Second Life and Death: Political Violence and a Virtual World

Tim Stevens

Abstract Virtual worlds like Second Life are becoming important tools for, among other activities, socialization, social networking, entertainment, collaboration, and business development. These environments offer information systems researchers a unique opportunity to study how these environments are built and managed by operators, how they are used and misused by users, and the impact that they have on users, communities, organizations, and societies at large.

The Alliance Second Life Library has created a dynamic and interactive information and learning community in Second Life through library, education, non-profit, and other partnerships. The Info Archipelago has grown from one island to over twenty within a year. Library services are provided by over 500 self-identified international library volunteers and creative exhibits, displays, and immersive learning environments are being formed for professional development and Second Life residents. Examples of these include Renaissance Island - dedicated to 16th century Elizabethan life, a science center with over 600 members, individual libraries of all types such as Bradley University which will recreate their campus and contribute to the collaborative library effort, and strategic partnerships with educators to offer for credit courses, non-credit courses, and informal learning opportunities. Through this panel discussion we will share what we have done and also seek input from the audience as to what other types of services would be of benefit to the Second Life education community. In the book Wikinomics by Daniel Tapscott, he discusses the fact that in today's world of rapidly changing technology and increasing amounts of information, it is impossible for one business or agency to be on top of every innovation and new technological development -that to continue to be innovative, businesses and other agencies need to reach out and work with others in new ways -mass collaboration. This is true of the libraries and education agencies in Second Life. No one library could offer 24/7 services in a physical location, an interactive website and a third place, virtual worlds. The Alliance Second Life Library, which started in April 2006 with a rented building, has grown quickly because of volunteer librarians and others from all over the world, libraries which have established presences in Second Life, and educational and non profit partners who all work together to create an information community on the Info Island Archipelago.

This paper is informed by experiences and observations made while participating in the Open University Second Life Teen Grid education project (Schome), and reflections on observations made on the various educational islands facilities on Second Life Main Grid. The paper explores the role of participant observation as a research tool within Second Life. It acknowledges that Second Life is a knowable social reality with customs and norms that should interest the ethnographer. However, the researcher is increasingly uncertain about the applicability of ethnographic concerns of ‘authentic experience’, ‘dwelling’, or ‘going native’ . One is always aware of a sense of ‘betweenness’, always drawn back to a body and a keyboard, in a room on your own. The physical and embodied experience of being in between worlds is considered as a challenge and an opportunity for ethnographers. The paper concludes by acknowledging that the authors sense of betweenness is a function of his personal attachment to the concept of embodied experience.

Second Life and Death: Political Violence and a Virtual World by Tim Stevens (L19395) Supervisor: Professor Theo Farrell Candidate’s Signature: Total length excluding cover, table of contents and bibliography is , words. Contents ____________________________________________________________ Acknowledgements 1. Introduction ……………………………….……….……….….……….……………. …..…..….…..…….. 1 1.1 Second Life and Security…………………………………………….…… …………. 1 1.2 Overview ……………………………………………………………………………………. 3 1.3 Methodology ………………………………………………………………………………. 4 2. Forms and Functions of Violence …………………………………………………………………... 5 2.1 Forms of Violence ………………………………………………………………………. 5 2.2 Functions of Violence …………………………………………………………………. 7 3. Experiencing Virtual Violence …………………………………………………………..…………… 10 3.1 Virtuality ……………………………………………………………………………………. 10 3.2 Violence ……………………………………………………………………………………… 15 4. Case Studies ………………………………………………………………………………………………...... 18 4.1 The War of Jessie Wall ……………………………………………………………….. 18 4.2 Second Life Liberation Army ……………………………………………………… 27 4.3 ‘Because I Hate Front National’ …………………………………………………... 39 5. Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 48 Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 53 Acknowledgements _________________________________________________ The author thanks the following for their insights and assistance: David Betz, Neville Bolt, )ain Coyne, Ryan Evans, Chiara Fonio, Roderick Jones, Anatol Lieven, Brian Mennecke, Peter Neumann, John Postill, Johnny Ryan and, particularly, my supervisor Theo Farrell. Special gratitude is offered to Luisa Element, without whom none of this would have been possible. 1 ________________________________________________________________________ Introduction 1.1 Second Life and Security Second Life SL is perhaps the best known example of a virtual world, an online graphical environment accessed through computers, in which users explore and create new places, and often new personalities, in conjunction with millions of others separated by geographical distance but brought together by the global internet. Within Second Life, users residents , in SL‐speak socialise and interact in ways almost as unique and varied as in the real world, mediated through visual representations known as avatars . Since its public launch in population of SL has grown to nearly within any given month. Since the million, of which about a million are active inworld there have been many reports of activities in Second Life that have been intended or interpreted as violence. Since , the word terrorism , possibly le mot du siècle, has been used to describe some of these events, particularly in the popular media, but also by residents themselves. Significantly, SL is alleged to have become a virtual sanctuary for real‐world violent actors such as al‐Qaeda. )n response to the global changes wrought by burgeoning information communications technology )CT much recent political, security and media discourse has focused on potential conflict spaces opened up by the expansion of human activities in the virtual arena. Whilst most users of the internet, for example, do so for peaceful and socially beneficial purposes, others of more nefarious and criminal inclinations profit from the exploitation of virtual spaces for their own ends. The resulting dilemma of the technological commons is at the heart of http://secondlife.com/statistics/economy‐data.php, accessed July Cornish et al , p. . . 1 serious considerations given these issues by security agencies and politicians alike, as well as being a source of public disquiet occasionally manipulated by power elites for political purposes. Clear examples of the significance accorded to cyberthreats occurred in mid‐ when both the US and UK published preliminary cyber security strategies aimed at public protection and infrastructure security. Violence as a media phenomenon has a history as long as media themselves. Public debate continues in the st‐century over the explicit violence of video and online games, although the causal links between play violence and real‐world violence remain tenuous at best. Many games are wholly contingent upon violence as a means of progression in the gamespace. An increasing number of virtual worlds are coming online, many of which are gameworlds in which violence is an integral and desirable characteristic of social activity. The development of virtual worlds as loci of human interaction and emergent behaviour has followed the evolution of computer‐mediated communication since the early s, long before the internet became the ubiquitous household and commercial tool it is today. As such they are legitimate foci of sociological and anthropological study. Not only are they communities in their own right, with distinct rules, customs and language, but they are intimately tied to the exponential increase in digital forms of communication and interaction that characterise the new media environment, and which consistently disquiets governments and security agencies. Violence, often of political significance, is part of the landscape of virtual worlds and is also of concern when it could be used as a platform for the commission of violence in the external, physical world. Cabinet Office Trend , National Security Council 2 1.2 Overview ) shall describe forms of violence as manifested in Second Life since its inception, using three case studies to illustrate their social and political characteristics. ) will attempt to ascertain what we can learn from these events that can help illuminate the evolving relationship between cyberspace and violence. )n particular ) address four key research questions: • • • • What forms does violence take in virtual worlds? What functions does violence serve in virtual worlds? (ow do people experience violence in virtual worlds? Does violence in virtual worlds matter? Chapter reviews the literature on the forms and functions of violence in order to provide an intellectual framework for an analysis of violence. Chapter will focus on the nature of virtuality and its links with physicality, and proposes a theoretical basis for how people experience violence in virtual spaces. Chapter describes and discusses three case studies: the War of Jessie Wall, the Second Life Liberation Army, and protests surrounding Front National. Chapter concludes by discussing the key characteristics of violence in Second Life and assessing its significance and potential implications. 3 1.3 Methodology The main analysis focuses on the Chapter case studies. These were selected for their relevance to the topic, and their potential for addressing the proposed research questions. All three cases are relatively well‐known within Second Life circles and have been mentioned in the press and other publications. They have not yet been accorded more than passing scholarly attention however, so available sources are mainly news media and online records. These include forums, web documents, blogs, and inworld newspapers like New World Notes and the Alphaville Herald. Every care has been taken to establish authenticity and veracity and all texts have been treated with as much care as more traditional documents. See Mitra & Cohen 4 2 ________________________________________________________________________ Forms and Functions of Violence 2.1 Forms of Violence The anthropologist David Riches has written, The question, what qualifies as violence ? , in fact has no absolute answer . There are nearly as many definitions and interpretations of violence as there are analyses of this phenomenon, a common problem with endemic characteristics of human culture. For example, the International Journal of Conflict and Violence lists the number of academic disciplines dealing with violence in its various forms: sociology, political science, education, social psychology, criminology, ethnology, history, political philosophy, urban studies, economics, and the study of religions . One might also add art, linguistics, music, and many other fields examining human expression and behaviour. Clearly, violence cannot simply be equated with war or conflict, even if their principal characteristic may indeed be violence. Conflict can occur without violence, and many of the functions of war may be non‐violent. Riches maintains that the primary sense of the term refers solely to matters of contested physical hurt , contested due to the differing views of the perpetrator, victim and witnesses as regards its legitimacy, which obviously differ according to social and cultural context. For most analysts of conflict, violence remains tied to physicality. Stathis Kalyvas asserts that violence is the deliberation infliction of physical harm on non‐ combatants and civilians. Kalyvas also lists various actions that comprise the broad spectrum of physical violence, including robbery, vandalism, arson, kidnapping, detention, beating, Riches , p. . http://www.ijcv.