle someone with in-world superpowers deciding that your press conference would be a great venue to unveil his exploding chicken bombs that shower your island with porn.
"Take someone and deprive them of any sort of 'real' social contact. Give them the ability to script any program, animate any action, or build any object through intuitive processes. Allow them to own their creations, and to sell them to the highest bidder. ...Now make the person in question the psychotic neighborhood kid who slashes holes in the back of the schoolbus with his Swiss Army knife, and you will begin to realize the Lovecraftian horror of Second Life. "
-- Chris "Petey" Peterson, Second Life Safari (Not Safe For Work, unless you work for a marketing agency and are reading it for research. Ahem.)
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