I hadn’t quite expected to find Adam Thierer’s appearance on Metanomics to be so, well, stimulating. I’m immediately suspicious, I suppose, of organizations with names like the “Progress and Freedom Foundation“, as if the name itself is a sleight-of-hand for anything but. But Thierer made a compelling case for a light (or non-existent) regulatory hand on-line, although I found the outer reaches of his argument a little frustrating – there’s a kind of iron-clad logic that brooks little argument which bothers me.
But Thierer DID come up against the limits of his viewpoint when it came to digital representations of children in virtual worlds:
” These are avatars or other types of digitizations, digital renderings of these activities. That’s one thing. But what happens when it’s so photo realistic that you cannot tell the difference between an actual human and a digital avatar? Well, of course, I think the first thing we’d say is, “Well, let’s explore this and see if it was a real human or not.” It is going to be tricky. …All I’m saying is that this is going to be something that virtual communities are going to struggle with increasingly, going forward, especially as the Virtual Worlds we see now online start to mesh with virtual reality technologies, and we start to have a projection of virtual life into the Real World, that’s when things are going to get really, really interesting. “
Thierer had no firm conclusion, saying:
“My first instinct isn’t to run to the government and say, “Ban virtual reality.” I’m sure it won’t be, but you can imagine that some parents will be very nervous about that. They’d be even more nervous if they come home and find Junior having an orgy with 14 naked women. So you can imagine that we’re going to have a real struggle with this, as a society, going forward.”
View the full video and read the transcript past the jump.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: You chose an interesting example that I’m not sure I agree with on child pornography because, although, well, I guess if you’re talking about real photographic depictions of real human children, then I do agree. But, in fact, with the internet and with Machinima video, like we’re doing right now, it won’t be long until we have very photo realistic depictions of people of all ages doing all sorts of things, which I understand right now would be legal in Japan, illegal in Germany and unclear in the United States.
ADAM THIERER: Yeah, it is unclear in the United States, but actually there was a Supreme Court case not too many years ago that dealt with this and said that virtual depictions of child pornography essentially are not unconstitutional, that they are protected by the First Amendment because basically, at the end of the day, no one was hurt. No real human being, physical human being or child was hurt in the production of these things.
Now I have to tell you I’m about as hardcore of a free speech First Amendment guy as you’ll find, but that decision left me a little uneasy. And, even though I generally think I support that going forward, I think your point, Rob, is a really interesting and touchy one, which is, we’re talking about depictions right now that everyone can clearly see are not real human beings. These are avatars or other types of digitizations, digital renderings of these activities. That’s one thing. But what happens when it’s so photo realistic that you cannot tell the difference between an actual human and a digital avatar? Well, of course, I think the first thing we’d say is, “Well, let’s explore this and see if it was a real human or not.” It is going to be tricky.
At the same time, there is another question, which is: Is it equally as destructive on the human psyche or on criminal behavior, if you will? Will it create something in the minds of certain criminals that would facilitate Real World harms? I’m not saying I have a definitive answer on this. All I’m saying is that this is going to be something that virtual communities are going to struggle with increasingly, going forward, especially as the Virtual Worlds we see now online start to mesh with virtual reality technologies, and we start to have a projection of virtual life into the Real World, that’s when things are going to get really, really interesting. I mean I’m just waiting for the day when I come home and see my son swashbuckling with Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean 10 in my living room, and Johnny Depp running virtual swords through my kid’s real neck, I’m going to probably be a little bit creeped out at first.
My first instinct isn’t to run to the government and say, “Ban virtual reality.” I’m sure it won’t be, but you can imagine that some parents will be very nervous about that. They’d be even more nervous if they come home and find Junior having an orgy with 14 naked women. So you can imagine that we’re going to have a real struggle with this, as a society, going forward. And I would hope we can find other solutions to this, other ways to deal with this besides a blanket prohibition because I never think that’s a good idea. But, nonetheless, it’s something to keep our eye on.