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id= &)temid= . Riches, op. cit., p. , original italics. Kalyvas ; see also Graham & Gurr , p.xxvii, Tilly , p. . , accessed June 5 torture, mutilation and rape, in addition to homicide, intentional or otherwise. Murder, regardless of its various legal formulations, is considered the ultimate transgressive act of violence due to its irreversible nature. )n War and Genocide, Martin Shaw asserts that the core meaning of violence is the imposition of harm ; homicide is merely the logical extreme of harm. There are, therefore, other forms of violence which might be considered secondary in non‐physical senses of the term. Bourdieu s formulation of violence is any act resulting in psychological anguish . Johan Galtung is the principal living theorist of structural violence inherent in hierarchical social structures, responsible for socio‐economic oppression leading to poverty and inequality. Bourdieu would add symbolic violence manifest as threats of violence and other social and economic constraints. harm. Riches also suggests forms of witchcraft which sometimes involve physical There is also ritual violence, ideological enactments that include circumcision, games and, perhaps, violent media. Drawing on the work of David Riches and Maurice Bloch, anthropologist Jon Abbink employs a loose conception of violence in his fieldwork, in which violence consists of the human use of symbols and of acts of intimidation and/or damaging – potentially lethal – physical force against living beings to gain or maintain dominance . By explicitly restoring communicative and psychological elements to an inclusive definition of violence, Abbink opens up space to examine forms of violence that might lie outside the narrow purview of security studies, ones not necessarily contingent on the infliction of physical harm. Kalyvas, ibid., p. . Sofsky Shaw , p. . Bourdieu Galtung , Bourdieu & Wacquant Riches, op. cit., p. ; de Boeck Riches, op. cit., p. , see also Gardner & (eider Abbink , p. , Bloch , Riches, op. cit. 6 2.2 Functions of violence Carl Friedrich distinguishes between systemically functional violence that preserves the social order and dysfunctional violence that destroys it. This is a useful distinction but alone is insufficient to characterise all functions of violence. (annah Arendt distinguishes between violence and the similar concepts of power, force and strength. Arendt treats violence as separate, indeed antithetical, to politics, unlike (obbes, Machiavelli and Weber, for whom violence is an integral and necessary component of the exercise of political power. She also critiques Sartre and Fanon s justifications of violence as existential and biological expressions of humanity. For Arendt, the instrumentality of violence is what distinguishes it from these others; she characterises the extreme form of violence as one against all , which instruments/tools are necessary to achieve, although violence is inherently unpredictable and therefore of limited utility. One might suggest that a nuclear weapon in the hands of terrorists would be an ultimate expression of Arendt s formulation. Arendt s separation of violence from politics has been widely criticised, and most literature concerning political violence allows for the interweaving of power, politics and violence. Political violence is a common term that encompasses a wide range of actions from individual hate crimes, mass protests, civil war and genocide, and, like its most over‐used synonym, terrorism, continues to defy satisfactory definition. Ted Gurr defines political violence simply as a collective attack within a political community against a political regime . For Paul Wilkinson, political violence is the deliberate infliction or threat of infliction of physical injury or damage for political ends , but which can also occur unintentionally in the course of severe Friedrich Arendt , pp. ‐ . Weber , (obbes Machiavelli Sartre , Fanon , Arendt, op. cit., pp. ‐ . Breen , Frazer & (utchings Gurr , pp. ‐ . 7 political conflict . Donatella della Porta prefers political violence as a particular repertoire of collective action that involve[s] physical force, considered at that time as illegitimate in the dominant culture . Terrorism is usually considered the paradigmatic form of political violence, although other types such as rioting, violent confrontation and property damage also fall within the broad understanding of political violence as violence outside its normal use in inter‐state warfare or the inter national administration of justice. Although some authors suggest that certain terrorists have moved beyond politics into an ethical realm, instrumental function to most terrorism and political violence. there is evidently a political and Political violence is different therefore from forms of expressive violence devoid of explicit political intent. Drawing on Gilligan s psychiatric work with American violent criminals, David Keen proposes that violence can be a reaction to shame and humiliation, either by individuals or, in his interpretation, states, as in the reaction of the US to / . This form of displaced violence implies a disconnect between problem and solution when the targets of violence are not the source of the initial humiliation. )n the case of the war on terror , discourses of prevention and democracy might mask the fact that the violence of, in Keen s example, Abu Ghraib, can be an end in itself, rather than the means to achieve a political aim. )t is expressive because it only aims to consummate one s own feelings of revenge. Also in this category would be included the bar fight and crimes of passion. Wilkinson , p. . Della Porta , pp. ‐ . Devji , p. . We acknowledge theories of state terrorism, e.g. Claridge , Jackson et al aspects of violence against the person, e.g. Benard , Muelenhard & Kimes Gilligan , Keen , pp. ff. Keen, ibid., p. . , and political 8 The disconnect identified in Gilligan s work, and Keen s application of it, therefore makes it unwise, as Kalyvas has noted, to deduce motive from behaviour. This is as true in the political domain as it is in the personal; political discourses, of which violence is often part, can hide, justify, mislead and reinterpret words and actions, just as they can in personal relationships and other interactions. )n the context of / , the various transformations that undoubtedly occurred were affected by the manipulation of discourse, which both formulates the questions and frames the responses . Kalyvas criticises much of the literature on violence as failing to distinguish between violence as an outcome and violence as a process. This leads to binary oppositions such as perpetrators/victims that exclude proper consideration of the processes that lead to the commission of violence. Kalyvas cites Yvon Grenier s comment on analyses of Latin American insurgencies that tend to portray a world inhabited by women, children, and the elderly . Therefore, only by examining the underlying aims of violence can we avoid such simplistic and oppositional taxonomies. For the purposes of the current analysis, political violence will be defined as the use, threat or representation of violence for the achievement of political ends as understood by any given group or community . Kalyvas, op. cit., p. Blommaert (odges & Nilep Kalyvas, op. cit., p. Ibid., Grenier . , p. . . , p. . 9 3 ________________________________________________________________________ Experiencing Virtual Violence 3.1 Virtuality The roots of virtual worlds lie in computer‐mediated gaming environments developed in American universities in the The Well. s and s, and other experiments in social networks like These provided the conceptual and technical bases for the explosion of networked environments caused by massive World Wide Web uptake in the s. Although the earliest networks have correctly been characterised as text‐based game[s] or just social space[s] expressed through writing they quickly incorporated the visual interfaces and personal avatars familiar to video game players and contemporary computer users. Defining virtual worlds is somewhat problematic. Edward Castronova prefers synthetic world , defined as an expansive, world‐like, large‐group environment made by humans, for humans, and which is maintained, recorded, and rendered by computer . (is emphasis on artifice arises from the ambiguity of virtual –a valid criticism – although he admits using the terms virtual and synthetic interchangeably. Castronova s definition covers a wide range of computer‐mediated social environments, but lacks clarity with respect to salient characteristics of the environments under examination here. Mark Bell defines a virtual world as a synchronous, persistent network of people, represented as avatars, facilitated by networked Brand , Damer et al , (afner , Turner , ch. . Gillies & Cailliau Mortensen The common expression, the virtual world , is of limited analytical value and should not be confused with the more specific definitions here. For the problems of online terminologies, see Lange Castronova , p. . Castronova , p. , n. . 10 computers . This encapsulates the real‐time interactivity of virtual worlds, the manner in which a world continues to function once a participant visually represented by an avatar is no longer inworld, and the computer‐mediated aspect of the experience. Bell s definition excludes other types of computer‐mediated communication CMC like social networking sites, email, video games, and file‐sharing. The current analysis follows Bell s definition but additionally excludes gaming worlds like World of Warcraft in favour of a focus on social worlds like SL, although gaming environments are also rich sources of observation and analysis, and exhibit some of the dynamics examined here. Second Life is but one example amongst hundreds of virtual worlds, whose numbers are growing rapidly. A recent survey suggests that virtual world registrations top million, which, allowing for people with multiple accounts, is a potential user base roughly comparable to the population of the United States. years age group. world identities by )n . Demographically, over , Gartner forecast that % of these are in the ‐ % of active internet users will have virtual The creation of virtual communities is critical to the very existence of cyberspace. Cyberspace is contingent upon its physical infrastructure but is also comprised of the people, processes and politics that help shape it, as well as the information communicated through these techno‐social structures. As previously noted, even the earliest experiments with computer networks were socially predicated. The internet itself was designed as a system through which people could communicate across distance and in real time. Bell , p. . KZero Ibid. Gartner Rheingold Betz & Stevens in prep Leiner et al Barry Wellman 11 memorably observed that computer networks are social networks follows this social constructivist approach to technology. and the current analysis )n SL, interpersonal relationships formed through interaction, negotiation and shared experience can be as important to those people as any real‐world relationships. All virtual communities, i.e. symbolic communities principally constructed in cyberspace, are real to those who create and participate in them. This is particularly true for non‐gaming environments like SL which are meaningful sites for social action , rather than merely derivative of the actual world. The relative lack of rule constraints means that SL is a cultural experiment whose behavioural parameters are as much set by its residents as they are by the architects of the world, Linden Research, )nc. aka Linden Lab . Reality is constructed in other ways too. SL from its inception allowed and encouraged its residents to use simple scripting code to create objects inworld, from clothes to houses to bodily prostheses. Once Linden Lab granted copyright ownership to the creators of these objects, an inworld economy rapidly developed using the native currency, Linden dollars L$ . These can be traded in and out of SL as US dollars, thereby bringing a significant economic dimension to inworld activity. Despite the recent economic crisis the Linden dollar has remained stable against the US dollar and over $ m equivalent of L$ was traded in and out of SL in with total inworld transactions topping $ m. )n , , SL gave the world its first virtual world millionaire , Anshe Chung , whose speculation on virtual real estate provides her – and Wellman See Bijker et al Ondrejka , pp. ‐ . Carter , Fernback Boellstorf , pp. ‐ . Linden Scripting Language LSL Next Up Research ; see also Castronova et al $ =L$ , July Second Life a ; roughly equivalent to the Gross Domestic Product of Dominica over the same period )MF, 12 her real‐world staff – with very healthy incomes. )n the broader ecology of virtual worlds there are many thousands of people who earn a living by producing or trading virtual commodities, particularly the activity known as gold farming , the production of virtual gold for resale to players of popular online game World of Warcraft. Demography and economics aside, why else do virtual worlds matter? The answer lies in how users/residents experience these environments. Central to Bell s definition is the importance of synchronicity. )nteractive communication in real time allows for coordination and sharing of experiences, as well as awareness of space, distance and co‐existence with other participants – a temporal engagement with the environment contributing to a sense of navigable terrain . Analyses of the relationship between physicality and virtuality are complex, and have philosophical origins. For example, reviews of the philosophy of mind or the mind‐body problem Schopenhauer s world knot are beyond the scope of the current enquiry but provide the intellectual underpinnings for considerations of the virtual experience and its relationship to the body. The information revolution of the late th century has injected fresh vigour into this debate, as have neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and biohacking. Philosopher of technology Albert Borgmann, noting the fragility of technological information, posits that cyberspace will always be parasitic on reality. not detract from the experiential aspects of virtuality. A that Whilst technically correct this does survey of EverQuest players found % regarded the fantasy game‐world of Norrath as