Hey guys,
For this week's tutorial I will be looking at Julian Dibbell's article, A Rape in Cyberspace, starting with a brief summary then raising various points and questions regarding it (sorry for the overuse of inverted commas - they're hard to avoid when writing about virtual stuff).
Dibbell describes in his article an event that occurred in an Internet community site (known as LambdaMOO) which involved a fat and ugly clown avatar virtually "raping" several other online characters. Using a subprogram called Voodoo Doll - which "attributes actions to other characters that their users did not actually write" - this clown, "Mr Bungle", forced these other characters to undergo such ordeals as eating their own pubic hair or stabbing steak knives up their anuses. These actions are obviously horrific and in Real Life they would be treated as crimes and their perpetrator punished, but the problem with deciding what punishment Mr Bungle should endure lay in the fact that the situation occurred online - it did not technically happen, and a real person technically did not commit a real crime. A meeting was thus held in one character's "room" to determine Mr Bungle's fate. The crowd peaked at thirty characters, including Dibbell, and Mr Bungle himself. However, though much debate took place, a conclusion was never reached as people began to lose interest and leave the "room". Ultimately the decision was made by "JoeFeedback", a wizard. ("Wizards" are the LambdaMOO master-programmers, the highest class of character in the community.) He erased Mr Bungle's account, effectively "killing" him. But unsurprisingly, it only took a few days after that for Mr Bungle's real-life equivalent to create a new character, "Dr Jest", to join the community.
The first pointI would like to raise regards people becoming so involved in online communities that they tend to become "real" to them. I remember watching a BBC documentary about romantic relationships existing in the online community Second Life. One of the stories it tells is of a middle-aged woman who decides to leave her family and fly overseas to meet the man behind the avatar with whom her own avatar was having a passionate "affair" in Second Life (their Real Life time together after meeting is awkward to the point of cringeworthiness). This woman was ready to drop her own life and start a new one (or perhaps enhance one she'd already begun online) with a character. How could she seriously think this online world would become real for her? In the article, Dibbell writes on spending a long while as part of the MOO community:
"Where before I'd found it hard to take virtual rape seriously, I now was finding it difficult to remember how I could ever not have taken it seriously. I was proud to have arrived at this perspective - it felt like an exotic sort of achievement, and it definitely made my ongoing experience of the MOO a richer one."
That he now takes virual rape seriously (while somebody who has never been part of an online community would think it preposterous) implies that he now takes the virtual world seriously. Which leads me to my first question:
As uni students living in Perth, we are aware of groups and communities with extreme religious and / or cultural beliefs that are very different to our own, for example the Old Order Amish. However if we had grown up in those communities, those beliefs would be what are real to us. Is a virtual community similar in this way? If we are exposed to it enough, could it become real to us, and is that really such a crazy or bad thing?
Which brings me to my second point. Can online "rape" actually be considered rape? Dibbell writes that months after the virtual rape, one of its victims confided in him that while she wrote a public statement on the MOO message board the evening after the incident, "posttraumatic tears were streaming down her face". She was obviously affected in a very negative way by the incident. She invested herself in this character, and all of a sudden without warning another character forced her to do grotesque things against her will. This had emotional effects - words can harm - but no pain or physical damage. Is there, then, such a thing as a rape of the mind?
The third point I'd like to raise is the issue of crime in such a community. From what I can understand, people join these online communities for a sense of belonging, but also of freedom. The avatar somebody creates in Second Life, for example, is generally more attractive than her Real Life self, generally lives in a more beautiful house, and generally lives a more exciting and happier life. She can be whoever she wants to be and do whatever she wants to do. Mr Bungle did not contravene any rules of the LambdaMOO site when he "committed his crime".
So should crime even exist in online communities, seeing as the Internet is a place to be free, to conceal your own identity and do whatever you want to do?
How can something be wrong if there are no rules or laws?
Are rules the only way to prevent / solve problems in any type of community?
Furthermore, should a person be punished online if they commit what is considered a crime in Real Life online?
And, is there even such a thing as online punishment? Clearly the person behind Mr Bungle didn't suffer for the crime, as they were able to simply create a new character.
Thanks guys, see you on Wednesday.
Just having a think about your questions, I think if I had joined this community, I wouldn't have been too fussed about the lack of rules because when we join something like an online community, even if there are no 'rules' per se, we would assume that there would be a basic moral/ethical code that people would adhere to. It may be a little naive for me and/or us to believe that at heart, most people are good and wouldn't deliberately want to hurt us for no good reason, but I think that this may be a contributing factor. Well, it would for me anyway. It sort of goes with what was said in the tute today about whether or not we would still join sites like FB even after reading the terms and conditions; we just don't think these things will happen to us. Maybe the longer we have such access to the internet, and the more ingrained in our lives it becomes, we will start realising we have the need to protect ourselves in the same way that we are all taught to protect ourselves in the real world.
ReplyDeleteAnd with the question as to whether or not rules are the only way to prevent/solve crimes, if you look at our society, having and enforcing rules isn't really stopping crime. But we can't really just have have everyone living according to their own moral code. Because what I deem to be moral/ethical, and what someone else deems moral/ethical may be poles apart. And how would you deal with that?
