Last Thursday a woman in Japan was arrested for killing another person in the virtual world. According to Japanese authorities the woman was suddenly divorced by the man in the virtual world, this made the woman so upset that she hacked onto his computer and deleted his account thus killing him. The woman is being charged with illegally accessing a computer and manipulating data which in Japan can carry a pretty serious penalty. Personally, I think that the virtual world and Second Life in general is a completely ridiculous concept and to me it’s just a way for the socially awkward to have any kind of “friends.” Now that people who commit crimes in virtual life are being charged with crimes in real life is just absolutely ridiculous. These virtual worlds are nothing more than a glorified video game. To think that people can actually get in trouble in real life for what they do online in these virtual worlds is complete ludicrous. Virtual World and Real Life should be completely separate entities and Virtual Worlds even though they shouldn’t exist should be a place where you can carry out things that you normally wouldn’t do in real life. The only thing that makes any sense out of this situation is that the woman wasn’t charged with cyber crimes (hacking and misusing data.) If they woman was charged with murder then our world would have completely gone to shambles. In Denmark there was a similar story of two kids who were accused of harassing and stealing another kid’s virtual money in the virtual world. These two teenagers were charged with harassment in the real world and sentenced to community service. To me I do not think that these types of things should ever happen. There should be nothing that someone can do in virtual world to get them in trouble in real life. I do not think that this is what the creators of the virtual worlds set out to accomplish when they invented these places, and the real and virtual worlds should be completely separated all the time. If a person was to commit a crime in virtual world send them to virtual court and prosecute them virtually not realistically.
2 comments:
Despite your points here, I must provide an argument for the Second Life in that it is much much more than a "glorified video game" as you say. Second Life is also an up and coming place for business with real people and real money. Another example of a crime in the Second Life is property duplicating. Using a program called Copy Bot, virtual users can duplicate someone stores and/or property and have it for their own. Only problem here is that these properties being duplicated are businesses that make Linden (Second Life currency) and this Linden is pegged to the US dollar and openly traded on LindeXchange for around 300 Linden to the 1 US dollar.
You may have a point by saying it is ridiculous to charge someone with murder or harassment in the Second Life. Despite this, I think you should be more aware of the realness of the Second Life and that it is not just a video game but in fact a rapidly growing mecca for businesses and advertising agencies that does need to have a higher security force in all levels of the Second Life society.
While I think the concept of the virtual life is clever and does appeals to many people, I feel that some of it is a bit ridiculous. I’ve read a few articles suggesting that real people commit crimes in Second Life as a trial run for crimes that they seek to commit in real life, which I find insane. I understand that Second Life is supposed to be extremely interactive and as realistic as possible but I don’t think it is necessary for people to be punished in the actual legal system unless their crime on virtual life is extremely outrageous. I don’t understand why people put so much time and money into Second Life, especially during our poor state of the economy. After reading about the woman in Japan who virtually murdered someone, which led to her virtual divorce, and the eventual virtual murder of her Second Life ex-husband, I feel that the people committing crimes in Second Life should be forced to check psych-ward rather than be forced to stand in front of an actual judge and jury. Maybe if the legal system stopped worrying about crimes in the virtual world, they would solve some actual issues in the real world.
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