their real home. Lessig baldly asserts, Cyberspace is a place. People live there. Parloff (eeks , Nakamura Bell, op. cit, p. . Griffin , (onderich Thieme Borgmann , pp. ‐ . Castronova , Table , p. . Lessig , p. . As Lawrence Whilst overstated in a literal 13 sense Lessig draws attention to the fact that cyberspace – of which virtual worlds are but a small part – is in some sense inhabited . Wertheim suggests that cyberspace helps to make explicit once more some of the nonphysical extensions of human beingness – ) am there – whatever this statement may ultimately turn out to mean . There is evidently a powerful connection between notions of physicality, dwelling and belonging, and the rather more abstract potentialities of cyberspace as space and place. With this in mind we can use the terms 'virtual' and 'real' – or actual – not as prescriptive ontological antonyms but as environmental clarifiers. The experience of cyberspace is one of a hybrid environment , incorporating aspects of both the real and the virtual. )t is worth noting that most of our cyberspatial experience is mediated by screens, which we accept as the means of framing our online lives, and which function as powerful locations for the possibilities of truth . For Sherry Turkle, screens are helping us become comfortable with new ways of thinking about evolution, relationships, sexuality, politics, and identity . There are, of course, degrees of virtuality. Communicating on Facebook is not the same sensory and phenomenological experience as exploring a virtual world like Second Life. Building on work by Rheingold, Turkle, Sobchack and others, Sanchez‐Vives and Slater reality , even if computer‐generated worlds are known to be fake . Earlier work in this field develop the idea of presence , the transportation of consciousness into an alternative virtual has described presence succinctly as a situation whereby the subject has the perceptual illusion of non‐mediation . This phenomenon has been demonstrated in numerous experiments in Wertheim , pp. , . Adams , Graham Boellstorff, op. cit., pp. ‐ . Ruhleder )ntrona & )lharco , p. . Turkle , p. . )hde Rheingold , , Sobchack Sanchez‐Vives & Slater , Lombard & Ditton , p. . , Turkle, op. cit. 14 which subjects in immersive virtual environments react much the same to body ‐external stimuli as they would in the real world. Friedman et al argue that the use of avatars grounds users in virtual environments, facilitating sensations of presence and reality. This form of social co‐presence is different to the physical co‐location of actors in the physical world. Brian Mennecke and colleagues have developed a theory of embodied social presence , based in part on observations of SL. This rejects the idea of mediated/unmediated presence in favour of a construct in which the corporeal body is the mediating artefact responsible for the conscious or unconscious modelling, perception and manipulation of avatar s embodied presence in virtual worlds. )n this sense, experiences in immersive virtual environments are derivative of corporeal cognitive processes. This embodied social presence theory strengthens the links between real and virtual experience, which much of the previous literature was in danger of divorcing. This does not mean, of course, that real and virtual experiences are the same, but that virtuality remains contingent on reality – an unintended reformulation of Borgmann s parasite thesis. 3.2 Violence Deliberate disruption of others activities has long been a feature of CMC, and certain forms of it now constitute distinct and dynamic subcultures, with quasi‐ideologies that belie their occasionally sociopathic appearance . These forms of emergent behaviour are a natural outgrowth of systems in which people interact in non‐linear fashion, utilising low‐level rules to Blascovich et al , Yee et al Friedman et al , p. ; also Bowman & McMahan Zhao & Elesh Mennecke et al Dibbell a,b , Williams , , Meadows 15 generate outcomes not predicted by the architects of these environments. online gaming, it is often considered an expression of emergent gameplay . )n the context of For those who do not wish to play the game , the relatively anonymous worlds of cyberspace offer multiple outlets for self‐expression. The propensity of individuals to drop their defensive masks as constructed through real‐world socialisation and embark upon modes of behaviour divergent from their ordinary lives has been termed the online disinhibition effect . Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in griefing , where players abandon the rules of the games in which they are involved and deliberately set out to disrupt and damage the gaming experience of others. Based on levels of intent, types of rule broken, and developer and player perceptions, a recent taxonomy identified four categories of griefing in online games: harassment, power imposition, scamming, and greed play. Although Second Life is not a game, due to its lack of predefined objectives, these griefing categories are broadly applicable to a wide range of activities reported from within the world. Although most activities are prankish and puerile in nature, some have resulted in function loss and economic damage to inworld assets. At a higher level of disruption, a wide range of activities have also been reported in SL that might constitute crimes in the outside world. These include theft copyright, content, identity , fraud, money laundering, rape, bullying, and child pornography. Although it might be difficult to imagine how, for example, a sexual assault can occur in a virtual world it does illustrate that Clark , pp. ‐ , Johnson , p. . Juul , p. . Joinson , Suler Mulligan & Patrovsky , p. . Foo & Koivisto Chesney et al Bakioğlu Connolly , Coyne et al , Duranske , Elliott , Talbot 16 non‐consensual activity can occur in these environments, particularly where embodiment , as described above, occurs. The legal ramifications of such activities are receiving wide attention from academics and policymakers. We can therefore propose that people experience representations or analogues of violence as acts of violence in themselves. This observation is borne of two bodies of theory. Firstly, of the secondary natures of violence, as articulated most clearly by anthropologist Jon Abbink but drawing on earlier work by Riches, Bourdieu and others. Secondly, because people are invested with presence , a certain physicality in avatar‐mediated cyberspace, some of the primary meaning of violence – physical harm – is actually retained, in terms of boundary transgression, if not in blood and flesh. With the preceding comments in mind we are reminded of the prescient words of Michael Vlahos who wrote in , [c]ommunications networks established by advances in informational technology create a place, called the )nfosphere, in which people form new social, political and employment arrangements. This short review has established that environments like SL provide a platform for people to reconfigure their social and economic lives, and who view virtual worlds as real spaces of experience and endeavour. Manuel Castells wrote, the internet is a global electronic agora where the diversity of human disaffection explodes in a cacophony of accents. As with other media, violence is a part of this landscape and the current research will show how this has been used in Second Life for various purposes and with varied effects. For an early textual assault , see Dibbell Balkin & Noveck , Duranske Vlahos , p. . Castells , p. . ; also Mackinnon 17 4 ________________________________________________________________________ Case Studies 4.1 The War of Jessie Wall )t has already been noted that SL is not a game. This does not preclude games from being played within the world and such activities constitute a substantial portion of inworld activity. )ndeed, Castronova proposes that it is exactly this ludic component that will attract more and more users, although he overstates the case for all inworld activities being fun . (owever, SL as an environment or platform is not designed as a game: there are no set objectives to involvement, and most activities are permitted as long as they breach neither the Terms of Service or the Community Standards. These constraints are effectively a form of social contract that regulates behaviour and should be considered analogous to real‐world legislative frameworks. )n contrast to other popular virtual worlds like the fantasy gameworlds of World of Warcraft and EverQuest, whose activities revolve around questing , combat and competitive character progression, SL s residents usually do not run the risk of assault or death. )n most areas of SL avatar‐death is actually impossible due to restraints imposed by what Castronova calls the coding authority , in this case Linden Lab. Even before the public launch of SL in June enabled combat zone, Outlands. one area had been set aside as a damage‐ This was situated to the east of the then small hub of SL and separated from it by a large wall beyond which combat and death were not only possible but Castronova Second Life b, c Referred to as MMORPGs Massively Multi‐player Online Role‐Playing Games Castronova , p. . http://secondlife.wikia.com/wiki/Outlands, accessed June . 18 encouraged. This area originally consisted of four‐and‐a‐half sims , a simulator being a contiguous area of land, Francisco. m by m, run as a single unit in the Linden servers in San The SL grid is composed of a series of abutting sims that constitute the entire navigable landscape of the world. )n April a new sim, Jessie, was created and moved to the Outlands. )t was here that SL would see its first war . Early that same month, a group of World War II Online players WW))OLers moved into the Outlands, drawn by its combat potential and the capacity to build and test period weapons and infrastructure. Wagner James Au, embedded as the official Linden journalist and one of the few sources of information on this period, recalls that the WW))OLers used Outlands as a kind of online central command, from where they could plan combat strategies for their main game . This initial influx was well‐received by the Outlands residents as a new and interesting addition to the population, but a second wave of WW))OLers was not so much interested in the existing SL dynamics as disrupting them. They embraced the combat capabilities of Outlands wholeheartedly, using the existing residents homes and businesses as target practice , ignoring the convention that, whilst this was a combat zone, people who lived there expected to do so without disruption.104 According to WW))OLer leader Eukeyant Skidoo, we cared for nothing Death in SL involves temporary removal but our own intentions: to own the Outlands . from the grid, followed by reincarnation at a home point chosen by each resident. Most Outlands residents reincarnation points were their properties in Outlands, so death entailed http://www.slmaps.com/oldmaps.htm, accessed http://secondlife.wikia.com/wiki/Sim, accessed Sulic Au Au , p. . Ibid., p. . Au http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Death, accessed June June June . . . 19 perpetual removal and rebirth in Outlands as WW))OLers repeatedly pounded their homes with munitions. The continual annoyance born of this shift from consensual co‐existence to aggression inspired residents to approach the WW))OLers in the hope of compromise. Opinions differ as to who started the shooting but the entreaty deteriorated into gun and artillery fire. The firefight was sufficiently intense to repeatedly crash the Outlands servers, causing severe disruption to all residents, whether they were involved or not. Land shortages elsewhere on the grid meant that most Outlands residents had settled there for economic reasons rather than for the purposes of combat. The WW))OLers, on the other hand, used the kill capacity of the Outlands as it was intended, but to the chagrin of the residents. Negotiations having failed they turned to Linden Lab for assistance, despite the fact that the Terms of Service had not been broken. Community moderator Peter Linden, Kofi Annan of Second Life , described the problem: by community consent, everyone could shoot each other, but no one did ; the arrival of the WW))OLers changed that, with destroying everything that the % worked for . % With tacit reference to the Community Standards, Linden suspended some WW))OLers user accounts, with limited effect, and eventually decided to restrict kill activity to a single sim, Jessie, which was to be surrounded by a high fortified wall. The WW))OLers felt aggrieved that their technically legal actions had resulted in censure, confinement and suspension. Consequently, they stepped up the disruption, within and without Jessie, and their numbers grew. Their actions in non‐damage‐enabled neighbouring sims – Au , p. . e.g. http://forums.secondlife.com/showpost.php?p= &postcount= , accessed June . Au http://forums.secondlife.com/showpost.php?p= &postcount= , accessed June . http://forums.secondlife.com/showpost.php?p= &postcount= , accessed June . )nworld, Linden employees assume the company surname. Au Ibid. http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t= , accessed June . 