Sex, Lies, & Avatar Defamation?
Well, I hope that you overlook the fact that I’m a bit late getting this one out, but due to a few unforeseen circumstances I had no choice. But instead of just dropping this, I really wanted to get this one posted for a few reasons that I hope you will see as you read this post. Enjoy!
Once again the Anshe Chung debacle fills the news and blogoshere with a myriad of articles. As expressed in my previous two posts: VR Legal Rights and VR Legal Rights Revisited, the regular readers of VTOR already know my feelings regarding this event, which are only being further strengthened as the truth continues to be exposed. I am as tired of reading about all of this garbage - the false claims, lies, and lame excuses that the Graef’s have presented as are most people. Will this ever die?
Now I know that this has received far more press than it truly deserves, but there are some serious questions that have been raised by this tumultuous event. The first question encompassed the issues of copyright law and fair use practices within a virtual world. The second question to arise in my mind concerns any individuals attempt to impose their local real world standards upon a global community and a virtual one at that. I find it rather unfortunate that the latter issue seems to have been missed by those who are focusing upon the obvious lies and back peddling of the Graef’s, as they vainly attempt to cover their ass. The reason for my VTOR post is to bring some light to and hopefully get some sort of dialog started concerning this issue.
In the latest C|Net News.com installment regarding the Anshe Chung incident, which is called Behind the Anshe Chung DMCA complaint, Staff Writer Daniel Terdiman provides Guntram Graef a platform to explain why he filed, then withdrew, the DMCA complaint. Though many of Graef’s statements in this article were debunked in my previous post; VR Legal Rights Revisited, there was the issue of the attempt to impose some form of local standards upon a virtual global community that became even more apparent as I was reading this article.
In response to a question as to why these videos and images were defaming, Graef said:
“I think what many people in the U.S. and Australia have not been aware of is that Ailin is Chinese, and showing photos of her that have been manipulated into hugging huge penises and stuff like that is quite devastating in this culture. But even according to American standards, I think imagery that shows penises forced onto a woman is a gross sexual assault and by far not a parody.”
Now whether these images were of a flattering nature or of a defamatory nature, how can they directly reflect upon the individual? It is obvious fact that a video or photo of an avatar performing some act is certainly not the same thing as a video or photo of the individual performing the act. Except that is when the individual is in full control and using their avatar to perform these acts.
Do the Chinese people view an avatar as that persons equivalent? I would not think so, but it does seem that Graef would have us believe that. So if such behavior as hugging huge penises and things of a sexual nature are quite devastating among the Chinese culture as Guntram Graef would like us to believe, then why did Ailin Graef begin her Second Life as Anshe Chung the escort and private entertainer, as reported by The Sydney Morning Herald in an article called Anshe’s kinky past revealed? It seems to me that this would have a far greater defamatory affect upon the woman then the publication of any video footage or images from some lame grief attack, since she was a willing and acting participant in the activity. Would you not agree? So if there has been any personal defamation to Ailin Graef, she brought it upon herself.
Perhaps this earlier activity has been overlooked by the Chinese culture due to the level of financial success that she has achieved in Second Life. Though I don’t have any first hand experience living in the Chinese culture, I do know that money has a way of changing views among several Western Societies. Now with the East becoming more and more influenced by Western culture, this may have a bearing upon things here. Regardless, it is ludicrous for us to believe the tale that the Graef’s do tell.
So who should dictate the standards and acceptable behavior inside a virtual world? Should it not be the members of the community which comprise the virtual world, in a way much like that of the very real free world? I personally think that it should be what the majority of the community defines as acceptable behavior. But would even this begin to impose some sort of limitation to the lure and promise of a virtual world like that of Second Life, where you are free to explore your creativity, dreams, and fantasies, only limited by your imagination? We quickly begin to run into questions of morality, which can be rather difficult to define as well as impose upon others.
So why don’t you weigh in here and let’s hear what you have to say and feel regarding this issue.
January 24th, 2007 • 
jvastine • 
comment | January 24, 2007 at 12:45 | individual comment-link
The particles of Anshe holding the giant penis were shops of her real-life photo, not that of her avatar, as you seem to be implying here.
comment | January 24, 2007 at 13:41 | individual comment-link
Hi Claryssa - Anshe’s response is pretty hard to defend on this one, even if they were her real pictures that were used.
