I recently posted about the so-called “Australian ban” of Second Life, which is actually a much broader issue, and has garnered significant attention from both the virtual world and gaming communities. (My post also generated significant comments, all of it worth reading, thanks everyone for contributing).
Linden Lab has provided the following “official comment”:
“Linden Lab has received no indications from the Australian government that it plans to block Second Life and will keep our community apprised of any developments on that front. In the meantime, we want to assure Australian Residents that Second Life remains accessible and functioning in your region.
Australia has and will continue to be an important market for Linden Lab, and we’re committed to providing the best possible Second Life experience for the users in that market. Some of the most exciting uses of Second Life have come out of Australia, a diverse community of Residents that includes major universities, large enterprises and many thousands of consumers, who spend hundreds of thousands of hours inworld each month.”
I have to say, it’s really unfortunate that this issue has been misinterpreted - I’ve received messages asking whether Australia is ALREADY banned, and others who thought their friends were having trouble logging in to SL because of it.
The “ban” is a proposed piece of legislation. It is far broader than Second Life, and SL was not explicitly targeted (although others may argue differently). The fact that the ‘ban’ is even being proposed is cause for concern, and should rightly be the focus of lobbying from both users and platform owners, but misconceptions have arisen from the whole thing, to the embarrassment of some in the Australian government.
Hopefully Linden Lab’s statement brings some peace of mind that there is support for Second Life in the Australian government and that life on the Grid is currently unaffected.
Dusan,
You’re so right in emphasising the legislation is only proposed at this stage and that SL isn’t being explicitly targated.
That said, Linden Lab confirming they’re not aware of an issue does not indicate support in the Australian government for Second Life in any way, shape or form. The Minister in question has next to no understanding of Second Life and his only substantive comments (in Opposition from memory) on Second life was to criticise the Aust Broadcasting Corporation’s presence in SL.
Overall, it’s not the end of the world some make it out to be, but it’s also far from a resolved issue.
Hmmm….mind you, I do believe the Lab should append the statement to say something like:
“And to clarify, we have been in touch with the Australian government directly. Also, if they make a move in this direction, we have plans in place to send Philip down under to talk about electricity. That should shut them up.”
@ Lowell - agreed and agreed. This shouldn’t be taken lightly.
But what do you think of my idea of using Philip as a secret weapon? He can go down and talk about SL as a terrarium, or SL being better than the Web because it’s more like Warcraft, or maybe give them meditation lessons or something?
Any one of these ideas will bring peace and harmony to all.
(Sorry, couldn’t resist - I DO agree this shouldn’t be taken lightly, it’s just I love Pip so).
I believe the minister’s office (just of the record Conroy is officially the Minister for Communications, Broadband and the Digital Economy, not censorship) has confirmed that Second Life is not a game for the purposes of the existing and proposed censorship schemes and claimed that Second Life was not intended to be covered by the announcement.
I would be reluctant to unleash the Phil on an alarmed Canberra. My concern is that he would inadvertently persuade Conroy that either or both of electricity and terrariums are a profound evil which should be blotted from the face of the nation in the near future.
Send him down I say, though Alberik makes some good points
Sending Phil down to Australia to talk… you’re not trying to put an entire continent to sleep, are you?
-ls/cm
The idea is to lull, calm, Zen-ify.
Worse than the danger to the electricity network and terrariums, what if he told Conjob about all those little people in the phone?
I’m and Aussie and I’m not at all impressed with our government’s bizarre laws they are introducing. Nothing is surprising here any more. For instance, as of July 1 a new law came into effect where you can only purchase cigarettes from ONE checkout - it is illegal to sell cigarettes at another cash register but one designated. Does this make any sense? Welcome to Australia - the new Communist country downunder! They are trying to take away all our rights!!!
I’m very glad the Australian government is regulating the Internet, social media, and virtual worlds and online games.
These are all the proper subject of government regulation in a liberal democratic civil society under the rule of law — which is the case for Australia.
I think it’s great that people can propose through the democratic, elected legislative process of representative government ideas for dealing with the huge number of challenges produced by the Internet, social media, and virtual worlds, given their huge capacity for destruction of economies, objective news, free speech, protection of minors, and morals.
These are all legitimate areas of democratic governments and have always been throughout time.
People who can make the case for the good uses of virtual worlds, or the extention of the protections of free speech affordable in democratic Australia ought to make those arguments through the liberal and democratic process of fact-based scientific peer-reviewed studies, parliamentary hearings, advocacy by interest groups, free media coverage, etc.
What they should not be advocating is that “Philip should get the electricity to Australia shut off unless they allow his hedonic nihilist game to play on their territory.”
That sort of thing opens up entire aveues of questioning about the true nature of virtual worlds and whether they are in fact sinister hijackers of legitimate and democratic sovereignty.
If, in the process of this democratic debate about something that only a proposal and a legislative draft about regulation of said virtual worlds, that the world of SL finds that it is banned from schools, let’s say, then those who found themselves in the minority, and felt that schools should be able to access BDSM clubs and other objectionable content inappropriate for age groups or mass audiences, will then have to concede that they “lost this one” and have to go back to lobbying for the right to everyone, including themselves, to be able to have the right to see, oh, I dunno, Joshua Nightshade swap spit with Pathfinder Linden. Or whatever it is they feel is edifying for the next generation.
We shouldn’t construe their loss in this particular democratic legislative battle to regulate virtual worlds to be “censorship” or “draconian control of the Internet” or the other things that hysterics have invoked, which only lets us know how discredited their cause is, as it has been false.
agreed,
let a democratic representational system work its voodoo.
those who think , vr toys and virtual action figures and barbiedolls should be immune to debate or any thoughts beyond those of a few programmers in california, or their bankers are the true “insert insulting word”
forcing the reality of virtuality out into the light of day by democratic means is no problem.
it should be the norm, the fact its treated as abnormal, shows the true problems.
Apart from the panic (I was not immune) the really interesting thing is how low SL’s profile really is and how high many of us think it is.
One respected Australian resident argued that Conroy was going after SL to make his regulatory proposals more acceptable to the senate. I searched the Senate Hansard and found zero, zip, nada mentions of SL in the debates. When I widened my search to the House of Representatives and parliamentary committees I did find a not very serious exchange some years ago in an estimates committee (a process for scrutinising the budget and the performance of government and semi-government agencies) where ABC Island came up and Conroy expressed some not very serious interest in the avatar name used by the ABC chief executive.
Estimates is a fairy brutal process where a minister can be before a committee for up to 12 hours at a stretch and they tend to get light-hearted very quickly when they get the chance. That is the totality of the parliament’s awareness of SL.
We are still a fairly small pond. We may even fit into Philip’s terrarium.