20 often chasing non‐WW))OLers away after guerrilla raids into Jessie – resulted in further suspensions as well as stoking hostility towards them. As their belligerence increased so too did that of other residents who saw both an aggressive foe to be countered and also, one assumes, the chance to engage in their own forms of mischief. The conflict intensified, particularly with the formation of the Noise Tanks group, who took the fight to the WW))OLers with relish. Both sides used their scripting ingenuity to invent new and bizarre weapons, an arms race in which combatants repeatedly murdered each other with technologically advanced alacrity . increasingly Up to this point, the politics of the conflict were restricted to inworld activities involving SL residents, irrespective of their real‐world statuses. The trigger for the fighting was the arrival of a new group with different behavioural norms and gameplaying backgrounds, and who possessed attitudes at variance with the established population. Esther MacCallum‐Stewart characterises this as a classic territory dispute but this only applies to this first phase of the conflict, not to what happened next. The wall separating Jessie from the rest of the world was to become the focus of actions very much informed by external politics, in this case, the US invasion of )raq in late March . When serious Outlands hostilities began on morning signed a $ April President George W. Bush had that billion supplemental spending bill for Operation )raqi Freedom and subsequent reconstruction efforts. This came only a week after the toppling of Saddam (ussein s statue in Baghdad, an event that seemed to many supporters of the war as vindication for the invasion, and which led to Bush s Au , p. . Carr & Pond , p. MacCallum‐Stewart Rhem . , p. . May statement, major combat operations in )raq 21 have ended . )n retrospect this was merely the beginning of a difficult political and military campaign still continuing six years later. The internet became one outlet for people s opinions against or in support of the war. )n SL, a single pro‐American message had been put up on the Jessie Wall soon after the beginning of the invasion. Although some residents thought it controversial, others took it as an innocuous expression of support for American troops in )raq. Either way there were no reactions to it until an avatar called Woopm Skidoo allegedly plastered a few dozen posters – described as anti bush childish photoshop images – onto the wall. The poster showed composite images of President Bush and Osama bin Laden, and was titled Fear creates patriots. Because the wall was now effectively WW))OLer property, most of whom were of conservative bent, they retaliated by covering up the posters so that they were not thought responsible for this far‐left propaganda . )t is ironic that the WW))OLers, in moving to SL, were partly hoping to avoid the partisan politics over )raq swamping WWII Online s discussion boards. The wall became the mirror the real‐world Republican/Democrat split of )raq War discourse. Au writes that it was focus of pro‐ and anti‐war messages, posters and propaganda materials that quickly came to as if both sides were trying to defeat each other by sheer force imagery . The violence between residents and WW))OLers continued, although it was mainly restricted to Jessie by this point. The conflict over the wall spurred a change in WW))OLer tactics who made BBC http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t= http://forums.secondlife.com/showpost.php?p= Au , p. . Au Au , p. . Ibid., pp. ‐ . Ibid., p. . &page= , accessed June . &postcount= , accessed June . 22 a point of seeking out individual residents, even pursuing them into neighbouring sims, kicking and shooting them, and branding them traitors and anti‐American . When a WW))OLer leader, Syank Nomad, added a large Confederate flag to the wall, the conflict changed again. The SL web forum came alive, with several residents arguing that Nomad had breached Linden Lab s Community Standards prohibiting hate speech , a charge vehemently denied by Nomad and others. Linden Lab intervened and decided to set the wall to no build status, meaning that no‐one but the company could in future affix anything to it. that, the war was over . Over time, the wall itself was gradually dismantled by Linden Lab and now only a small portion remains, of digital culture. And just like an architectural artefact in the developing palimpsest )t would perhaps be easy to dismiss the War of Jessie Wall as a typical example of gameplaying, in which petulance and intolerance played as great a part as any consideration of politics or freedom of expression. Does the territorial aspect of the dispute render the arguments over guns and violence redundant , as MacCallum‐Stewart maintains? Or was the use of violence instrumental in its own right, despite the immateriality of the Second Life experience? Anthropologist David Moore writes, [s]ocial rules govern violence and these rules render violence intelligible and rewarding for those who participate in it . This is certainly true of many gaming worlds, as previously noted, in which violence – usually as combat – has long been an integral and necessary part of gameplay. Violence is a means by which identity is Ibid. http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t= , accessed Au Au , p. . http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/M)SC‐ , accessed June MacCallum‐Stewart, op. cit., p. . Moore , p. . Jantzen & Jensen June . . 23 constructed and maintained by individuals and by communities and this human trait unsurprisingly persists in online gaming environments, especially when goal‐oriented status elevation is required. )n the non‐gaming world of Second Life, violence has always been the exception rather than the rule. Analogues of violence, such as bodily harm and death, were restricted eventually to a single sim, Jessie, although all sims have the capacity to be damage‐enabled should the owners wish. The Jessie conflict arose between two communities with differing perceptions of violence but also of the norms of inworld action and dwelling. The existing Outlands residents exercised several levels of choice. For economic reasons, most had elected to buy cheap land on these sims, despite knowing full well that these areas were damage‐enabled. Although death was always possible, most residents chose not to utilise these functions or engage in activities that might lead to it. As a result, social norms developed at variance with the actual intended character of the Outlands as decided by the coding authority. Ultimately, they would also choose violence as a form of expression for the purpose of identity maintenance. The WW))OLers, on the other hand, came from a game in which violence was normative and purposive. For them, SL offered space to explore violence as the central motif of both their other home and of the Outlands. This does not necessarily make them belligerent per se but does help explain the resulting conflict. Whilst MacCallum‐Stewart is partially correct in labelling this a territorial dispute, the territory in question was not only physical but cultural. Guns and violence were central in the first phase of the war . Carrying a gun in any culture is an expression of potential, if not outright intent. Although some of the relatively peaceful inhabitants carried and experimented with guns and munitions, these were generally not 24 deployed against other residents. An influx of new residents ignorant of this convention was inevitably going to stir up trouble. WW))OLers admitted that they were perhaps a little too enthusiastic about killing in these early days and it is quite likely that the conflict would eventually have petered out and new behavioural norms negotiated. Linden Lab were relatively uninterested in intervening at this stage, even when residents complained that the WW))OLers were in breach of Community Standards. Au cites Robert Nozick s Anarchy, State, and Utopia , in which the libertarian philosopher theorises utopia not as a singular construct but as a state allowing several utopian visions to co‐exist, even if these conflict. The conflict between old and new residents concerned the internal politics of online communities. Although Linden was never far away the dispute was essentially about modes of cultural existence, about permissiveness, respect and tradition. )t was conducted between relatively well‐defined groups, both of whom had histories and a sense of community, if not its embodiment in its strictest formulation. Concepts of residence and belonging informed older residents reactions to the WW))OLers, as did their sense of entitlement, even when the latter conflicted with the very clear rules of the Outlands. The transformation of a conflict over culture into one nominally over )raq saw a shift not only in tactics but also in politics. With the ongoing invasion of )raq as the background, real‐world politics intruded into the previously isolated conflict. Disputes over the morality of the )raq war, as well as the sectarian tropes of domestic American politics, were played out in a propaganda battle, graffiti and continued fighting. This form of protest and polarised dissent was by no means restricted to SL, occurring globally in almost all social milieux and mediated through multiple technologies, but it did serve to underline the generally liberal nature of SL residents by contrast with the more conservative players of games like WWII Online. Au , p. Anderson . , passim. 25 Linden was effectively forced to do something and in the end removed users ability to modify the Jessie Wall. )t successfully deflated the conflict but raised serious questions as to what role the coding authority should have in the regulation of political expression. We are reminded that Nozick began Anarchy with the question, )f the state did not exist would it be necessary to invent it? This question is moot in SL, given that the coding authority preceded the world, but we could perhaps ask instead, )f the state exists would it be sensible to remove it? . )t would seem that in Second Life the answer is currently, no . But what of the utility of violence itself? Despite Stephen Webb s statement that in the context of virtual environments, [p]hysical constraint as a threatening device … is not available as a moral force when someone is abusive or offensive , deploying violence in spaces like Second Life. anthropological definition p. there is evidently some utility in The combination of Abbink s weak with the aforementioned work on presence allows us to consider violence free of its original reference points of materiality and physicality. All elements of Abbink s definition were present in the two phases of the Outlands war – humans/avatars, symbolism, intimidation, lethal force, and the intent to prevail. )f we perceive virtual violence in this way it is apparent that violence did occur in Jessie and was indeed of limited political utility in effecting change – even if undesirable ‐ although its origins were in entertainment and simulation. )n the final balance there were no real winners at Jessie Wall. The genie was out of the bottle with respect to the role of Linden Lab as the de jure state authority. Older residents were forced to accept the presence of WW))OLers or move elsewhere. The WW))OLers were marginalised and increasingly forgotten as the evolution of SL, and the creativity and innovation of other residents, continued to outgrow the realm of war and weapons. Nozick Webb , p. . , p. . 26 4.2 On Second Life Liberation Army August a new actor arrived publicly in Second Life. On their blog, then subtitled The only response to injustice is to fight! , the Second Life Liberation Army SLLA announced its brief manifesto. )n part, it read, The SLLA is a national liberation movement commmited [sic] to the establishment of citizens [sic] rights within Second Life. As Second Life currently operates as an authoritarian government we are going to press our demands through the tactical use of force. The post mentioned their political officer, an avatar called Marshal Cahill, a name presumably chosen to reference both the John Wayne character of the same name in Cahill U.S. Marshal and Joe Cahill, one of the founders of the Provisional )rish Republican Army P)RA . The history of national liberation movements was further recalled by Cahill s physical appearance, a dapper, bespectacled man reminiscent of a young Abimael Guzmán, leader of the Peruvian guerrilla organisation, Sendero Luminoso Shining Path . On August Cahill announced on the SL forum that military operations against strategically important targets would commence at midnight on conditions were met. August unless two First, that Linden introduce democratic voting for residents to decide on inworld issues. Second, that a referendum be called to decide on the issue of resident verification . The latter referenced plans to introduce a system whereby residents, who up to this point could be anonymous, would have to provide details of their real‐world identities in order to verify they were old enough to be in mature sectors of the grid. The statement elicited a degree of wry amusement but also, through email contact with the SLLA, a large number of SLLA Cahill a ; the SLLA formed in April a , see Porter 27 well meaning suggestions that resulted in the formulation of Proposition on August. This called for the formal establishment of inworld voting rights and represented an augmented strategy of both political activism and military action; negotiation with Linden had not previously been considered on the basis that it was not possible. This was somewhat disingenuous given that Linden employees maintained regular and