This is going too far. Too far! I (and anyone) can be anything I want to be in a virtual world. I can be M Linden, or a head of state, or Dusan Writer, doing terrible things. I can be a trash can, a dragon, a faerie or Catherine Deneuve. I can be Christopher Robin, Piglet, Eeyore, and Tigger, too.
FREEDOM OF SPEECH. Freedom of expression. Freedom.
To be honest he does not strike me as “as hardcore of a free speech First Amendment guy as you’ll find”.
“To be honest he does not strike me as “as hardcore of a free speech First Amendment guy as you’ll find”.”
Quoted for pure Truth
All from a generation brought up watching 30 year olds portray 15 year olds on TV for 3 decades.
What’s the real story? That as a culture we havent dealt with virtuality for 30 years?
And last time i checked every ANIME style virtual world or animated show had “childlike” 8 year old looking characters that were supposed to be 25 year olds. And that style has grown, mainly because of “money-cost to produce” in the west and globally so lets not even really pundit about how 3d realtime immersive media” has very much to do about any of these issues.
we are a media induced psychotic retarded culture growing globally before we even THOUGHT locally:).
how will the future look? how will we deal with it? watch a TV. cause it is exactly what rich media- virtuality looks like.
http://www.pff.org/issues-pubs/ps/2009/ps5.8-the-day-internet-freedom-died.html
well this says it all:)
I am conflicted. I have some professional background with child protection although not as a social worker. My experience, and the literature would bear me out, is that pedophiles put a great deal of time and energy into making arguments for the legitimacy of their conduct. Now it’s a long, long step from ageplay in Sl to actual sexual abuse, but at least a proportion of ageplayers, by no means all or even a majority, are likely to be using SL as testbed and validation for conduct that would be clearly proscribed if done in the atomic world.
It is really easy to say one right reigns supreme, but in reality there are limits to rights (yelling ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theatre) in US law just as there are in other legal systems. The difference is that US law tends to state a right as unlimited and then develop limitations through the courts, where Canada, for example, provides for a legislative process to develop limitations subject to a couple of constitutional tests.
Sometimes the US model results in greater freedom, But sometimes it does not. Canada for instance, despite the power of Canadian parliaments and legislatures to enact limitations, allows all prisoners to vote as a result of Sauve v Chief Electoral Officer. The US has a less stellar practice when it comes to prisoners and ex-prisoners voting.
So I cannot see ageplay only as a free expression issue. I do not know where the balance between a child’s right to safety and the right to expression should be drawn. I do say that the thing is not as simple as merely citing free expression as a supreme value.
If we must use the expression “atomic world” to describe that world which is not virtual then let’s be thorough going about it and recognize that the atomic world is almost wholly virtual! (in the sense that every quantum event is best understood as a collapsing of a multitude of possibilities.) It is an important feature of our so called Real lives that they are composed chiefly of these failures of the virtual.
What this underscores for me is that the relationship between virtuality and “reality” isn’t nearly so hard and fast as is commonly understood. Much of what I read about Second Life tells me that a virtual world is like a parallel universe out of a cheesy sci-fi show and that, as such, what goes on there is akin to “what goes on in Vegas” (i.e. it stays in Vegas!) I no longer accept that interpretation because there are other worlds beside the “real” and the “virtual” that stitch those two supposed opposites together at the seams. I mean, of course, the Imaginary and the Symbolic – but, if that seems too technical, lets just call it Discourse. Discourse doesn’t admit the distinction between virtual and real as readily as the freedom of speech folks suppose because the real Real we inhabit *is* Language itself and Language is always-already a “collapsing of a multitude of possibilities.” In other words, the distinction means little when the stuff of reality is composed of virtualities in various states of collapse.
I think its best to think of Second Life as an interface, a connection point, but not a connection between otherwise self-sufficient realities, more like a foreign exchange where the flow of desire is converted into the appropriate coin of the realm. It is against that backdrop that I have to place the “virtual” depiction of adult males gang-raping a six year old. Does it really matter if “no actual children were harmed” (as the mantra goes?)