Sunday Times blames jihad for ABC’s “server error”

The Sunday Times shows every sign of continuing a downward slide into sensationalist journalism with an article on terrorism in SL in today’s paper.  They report that a “terrorist attack” on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation was possibly a virtual atrocity committed by real Islamic radicals.  As the ABC has stated here that the so-called attack was actually a “server error” (despite some suspicion it may instead have been an embarrassing owner return error) and not a terrorist attack at all, this undermines my faith in the rest of the story rather radically.  This information - that is was NOT a terrorist attack - was published on July 7, and one assumes that if the Sunday Times had attempted to verify the information in their story at any time after that date (given that the item is published today, August 5) the Australian Broadcasting Corporation would have owned up to having made a mistake by assuming it was terrorism, even if they aren’t ready to take responsibility for a mistake with switching on owner return.

The original article from News.com.au is here: it certainly sounds like they need some instruction upon what is, and is not, possible in SL.  It seems they think it is possible to bomb and destroy builds in Second Life. Bombs can be lobbed at builds in Second Life if building is allowed by people other than the owners; destroying other people’s builds is not possible unless someone has been lax and stupid with the permissions they have given to people to change what they own.

Since 9/11 it has been easy for people to scare us.  I remember sitting watching the destruction of the twin towers and feeling that a dark hand could reach out and hit our communities across the world at any time and any place.  It is easy for journalists to feed on that fear, to make us seem much less safer than we are, to make us worry that the real world and the virtual one may be full of people who wish to hurt our lives.

Initially I was persuaded by the authoritative way that the article talked; maybe around the next corner in SL I might find a terrorist engaged on money laundering or training.  A rather heated discussion with my SL partner Oclee showed me the error of my ways.  He had some pithy things to say about the possibility of any terrorist being stupid enough to use SL for training.  And given a moment’s thought, of course he is right.  The fact that the journalist in this case didn’t trouble to check the facts of the ABC “attack” proves that most of it is smoke and mirrors anyway. Hardly any attributable facts appear in the article, which I regard as about as reliable as Tony Blair’s report on Iraq in advance of the illegal invasion.

Actually I hope that terrorists do come into SL.  If they are affected to the extent that many people are, by the feeling that they are in contact with the hearts and minds of other people, and find the same level of connection and community and caring that I have found, maybe SL could deflect them from a path of destruction.