expansive dialogue with residents even if the results of these consultations were not always popular with residents. (owever, the SLLA correctly ascertained that were genuine concerns amongst residents about Linden s style of governance as the coding authority, in particular the issue of representation. The forum post announcing Proposition also stated that military operations would proceed as planned. Word of the SLLA began to spread outside the SL forums with a report appearing in now‐defunct inworld newspaper The Democrat on both Cahill and SL s Brian Linden. August which interviewed Linden called the SLLA s actions a virtual bomb threat and Cahill, responding to the accusation of terrorism, stated that the SLLA were forced to use military means due to Linden s overwhelming superiority . )nterestingly, Cahill did not reject the term, saying that [w]e will not engage in double‐speak and will where appropriate use tactics that disrupt the smooth running of SL . The August deadline passed without Linden capitulating to SLLA demands and the military operation commenced with an attack against the American Apparel store in SL. American Apparel, a large US‐based clothing manufacturer well‐known for its ethical trading policies, was an early experimenter with the potential of virtual stores to sell both its own virtual clothes in SL but also as a means to generate publicity inworld and out. Their inworld store was designed by Aimee Weber – real name, Alyssa LaRoche – an early resident of SL who makes a Cahill b Ibid. SLLA b ; The Democrat folded in November SLLA, ibid. (uang , see (oward 28 living consulting on inworld projects for clients as varied as Warner Brothers, United Nations and the American Cancer Society. Weber was both an SL insider and a high‐profile resident who had already attracted substantial press interest, important considerations for the SLLA s developing communications strategy. The attack on the American Apparel store was hardly spectacular, but the SLLA claimed success in preventing residents purchasing goods elsewhere as a sleepy hollow with few users, although they described the store so one must wonder at the actual disruption caused, which was certainly temporary. For the SLLA perhaps the most effective outcome was more press coverage, mostly online publications, but still media vehicles for their campaign. One in particular expressed concern that the SLLA s actions might make companies think twice about locating in Second Life. This commercial imperative was addressed by the SLLA in a statement on August . They proposed that each resident be allowed to purchase single shares in Linden Lab, which would therefore consolidate users loyalty to the platform and strengthen Linden s commitment to its residents. The proposal received little attention and gained minimal traction. On September a major security breach occurred in which it was discovered that SL user data – names, addresses, credit card details – were accessible to an intruder. Linden disabled all user passwords, requiring residents to provide new ones in order to continue accessing SL. The SLLA announced nearly three weeks later that these measures resulted in their losing over Au , pp. ‐ . SLLA c SLLA e Fawkes , Mistral (obson & (oltz SLLA d BBC , Linden a , SLLA % g , Weber 29 of their membership, suggesting that many of those who had pledged their support were either peripherally involved or relatively inactive residents. Undeterred, the SLLA launched a second attack, this time against the SL Reebok store on October. The attack was similar to the American Apparel event and claimed success in disrupting commercial activities. This was accompanied by the release of a video of the actions onto video‐sharing site YouTube which rapidly gained thousands of views. Although the scenes displayed were somewhat underwhelming as a spectacle it showed that the SLLA was giving continued thought to their communications strategy. This was given a further boost by exposure in mainstream media outlets, including The New York Times, online niche publications. as well as the usual The selection of the third target – Midnight City, designed by Aimee Weber and inhabited by most of the influential SL residents – was accompanied by an operational shift. On October the SLLA announced that everyone on the Midnight City sim would be considered legitimate targets for shootings and bombings and effectively outsourced its violence by offering bounties of $L for each successful and substantiated attack. The bounty would double for successful attacks on three inworld companies: The Electric Sheep Company, Millions of Us and Rivers Run Red, all run by prominent SL residents. This was reminiscent of the infamous assassination market theorised by Timothy May and colleagues in the mid s. The announcement also referred to unrestricted warfare in Midnight City, possibly referencing a book of the same name published in by Chinese Air Force colonels Qiao Liang and Wang SLLA f SLLA h http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= r uU(aqm , accessed June . Siklos SLLA i Bell ; the proposal was a prediction market in which people bet on the date of death of public officials; this incentivised assassination as any person could collect the pool winnings by killing persons when s/he predicted. 30 Xiangsui. Unrestricted Warfare proposed strategies for combating technologically superior opponents through a combination of networked warfare, terrorism, economic warfare and lawfare . The SLLA were reported making explicit reference to leaderless resistance . This strategy, first proposed by anti‐communist Ulius Louis Amoss and developed further by white supremacist Louis Beam in the s, has received recent attention due to its reformulation as leaderless jihad in the work of Marc Sageman. Leaderless resistance connotes a non‐ hierarchical and dispersed resistance strategy in which cells and individuals act autonomously within the framework of an overarching political ideology. )t is unclear how successful was this combination of revised strategy and call to arms. On November the SLLA reported that volunteer Mikey Flyer conducted an attack in Midnight City and posted a link to a YouTube video now deleted . Other details are scant but mainstream media continued to run stories about this and earlier actions, including the Financial Times, USA Today and The Sunday Times. The Los Angeles Times also published an article by a reporter the SLLA claimed to have embedded during a second attack on the American Apparel store. )n the interview, Cahill claimed that % of SL residents supported the SLLA and compared himself to John Adams, second President of the United States. Adams would have been considered a terrorist by his foes, Cahill said, because he helped lead the American Revolution. The Second Life Liberation Army is just trying to make the world a better place . We must consider these statements as propaganda, a necessary and integral part of national liberation movements, and Wagner James Au accused the LA Times of astroturfing , a public relations Liang & Xiangsui Mistral b Beam Berlet , Sageman SLLA j (arkin , Petrecca SLLA k Semuels , Rushe 31 tactic intended at creating the impression of grassroots mobilisation. The revolutionary blueprint was also apparent with the appointments of a new strategist, Keksakallu Klata, and media liaison, Solidad Sugarbeet, around this time, and the establishment of a permanent office in SL. On January Reuters hosted a World Economic Forum discussion in SL to which residents were invited. Although lightly attended this event illustrates the significance Reuters for a time accorded SL as a business platform and a source of news. SLLA guerrillas stormed the stage and, according to their blog, managed to elicit some concessions in principle from participant and Linden Lab chairman Mitch Kapor regarding avatar rights and democratic self‐government . Over the next month or so the SLLA continued to crop up in press reports, many of which were for the first time not in English as the result of an Agence France‐Presse wire story. On February the SLLA issued a prepared document, Towards a Strategy for the Democratic Revolution . This was a preparatory manifesto explaining the SLLA s political position universal suffrage for avatars leading to a citizens government and laying out a strategy for action, including fundraising, propaganda, combat training, media relations, education, and internal organisation. )t also made explicit reference to spectacular simulated guerrilla attacks perhaps using humour as well as simulated violence , for the first time – implicitly at least – recognising that the nature of inworld violence is complex. The nearly ‐word document was well‐written and explained both their grievances and their strategy for addressing them in Au c SLLA a Mesure Reuters maintained a bureau in SL between October and November . Klata a . This recalls Raph Koster s A Declaration of the Rights of Avatars Koster later conceded by the SLLA d. AFP , (utcheon , McCarthy , Pham , SLLA b , Taylor Klata b , a point 32 ways typical of many a liberation manifesto, and was essentially drawn from Maoist iterations of revolutionary warfare. the SLLA s blog or website. Despite its importance to the organisation it was not circulated on The last major SLLA action for which there is evidence occurred on blog claimed that March . The SLLA members attended a rally at SLLA headquarters at which Marshal Cahill presented the one vote, one avatar manifesto and the SLLA s desire to meet Linden for negotiations towards this end. )n terms deliberately reminiscent of words attributed to American revolutionary Nathan (ale prior to his execution by the British in , Cahill said, ) have one regret today and that is that ) have just one )P address to give to this cause . The rally was followed by protests at Linden s SL headquarters accompanied by the usual scripted mischief, an event even covered by UK s Channel 4 News. The SLLA quickly pointed out that they were not anarchists as maintained by Channel 4 but a broad church of activists seeking democratic representation, a revolutionary base they had previously referred to as the avatariat . There is no evidence these actions resulted in anything but amused responses from Linden regarding possible talks with the SLLA. This was the last SLLA‐driven action in SL although they were alleged involved in protests against Front National p. . )n April senior members of the SLLA leadership claimed that Marshal Cahill was, in real life, a corporate intelligence analyst associated with American firm Concentric Solutions )nternational CS) . CS) states openly that it monitors blogs, social Mao )t was uploaded to online storage service Google Docs http://docs.google.com/ which means its status could initially have been linked to a private Google account, then switched to shared , which is where it now publicly resides. Ketstugo Cahill ; an )P )nternet Protocol address is a unique identification number assigned to all computers on the internet. Channel SLLA c Textbot 33 networking sites and even MMORPGs … in order to inform its intelligence program but has not confirmed publicly its role, if any, in the SLLA. )t was also alleged by some SL residents that the SLLA was actually a front organisation close to Linden, deployed to divert attention away from other problems of Linden/resident relations. The accusations resulted in the effective collapse of the organisation and prominent members joined other activist groups like the Second Life Democratic Front and the Second Life Democratic Movement. The SLLA continued to be held responsible for actions in SL but in effect the movement was moribund and played no further part in Second Life politics. )t does seem likely that the SLLA was an experiment instigated by an external investigative party rather than a purely grass roots initiative as suggested by its early statements. One must wonder at the ethical issues this raises and it is not surprising that if CS) were responsible that they have chosen not to admit any role. )t could therefore be argued that any examination of the SLLA is rendered moot because of this. This might be true were one only to consider its effectiveness in achieving its stated end – representative inworld democracy – which is minimal at best; Linden still operates SL much as it did before the SLLA actions. Wagner James Au has related how previous attempts by Linden to involve residents in democratic process met with lukewarm reception. Au interprets this by drawing an analogy with American democracy: emotionally loyal to its principles, and resistant to outside pressure, but unlikely to vote in droves come an election. diversified over time. This might explain, in part, why the strategic aims of the SLLA Beginning with demands for representative democracy and avatar rights , they quickly moved on to suggest a shares issue by Linden, presumably both a sop to Linden but also a way of broadening the SLLA s appeal. The bounty model introduced in http://www.concentricsolution.com/services.shtml, accessed June . Particularly by noted SL conspiracy theorist Prokofy Neva Catherine Fitzpatrick , e.g. http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/slh/ / /is_second_life_.html?cid= #comment‐ a d bf ef d c cf ef, accessed July . Mistral b Au , pp. ‐ . 