As to answer the following question you posed, jvastine: “So who should dictate the standards and acceptable behavior inside a virtual world”
One of the things that attracted me to SL was the freedom. If there are too many “rules” from any entity, whether it be Linden Lab or the community as a whole, it could damage that freedom. We already have too many laws in society and laws in virtual worlds should be limited to things which impair the experience for the greater number of residents. For example, griefing attacks which take down the entire grid and objects that steal L$ from lots of people.
My opinion is that the main grid is already an adult area and there are ways to prevent people from distracting public events including having people act as bouncers for the event or limiting the invite list to invite-only, just as there are at many clubs, bars, dance clubs, etc. Those tools need to be employed to make sure distractions like this one with Anshe Chung don’t happen as often.
We have a meeting every Friday live in SL and how many times have we had a disruption? Maybe once or twice, from what I can remember.
The reason Anshe drew the griefers is because of her celebrity inside SL. As for whether or not what happened to her was defamatory? That’s up to courts to decide if Anshe really wants to go that far. Personally, I think she would have been a lot better off just laughing the incident off then getting all humiliated by it and trying to make it a DMCA takedown and then backing off to it being defamatory (now?).
The pro and anti Anshe camps are both too extreme, IMO. The moderate, middle position (which is where I’d put myself) seems to accept that what happened to Anshe was unfortunate, but also seemed to take it a bit tongue-in-cheek. Most reasonable people would like to know they can schedule events inside Second Life and have ways to limit the amount of third party disruption. These tools do exist and next time CNET wants to do an interview, they should use them.
comment | January 24, 2007 at 15:30 | individual comment-link
Hi Claryssa, that is indeed an interesting point that you make. Now personally neither having seen the images or videos nor possessing any real desire to, I was going by what was reported by a number of sources, which all left me under the impression that the items in question consisted of both video footage of the actual grief attack and in-world screencaps of the attack. However, I decided to view the items in question to verify the accuracy of my reporting.
I located the following comment on the C|Net article mentioned in my post:
So things do appear as you stated; “Anshe holding the giant penis were shops of her real-life photo, not that of her avatar” is indeed true. Since it is very obvious that this is a manipulated image, the defamatory claims still imply that members of the Chinese community could not distinguish this image as just being a parody, in bad taste perhaps, but still a parody. I’m sorry, but I do not buy that as the Asians that I know are highly intelligent people and quite capable of seeing right through this.
Any way that you look at this, the whole incident and the following actions by the Graef’s was handled improperly. If there was any defamation caused by all of this, it appears to me that it was that which the Graef’s brought upon themselves with the web of lies and deception that they wove.
comment | January 24, 2007 at 16:15 | individual comment-link
Hi TD Googliffe, I quite agree with your comment. We do have far too many laws in society today and as Americans, our 1st Amendment Rights are slowly being eroded away.
The major attractiveness to Second Life is indeed the freedom to explore your creative energies and explore your dreams and fantasies with the only limitation being the boundaries of your imagination. Now not taking into consideration the current limitations within the virtual worlds, this does enable many individuals to explore and experience life in many ways that would otherwise be impossible, which in turn can and often does enrich their journey through real life. The imposition of a set of rules and regulations will greatly impair that.
However, there does need to be a few guidelines to prevent others from hampering the experiences of the community in general and prevent personal injury or financial losses like those that you mentioned. If things start to go beyond this, then Second Life will just become a mirror of the first life, instead of mirroring the creative imaginations of the residents.
How can you defame an avatar, anyway? We already live in an overly litigious society, do we really want to extend the right to assert a cause of action for defamation, et cetera to non-entities like
avatars? How can one “sexually assault” an avatar?
You made some good suggestions on how to minimize problems and distractions for events that are either public or private. People do need to learn to take into consideration the possibilities of a grief attack or other disruption occurring and use common sense and any sim tools to reduce the possibility of these things occurring successfully. Even though this extra precautionary planning may be a bit of an inconvenience, it is necessary because unfortunately there shall always be those among us who derive some form of perverted pleasure out of creating misfortune for others.
pingback | January 25, 2007 at 09:41 | individual pingback-link
[...] Bad example Well, I hope that you overlook the fact that I’m a bit late getting this one out, but due to a few unforeseen circumstances I had no choice. But instead of just dropping this, I really wanted to get this one posted for a few reasons that I hope you will see as you read this post. Enjoy! [...]