And this wasn't exactly brought up in your question, but people do need to be held accountable for what they do on the internet. Just because you are anonymous doesn't mean you should be able to terrorise other people. There was that woman who posed as a teenage boy on MySpace to get back at one of her daughter's ex-friends, and that resulted in the girl's suicide. So just because something doesn't happen in a physical way doesn't mean that it doesn't impact someone else. But how to regulate? It raises so many questions, and there are no answers.
I don't know. Hopefully you can glean some sort of sense out of that...See you Wednesday!
I very much agree with Jess' comment, especially paragraphs 2 & 3. I will try to build on this.
ReplyDeleteIn both of the posts on this article, and in other discussions of ethics, people have asked questions of the form:
"Our normal, everyday conception of x (rape, ethical wrongdoing &c.) involves y (physical embodiment, laws, &c.). But online, there is no y. Is there, then, such a thing as x online?"
I think that this skepticism is misplaced. The events related in Dibbell's article come across as rather horrible: horrible enough to warrant taking seriously (and taking out of scare quotes). In this context, that means making judgements such as those made above: "people do need to be held accountable for what they do on the internet."
This is not to say that we must accept these kind of condemnations straight off. Rather, it is a matter of placing doubt on the right area. Not on the possibility of x online, but on our traditional, perhaps inflated (by y) notions of x. This, I hope, will give us the harder, and more interesting questions.
Hey everyone,
ReplyDeleteWas just having a read through all this. Unfortunately i was unwell and couldn't make the tutorial, but after doing the readings i had to contribute my opinion in some kind of way.
I also totally agree with Jess, and i feel that every person is in their own way accountable for there own actions. After all, when you sign up to an internet community, it is your own personal choice and therefore when i read things like "months after the virtual rape, one of its victims confided in him that while she wrote a public statement on the MOO message board the evening after the incident, "posttraumatic tears were streaming down her face". She was obviously affected in a very negative way by the incident. She invested herself in this character, and all of a sudden without warning another character forced her to do grotesque things against her will." as Claire wrote, i find it difficult to understand, as it was her own decision to sign up to the internet community LambdaMOO, where she obviously knew these kinds of things happen. I mean maybe she did not realize it would affect her as badly as it did, but at the end of the day, i feel she cannot blame anyone but herself, for it was her who personally signed up, and it was her who read and participated in the online activities.i don't know? maybe someone can prove me otherwise?
I also wanted to mention how shocked i was to read this quote, "He made legba eat his/her own pubic hair. That he caused Starsinger to violate herself with a piece of kitchen cutlery."( Dibbell 1993, pp201) and even though, as Claire mentions, did not technically happen, the though to me is JUST CRAZY. who says things like that? and WHY? its horrific.
As i mentioned earlier, i feel that each person who signs up into any online community, regardless of what it is, is personally responsible for what happens and how they feel after, but i do ask myself over and over again, if online 'rape' can be considered rape, and i do sympathize with the people in Julian Dibbell's article, as they did not expect what they experienced and they were truly affected by it, but i have yet to come up with what i truly believe.
I think the lambdamoo incident is a very good example of how real a virtual world can become to people who are part of a virtual community. It is clear from the article how much emotion, time and energy has been put into the characters behind the real people, so to answer Claire's first question 'If we are exposed to it enough, could a virtual world become real'. I would say very possibly it can become real, as this example and many others have illustrated.
ReplyDeleteCan online 'rape' be considered rape? Well, i feel that the earlier comments that have been made highlight some good points about this. Yes, Tarryn is probably correct in saying people who sign up for online communities are personally responsible for themselves after that but surely there has to be a line as to how far we are responsible. We sign up for these sites but we presume that in doing so, as Jess mentioned that the other people signing up will have some kind of code of behaviour and will have similar morals and ethics to ourselves. I think that what happened here should very definitely be taken seriously because even though there was no physical harm or loss, there is still a victim in the incident, someone has still been left feeling violated and this should be seen as wrong doing and the person behind it must be held accountable and face the consequences of that just as people who do things that are wrong in the real world must face consequences. However i very much agree with jay. Until online community laws are set in stone and taken seriously, we will still be asking whether the 'crimes' happening online are really crimes.
If we are not recognising virtual rape as a real rape are we then encouraging and promoting further sexual experimentations and criminal fantasy? Could this encourage perpetrators from virtual communities to transfer their sexual fantasies and deviant behaviours onto the real world, or are these people finding fulfilment in virtual reality and saving real life victims from physical rape.
ReplyDeleteIt can be argued that virtual communities with their "no rules", are providing a community service to the real world. However, it would appear that virtual and real life victims suffer the same psychological damage and therefore the "act" should be classified as rape, despite the medium. The act of rape in real life does however differ from rape in virtual realities as there is no physical penetration. As a result, punishment of virtual rape should not be equated with real life punishment. It was discussed during tutoral that instead of mapping virtual crimes to real life ones attempts should be made to use existing systems and remodel them to create a new system of punishment relating to crimes occurring in cyberspace. I believe perpetrators should not escape punishment as entry into these virtual communities assumes people will bring with them a certain code of conduct and moral behaviour.