34 October was also perhaps a means to encourage more residents to become involved. The revised manifesto of February articulated previous strategic goals but also added concerns that many other residents had had for some time regarding the commercialisation of SL, property rights, currency supply, immigration issues and grid stability. There was sufficiently broad interest in the SLLA that they claimed at one point to have the largest activist membership in SL , although this cannot be verified. What is clear is that prior to the February Manifesto the SLLA had succeeded in recruiting persons of genuinely revolutionary intent, regardless of the real identity of Marshal Cahill. We could speculate that the momentum of the SLLA from late onwards largely derived from persons like Klata and Sugarbeet, rather than from Cahill himself. )n this sense, if the SLLA was an experiment in political mobilisation then it was a successful proof of concept . This is also true when we consider the relationships between violence, the media and terrorism as applied to the SLLA. Terrorism is difficult to situate in the discontinuous and subjective spectrum of violence, with almost every author on the subject seeking his own definition. As with Justice Potter Stewart s famous statement on pornography – ) know it when ) see it – broad unanimity does exist when the phenomenon reveals itself. Theoretically though, its nature and parameters continue to elude satisfactory resolution. Weinberg et al analysed definitions of terrorism in a sample of academic journals over two decades and arrived at the following consensus definition : Terrorism is a politically motivated tactic involving the threat or use of force or violence in which the pursuit of publicity plays a significant role. Klata a Gewirtz Cooper , Weinberg et al , Jenkins , p. . , Laqueur , pp. ‐ , Schmid 35 This reflects the psychological element of terrorism as the authors intended but suffers from, among other deficiencies, an admitted lack of distinction between combatants and non‐ combatants. For this reason ) have adapted a recent definition by Uwe Steinhoff and suggest that terrorism is, a tactic or strategy of intimidating or impressing persons other than the immediate victims or targets of violence by the repeated threat, made credible by corresponding acts, of violence. This definition differs from Steinhoff s own in the assertion that terrorism is of tactical utility as well as strategic purpose, which places it squarely within the multidimensional toolbox of the modern violent actor. )t also emphasises that the performative and demonstrative aspects of terrorism are as important as violent acts themselves. This suggests that we are moving away from definitions of both violence and terrorism as necessarily involving physicality. From the outset the SLLA deployed language that unequivocally situated them within the historical sweep of liberation movements that used violence as a means to effect political change. At various points they compared themselves to the revolutionaries of America, as well as to those of th‐century England and ‐ th‐century France. Allusions to military operations coupled to a political strategy mean that we should regard the SLLA as the armed wing of a political movement, a binary structure familiar to students of revolutionary politics both left and right. The SLLA did not deny they would use terrorist tactics as part of an overarching liberation strategy, although cited disruption of SL life as their primary aim in deploying violence rather than attacking individuals or property explicitly. Of course, SLLA Ibid., p. . Steinhoff Bolt et al , p. . 36 attacks did not result in physical harm to residents but they arguably achieved their disruptive aims. One of the many problems with SL as a platform is the phenomenon of lag . Lag occurs where the volume of communication requests to Linden s servers in California is essentially too great for the servers to accommodate. This results in a noticeably increased time taken to render the graphic display on a user s computer, obviously critical to successful engagement with the world; in essence, events do not occur in real time anymore. Attacks in which, for example, multiple instant messaging )M requests are made – as with the SLLA March actions at Linden headquarters – result in massive lag, which is therefore disruptive to other users on that particular sim. This is a traditional griefing tactic also, deployed to great effect by established and sophisticated SL griefer groups like the Patriotic Nigras, but the SLLA s political ambitions set them apart, regardless of their real identities or genuine convictions. )f at one point there were concerns that SLLA actions could drive commercial investors from the world, this must also be considered a successful application of the threat of violence. More importantly though was the media exposure generated by SLLA actions. )t could safely be argued that the SLLA developed at a time when mainstream media interest in SL was at its height; the presence of a Reuters bureau in SL between ‐ exemplifies this. This does not fully explain the coverage the SLLA received however. The appointment of a media liaison in late , the embedding of a Los Angeles Times reporter, and explicit reference to a PR [public relations] offensive in in‐world and RL [real‐life] publications in the February Manifesto all illustrate the importance the SLLA accorded the media. Although most media coverage was despite, rather than because of, the SLLA s media strategy they were undoubtedly successful in this element of their campaign. Even after their demise, stories continued to reference them Most SLLA actions occurred on sims that were not damage‐enabled. Boellstorff, op. cit., pp. ‐ , (ook http://www.patrioticnigras.org/, accessed June 37 and to associate them with inworld actions by other groups, partly the result of lazy journalism, but also perhaps of a certain sensationalism in the outworld media. Modern terrorism theory places communication at the heart of terrorism strategy and the SLLA exploited this to their advantage. This is not to say that resulting media coverage was positive but the so‐called oxygen of publicity , in Margaret Thatcher s memorable phrase, SLLA. was certainly offered to the Although the SLLA did not succeed in achieving any of its stated strategic ambitions it did at least demonstrate that a virtual world like SL can provide a suitable platform for other groups to pursue political agendas. Although we have yet to establish whether tactical, physical violence might be part of such a campaign, simulated violence seems to have played a part in achieving certain elements of a communications strategy, as well as disruption of inworld functionality. Both mainstream and new media outlets were important in advertising the SLLA to outworld consumers, and inworld discussions as to the validity of the SLLA were rife. Terrorist tactics can potentially be applied to both real and virtual environments and, as with some forms of kinetic terrorism, the barriers to entry are relatively low. Entry‐level SL accounts are free, relatively anonymous, and only require access to a computer with the specifications and broadband access to render the graphic environment satisfactorily – all within reach of the average consumer in developed economies. Sophisticated attacks do require a greater degree of technical skill, something the SLLA seem to have lacked, but which other groups like the Patriotic Nigras possess. As an experiment, which this most likely was, the SLLA showed that inworld political mobilisation paired with tactical violence could potentially have some strategic effect. The SLLA were largely insulated from real‐world politics and activities but the following section will E.g. Carruthers , pp. , Schmid & de Graaf Apple ‐ , Kavoori & Fraley , Tuman , Wilkinson , O Shaughnessy , ch. . , ch. , Schmid 38 describe how other SL interactions associated with violence have, like the War of Jessie Wall, greater connections with real‐world politics, an important consideration in the potential security implications of virtual worlds. 4.3 ‘Because I Hate Front National’ )n December the Moselle branch of Front National de la Jeunesse FNJ , the youth wing of the far‐right French political party, Front National FN , announced on their blog that they had established an official and permanent representation in SL, claiming to be the first French organisation, political or otherwise, to do so. Marie Le Pen s campaign for the )ts stated intentions were to promote Jean‐ presidential elections, to represent FN permanently in SL, to be a virtual meeting point for members and sympathisers, and to promote French and Francophone interests in virtual worlds traditionally dominated by les Anglosaxons . Alexandre Ayroulet, the national director of FNJ, explained that they wanted explicitly to attract young residents of the world, and to translate virtual interest into real‐world actions. Youth activist Guillaume Parisi was reported as saying that SL s transnational reach allowed the FN to talk to a wide range of people and show that they were far from the caricature of Nazis that people believe. )t s great for our image abroad . FN were no strangers to online activity, with a long track record of Usenet discussion groups, for example. Romain Létang, FN s webmaster, was quoted in as saying, For us, the internet is a pure propaganda medium where our message is not distorted . The twin benefits of relative online anonymity and circumvention of norms of freedom of expression as regards FNJ Ibid.; the most economically powerful SL resident at this point was Anshe Chung pp. a resident of Wuhan, China Sklar Le Nouvel Observateur Moore DATOPS Stoll ‐ , actually 39 incitement to racial hatred have long been used by the far right. As early as , white supremacists in the United States were ahead of the curve in using pre‐internet bulletin boards for propagandist purposes, media program. so it is little surprise that FN saw SL as a useful addition to their Visitors to the FN offices in the Matrix Mall shopping area of Porcupine sim could collect membership cards, buy T‐shirts with Linden dollars and click through to external FN websites. They were met by well‐spoken FN avatars, one of whom, Wolfram (ayek, is reported as saying, the FN stands for individual liberty, and the internet and virtual worlds are the best symbols of this liberty . Elsewhere, (ayek took great pains to point out that statements calling FN fascists or Nazis had been successfully prosecuted in French courts, and drew attention to a number of black and Muslim FN candidates as far back as the nationalism is based on merit and patriotism, not race . s; Front National s vision of Such statements did not satisfy members of a group calling themselves Second Life Left Unity SLLU , reputedly founded by members of the Glasgow chapter of the Scottish Socialist Party. On their website, the SLLU claims to seek creative, non violent means to foster revolutionary social dialogue via the virtual world platform of Second Life. On January the SLLU issued a press release in English, French, )talian and Spanish that gave notice that they would be holding protests outside the FN offices, and challenged Linden Lab to ban this race hate group who are masquerading as a political party, from SL PG zones. PG denotes a non‐mature Berlet Lechner , author s translation. http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/slh/ / /another_sl_firs.html?cid= #comment‐ a d bf ef d cdb a ef, accessed July . Whittle http://slleftunity.blogspot.com/, accessed July . More on the SLLU can be found in an article by co‐founder Plot Tracer Neil Scott , see Scott SLLU a 40 location in SL, roughly analogous to the Parental Guidance certification of motion pictures. The SLLU further asserted that the FN were in breach of SL s Terms of Service and if Linden were not to remove them on that basis then they should at least be moved to an M ‐rated mature location, although SLLU co‐founder Plot Tracer wrote a few days later that he did not consider fascism to be appropriate to any sort of sim. anti‐censorship and libertarian groups. Such talk was vehemently opposed by The SLLU bought land next to the FN office and began ‐hour protests outside it. SLLU activists were banned by the FN but some who persisted complained of being shot at by FN cadres; some avatars began to return fire . (ayek rejected any accusations that his confrères engaged in violent acts, held weapons, or were responsible for any racist or obscene speech. By this point, another group, Anti Front National Second Life AntiFNsl had joined the fray, and other curious parties, both pro‐ and anti‐FN, arrived at the scene. The SLLA also claims to have been involved in the anti‐FN protests. Occasional skirmishes and political argument soon developed into outright confrontation during which the FN headquarters were bombarded with a surreal variety of weapons, including multi‐coloured airbursts, script bombs, simulated gunfire, police sirens, a holographic Thomas the Tank Engine, and the occasional exploding pig. As this region was not damage‐enabled no avatars died but, as previously noted in relation to SLLA attacks p. , the server lag disrupted activity substantially, slowing the action to a ponderous and dreamlike conflict . http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/PG, accessed July . Actually Community Standards, forbidding use of derogatory or demeaning language or images in reference to another Resident's race, ethnicity, gender, religion, or sexual orientation Second Life, c http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/slh/ / /protesters_dema.html?cid= #comment‐ a d bf ef d d bad ef, accessed July . Douglas ; see SLLU b for a response to these groups. Mistral a http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/slh/ / /protesters_dema.html?cid= #comment‐ a d bf ef d d d d ef, accessed July . Ketstugo, op. cit. Au a Au , p. . 41 The protests gained attention in the mainstream French media, in newspapers like Libération, and Le Monde, and on television channels LC) and Canal+, and Europe radio. Sensing a public relations victory along the lines of the Barnumesque dictum, any publicity is good publicity , the FN moved location to Axel sim, where a rather smaller crowd of protesters engaged them, this time in more measured fashion. The FN s former offices in Porcupine were dismantled and replaced with placards of Jean‐Marie Le Pen sporting a (itler moustache. The large‐scale conflict was over, although minor scuffles continued to occur over the next few months at various locations in SL. Front National can only have been delighted with the attention the protests drew to their cause, and they continued to have a presence in SL until at least mid‐ . Numerous bloggers and commentators opined that publicity was actually the primary reason for their move to SL, and those who were ranged against them only succeeding in helping them achieve their aims in this regard. Their perceived success allegedly inspired many other far‐right organisations to set up in SL, including a group purporting to be Combat 18, the notorious armed wing of British neo‐Nazi group Blood and Honour. )f true, this would be a long‐standing tactic of the far‐right, one played out in the UK with the media exposure granted to the British National Party during, and in the wake of, the candidates in the local and European elections. )t is also the case that all four French presidential election eventually had SL offices, some of whom also reported attacks against their premises. Mauco , p. . Au a, b , Nino Burkeman Author s observation, July AntiFNsl n.d. Author s observation, July Leicester , Kar‐Gupta US presidential elections. . . ; see Wharton for an analysis of party presences during the 42 (owever, the response to the FN s arrival was far less organised than groups like the SLLU and AntiFNsl claim. Not only were the protestors against the FN not organised in any coherent fashion but the pro‐FN actors included those who believed that the FN, despite their unpleasant political views, were entitled to express their opinions. As with the War of Jessie Wall, it seems that initial attempts at negotiation degenerated quickly into violence; again, we may never know who started it. One small group calling themselves The (orrors of Second Life claimed to have provoked the anti‐FN attacks by handing out weapons to the crowd, acting as spoilers of any peaceful resolution. The protests were boring beforehand, said one; after the weapons began to be used, they were awesome! The SLLU publicly eschewed violence, although it is less certain that the AntiFNsl did so. )n mid‐ the AntiFNsl headquarters were still publicly accessible, from where one could obtain free Molotov cocktails and Anti Fascist Action sweatshirts. )t is unclear if the latter derive from the avowedly violent British anti‐Fascist organisation of the same name, disbanded in , assumed to have but the logos were the same. Pinned to the guardrail of their dockside timber office was an exhortation to Facists [sic] Racists (aters of Refugees to Follow Your Leader , accompanied by a picture of Adolf (itler committing suicide with a pistol. The protests also attracted the SLLA – whose use of violence is a matter of record – and other residents who probably joined in the events for the sheer fun of it. Wagner James Au equates most of this activity with griefing, rather than with political action, and many others have similarly dismissed the significance of the protests. Axe Author s observation, July . (ann & Kilzey Sections of AFA transformed into Antifa England, continuing the tradition of confronting fascism . physically when it is necessary . See http://www.antifa.org.uk/foundstat.htm, accessed July Author s observation, July . Au , pp. ‐ . 43 Au recorded the following exchange with one of the avatar‐protestors in Porcupine: The server lag from so many people throwing up so much gunfire slows the battle to a slow motion firefight, but ) manage to wade up to TonTonCarton Yue [another avatar], who is strafing the FN building with a chaingun [more] usually associated with an AC‐ political protest. gunship, than a Can ) ask, ) begin, why are you shooting? Because ) hate Front National, Yue tells me simply. )f you use violence, doesn't that reduce you to their level? ) don't know, Yue answers, after a while. ) don't care. FN equals violence. And having offered that axiom, he returns his aim to the enemy, and unleashes another barrage. There is no evidence that Yue was or is a member of any group but it is interesting to note Yue s recourse to violence as a legitimate response, and the synchronicity between his statement and those of real‐world violent actors. Frantz Fanon articulated this in The Wretched of the Earth , justifying physical violence as a constructive, cathartic response to the structural violence of the colonial powers: it makes him fearless and restores his self‐respect . Events such as these may partly reflect political currents in the real world. At the time of the protests against FN in January , the aftershocks of the vicious race riots of late were reverberating across the French political landscape, compounded by street violence marking their first anniversary in October . There are other examples of real‐world politics being played out in violent fashion in SL, as we have already seen in part with the War of Jessie Wall. Au Fanon Astier a , p. . 44 During ‐ , the Spanish socialist government, led by the Spanish Socialists Workers’ Party PSOE , was in bitter dispute with the opposition Popular Party PP . The PP accused the Zapatero government of capitulating to Basque nationalist separatist organisation Euskadi Ta Askatasuna ETA by tabling a renewed process of dialogue. )n the aftermath of the March Madrid train bombings a sensitised public repeatedly took to the streets in support of the opposition line of no negotiation with terrorists . )n May , the PP and PSOE accused one another of instigating arson attacks at their respective SL headquarters, and of using batteries of weapons against one another. A PP spokesman reportedly said, We have denounced the terrorists before the Second Life commission . Echoing some responses to the FN protests, some residents actively resented the intrusion of real‐world politics into Second Life. )n March , then )talian Minister of )nfrastructure, Antonio Di Pietro, bought an island in SL with the intention of promoting political, social and economic debate. This led to resident protests, with one telling a reporter from La Stampa, )t doesn t seem right to make this a photocopy of real life, we get enough politics there already . This may also have been the reason for the vandalism of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards campaign headquarters in February Republican activists were responsible, Patriotic Nigras, did it for the lulz . . Although initial indications were that it was later announced that notorious griefers, the These disruptive activities are often successful in effecting real change, usually by causing politicians to abandon inworld activities, as in the case of the Edwards and Di Pietro cases Abend Wood Reuters Kington Brownlee Cabron , author s translation. ; lulz , internet slang for laughing at someone else s expense, Schadenfreude. 45 above. This effectively closes down a communications channel previously available to politicians and political groups, unless they are as hard‐headed as Front National perhaps. )t is hard to establish whether the violence meted out to Front National served any political utility. The SLLU claimed not to use violence, the SLLA s involvement is uncertain, and almost nothing is known about AntiFNsl s activities at this time. All three groups, however, voiced their opposition to the FN s presence in SL, as did neighbouring businesses who feared their commercial interests would be harmed. )f violence were deployed it appears not to have directly served anyone s interests, except for fuelling FN s publicity campaign. The types of cartoonish actions undertaken by protestors undoubtedly disrupted the smooth running of the sims on which the FN was present. This actually did draw attention to a key problem within SL, that of the nature of free speech and expression, although it is debatable this was the purpose of the violence. )t is notable that Linden remained almost silent throughout the affair, perhaps hoping that the protests would die down and they would not be forced to address this complex and divisive issue. )n this, they seem to have been granted their wish. From Linden s perspective, FN almost certainly were careful not to fall foul of community guidelines and they therefore preferred not to bow to activist pressure and intervene. Despite the relatively transient effects of the FN protests they remain important to the evolution of SL as a platform for political expression. Although the means employed to eject FN from Porcupine were mostly comic, they did represent a groundswell of opposition to a political party of whom many SL residents vehemently disapproved. The FN, coming from a more heavily regulated European environment, were experienced in keeping within the law – in this case, the less restrictive community norms loosely based on the US constitution, particularly the First Amendment as applies to the freedoms of speech and expression. Such transnational friction will undoubtedly occur more often in cyberspace, as will the fluidity of the inworld/outworld distinction in the realm of politics. This is particularly true when we 46 consider the potential use of SL as a platform by violent actors like al‐Qaeda and other extremist groups. 47 5 ________________________________________________________________________ Conclusion [T]he balancing act facing us is to argue simultaneously that virtual worlds have important implications as well as untapped possibilities as a cultural form and a social expression while also saying that they re not nearly so important as some people think they are. – Timothy Burke The key question is: does any of this really matter? )s Second Life merely an iteration of real life, as posited by author and essayist Jenny Diski? )s there something new about these types of violence that should concern governments and security agencies? Chapter has described episodes of violence in Second Life. We have seen that violence principally takes the form of disruptive activities aimed at persons and property which can severely compromise residents experience of the world for those who do not consent to participation. )f we accept that a theory of virtual violence incorporates an element of physical presence in virtual spaces we can begin to see how violence can intrude upon residents physical bodies as represented as avatars. Avatars are the means by which inworld actions are mediated, even if ultimately the seat of experience lies in real‐world cognition. The forms of violence described here could perhaps be best considered as symbolic, and valid within Abbink s weak anthropological definition. Riches primary/secondary distinction between physical and non‐physical violence is perhaps therefore inverted: in virtual spaces, violence is primarily symbolic, performative and communicative; its secondary attributes are physical, principally through the denial of operating space accorded to avatars. Although many actions Burke Diski 48 would understandably appear to be laughable to the outside observer, these forms of virtual violence do have functional aspects. David Resnick has defined three types of internet politics: those within the net, dealing with the internal politics of virtual communities; those impacting the net, such as control, regulation, and censorship; and political uses of the net, for the purposes of effecting social and political change in the physical world. What the case studies reveal is that these categories are malleable and not conveniently demarcated, and that violence, which forms part of politics, contra Arendt, can shift functionally over very short periods of time. The War of Jessie Wall began as an internal conflict that quickly drew in real‐world concerns, the latter not being much considered by Resnick. Resnick s theory of political uses of the net was up‐ended: instead of effecting political change in the real world, the real world impacted on the virtual one. The SLLA were an internal political entity using violence to change inworld society, although borrowing heavily from historical revolutionary movements. The conflict over Front National arguably was intended to produce change in the real world – even if the protests themselves were counter‐productive – although internal society was the principal battlespace. Other examples of inworld political violence show that change can be effected outworld. After the SLLA s actions in Qaeda terrorists in Second Life. ‐ , news stories began to circulate about the presence of al‐ According to these reports, terrorists were using SL as a platform for training, recruitment and money‐laundering – assertions that seem to be devoid of factual basis. Despite these claims, virtual worlds occur in a variety of horizon‐scanning strategic literature, particularly as channels for money‐laundering and terrorist recruitment. Government agencies have considered the potential of virtual world platforms to facilitate acts of terrorism. Perhaps best known is the US )ntelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity s Resnick Economist , Gourlay & Taher , O Brien a, b 49 Reynard Program, proposed in and reformulated in as a program to profile virtual world users and link their behavioural characteristics to real‐world actors, with the ultimate goal of automatically spotting terrorist activities in virtual worlds. (igh‐level workshops have been held in Washington, DC, on the use of virtual worlds by terrorists, Congressional hearing addressed this issue in April . )n September and an entire , a Pentagon researcher showed how World of Warcraft could be used to plan an attack on the White (ouse. Terrorists are always likely to utilise any available technology to their advantage but most government initiatives are speculative and predicated on a very narrow view of virtual worlds. All consider virtual worlds as platforms for the transference of political activity from the virtual to the real world, Resnick s political uses of the net, in this case, terrorism. This is entirely consistent with most institutional discourses of cyberspace, which regard it principally as a threat . The conceptual roots of this perspective are historical. Some of the consternation surrounding virtual worlds and terrorism was perhaps pre‐empted by Marshall McLuhan: drawing on Kierkegaard s The Concept of Dread , McLuhan observed in wherever a new environment goes around an old one there is always new terror . that Although cyberspace does not yet wholly circumscribe all of human experience, McLuhan was essentially correct, whether the technology under consideration is the printing press, telegraph, television or the internet. A focus on the virtual to real bleed‐through of political violence excludes proper consideration of violence within virtual spaces, and its relationships with physicality and inworld http://www.iarpa.gov/solicitations_reynard.html, accessed July Cochran http://archives.energycommerce.house.gov/cmte_mtgs/ ‐ti‐hrg. accessed July . Schachtman , Toavs (oskins & O Loughlin , Stevens CBC . .VirtualWorlds.shtml, 50 socialisation, in particular the experience of communities largely mediated via cyberspace. Boellstorff has noted that '[n]ot everything connected to virtual worlds is new; it is imperative that we ascertain what elements are new and in what ways they are new'. Violence in a non‐ gaming world like SL is, whilst a manifestation of ancient impulses and enmities, simultaneously a new expression of violence on account of changing experiences of the body in cyberspace and of social environments mediated almost entirely in electronic space. The velocity and transnational character of such spaces will increase and we can expect growing emotional, economic and political investment in them. Whilst this might not constitute the exodus to virtual worlds proposed by Castronova, or the Cyburbia of James (arkin, it seems inevitable that more people will spend more time in more virtual worlds. Violence as a characteristic of human nature will occur in these environments, and will evolve in form, and perhaps function, as these places also develop. This is true for complex information environments in general, whose relationship with violence will continue to evolve rapidly. This exploration of virtual violence has concentrated on the non‐gaming world of Second Life but interesting trends are discernible in gaming worlds also. Linden Lab has consistently maintained that it holds true to a cyber‐utopian ethos but it is more accurate to describe their form of governance as libertarian paternalism . Other coding authorities have governed with much less intervention. The owners of EveOnline, a vast and staggeringly complex science fiction universe, effectively capitulated to the wishes of many of its players and allowed them to form a Council of Stellar Management which, despite having little real power within the game, permits players to govern many aspects of gameplay themselves. Similar uprisings have occurred in Lineage 2 and World of Warcraft against inworld political entities deemed Boellstorff, op. cit., p. . Castronova , (arkin Lia , ch. . Sunstein & Thaler ; see also Malaby Óskarsson 51 unacceptable by players. What are significant are not the rebellions themselves but that players cared enough about their online lives to instigate them. )n June , an obscure blog quietly announced that an avatar named Ruth had teleported from SL to an open source, non‐proprietary OpenSimulator virtual world server outside SL. This interoperability opens up possibilities that virtual worlds ‐ and, eventually, the web – might begin to form a more coherent landscape than the current firewalled constituents of the virtual archipelago: the much‐heralded Metaverse of ardent techno‐enthusiasts. This has significant implications not only for coding authorities but also for real‐world political authorities whose citizens might, more than ever before, dwell in a global virtual environment beyond extant means of control and regulation. Users, residents, citizens of this world may have ideas of self‐governance substantially divergent from the sustenance, reliance and protection derived from traditional states. Virtual violence might not be as stomach‐churning or as demonstrably destructive of social cohesion as terrorism, insurgency and war but it may play a variety of roles in future cyberspace. Second Life shows that the real and virtual worlds are intricately intertwined at multiple cognitive, physical, emotional, political and economic levels. Violence is part of this social landscape – it matters to those who use it and to those who experience it. Second Life may be a harbinger of future forms of violence, but this should not be overstated. The violations and transgressions of wholly physical violence will for the foreseeable future remain the more important and distressing products of the clash of political wills. Another Perfect World Ewry Smart et al ; Metaverse concept from Stephenson 52 Bibliography_____________________________________________________ Abbink, Jon , Restoring the Balance: Violence and Culture among the Suri of Southern Ethiopia , in Göran Aijmer and Jon Abbink, eds., Meanings of Violence: A Cross Cultural Perspective Oxford and New York: Berg , pp. Abend, Lisa ‐ , Five Years After the Madrid Bombings , Time, http://www.time.com/time/world/article/ , Adams, Paul C. pp. ‐ . . , ; available at .html, accessed July , Cyberspace and Virtual Places , Geographical Review, Vol. Agence France‐Presse AFP Anderson, Benedict , March , Virtual Terror Strikes Second Life , [ . , No. , February . ], Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. edn. London and New York: Verso Another Perfect World: )n Search of Virtual Paradise , dir. Femke Wolting and Jorien van Nes, prod. Femke Wolting and Bruno Felix Submarine/VPRO/Channel June . ; broadcast on More , Anti Front National Second Life AntiFNsl n.d. , White (ate Under Construction ; available at http://www.metaterror.com‐a.googlepages.com/AFN‐StatementonFNSL.pdf, accessed July . Apple, R.W., Jr. July . Arendt, (annah Astier, (enri , Thatcher Urges the Press to (elp Starve Terrorists , New York Times, , On Violence New York: (arvest Books , Suburban Gangs Defy French Police , BBC News, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/ /hi/europe/ Au, Wagner James .stm, accessed July , War of the Jessie Wall , New World Notes, http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/ / October /war_of_the_jess.html, accessed July June . ; ; available at . 53 Au, Wagner James , Taking New World Notes: An Embedded Journalist s Rough Guide to Reporting From )nside the )nternet s Next Evolution , First Monday, Special )ssue No. : Virtual ; available at http://firstmonday.org/htbin/ Architecture at State of Play ))), ‐ October cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/ / , accessed June Au, Wagner James a , Fighting the Front , New World Notes, Au, Wagner James b , Simulacra and Second Life , New World Notes, Au, Wagner James c , You and What Army? , New World Notes, http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/ / available at http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/ . Collins Axe, David War Is Boring, Bakioğlu, Burcu January /stronger_than_h.html, accessed July available at http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/ Au, Wagner James . / . ; available at January /simulacra_and_s.html, accessed July / February /you_and_what_ar.html, accessed ; . ; June , The Making of Second Life: Notes From the New World New York: , Pig Bombs, Machine Guns and French Racists: Second Life Gets Political , June ; available at http://warisboring.com/?p= , accessed July . , Spectacular )nterventions in Second Life: Goon Culture, Griefing, and Disruption in Virtual Spaces , Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, Vol. , No. ; available at https://journals.tdl.org/jvwr/article/view/ / , accessed June . Balkin, Jack M. and Beth Simone Noveck , eds., The State of Play: Law, Games, and Virtual Worlds New York and London: New York University Press BBC , Bush Speech: Full Text , May BBC , Security Breach (its Online World , world/americas/ .stm, accessed http://news.bbc.co.uk/ /hi/technology/ May ; available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/ /hi/ . September .stm, accessed ; available at June . 54 Beam, Louis [ ], Leaderless Resistance , The Seditionist, No. available at http://www.louisbeam.com/leaderless.htm, accessed June February . , Assassination Politics ; available at http://jya.com/ap.htm, accessed Bell, Jim . Bell, Mark W. . Benard, Cheryl Vol. , No. , pp. June , Toward a Definition of Virtual Worlds , Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, Vol. , No. ; available at https://journals.tdl.org/jvwr/article/view/ June ; ‐ . / , accessed , Rape as Terror: The Case of Bosnia , Terrorism and Political Violence, Berlet, Chip , When (ate Went Online , Public Eye, Berlet, Chip , Leaderless Counterterrorism Strategy: The War on Terror , Civil Liberties, org/magazine/v n /leaderless_counterterrorism_strategy.html, accessed http://www.publiceye.org/hate/online_ July ; available at /racist_bbs.html, accessed July and Flawed Scholarship , Public Eye Magazine, Vol. . , No. ; available at http://www.publiceye. June . Betz, David, and Tim Stevens in prep , Power in Cyberspace in Theory and Practice, Adelphi Paper London: )nternational )nstitute for Strategic Studies Bijker, Wiebe E., Thomas P. (ughes and Trevor J. Pinch, eds. , The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology Cambridge, MA, and London: M)T Press Blascovich, Jim, Jack Loomis, Andrew C. Beall, Kimberly R. Swinth, Crystal L. (oyt and Jeremy N. Bailenson , )mmersive Virtual Environment Technology as a Methodological Tool for Social Psychology , Psychological Inquiry, Vol. Bloch, Maurice , No. , pp. ‐ . , Prey Into Hunter: The Politics of Religious Experience Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 55 Blommaert, Jan , Discourse: A Critical Introduction Cambridge: Cambridge University Boellstorff, Tom , Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Press Human Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press Bolt, Neville, David Betz and Jaz Azari , Propaganda of the Deed 2008: Understanding the Phenomenon, RUS) Whitehall Report ‐ Borgmann, Albert London: Royal United Services )nstitute , Holding On to Reality: The Nature of Information at the Turn of the Millennium, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press Bourdieu, Pierre Press , Outline of a Theory of Practice Cambridge: Cambridge University Bourdieu, Pierre and Loïc J.D. Wacquant [ ], Symbolic Violence , in Nancy Scheper‐ (ughes and Philippe Bourgois, eds., Violence in War and Peace: An Anthology Malden, MA, and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing , pp. ‐ . Bowman, Doug A. and Ryan P. McMahan Enough? , IEEE Computer, Vol. Brand, Stewart , No. , pp. stone/rolling_stone.html, accessed March ; available at http://www.wheels.org/spacewar/ June . , Violence and Power: A Critique of (annah Arendt on the Political , Philosophy and Social Criticism, Vol. Brownlee, John . , SPACEWAR: Fanatic Life and Symbolic Death Among the Computer Bums , Rolling Stone, December Breen, Keith ‐ , Virtual Reality: (ow Much )mmersion is , No. , pp. ‐ . , John Edwards Meets Second Life Feces Spewing Obscenity , Wired, ; available at http://www.wired.com/table_of_malcontents/ john_edwards_me/, accessed July . / / 56 Burke, Timothy , More Dots! Cried the Terrorist , Terra Nova, August http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/ / . Burkeman, Oliver World , The Guardian, Cabinet Office January . , Cyber Security Strategy of the United Kingdom: Safety, Security and Norwich: The Stationery Office , John Edwards Virtual Attackers Unmasked , 10 Zen Monkeys, March ; available at http://www. zenmonkeys.com/ attackers‐unmasked/, accessed July Cahill, Marshal / . / /john‐edwards‐virtual‐ a , Second Life Liberation Army , Second Life Forums, August available at http://forums.secondlife.com/showpost.php?p= June June , Exploding Pigs and Volleys of Gunfire as Le Pen Opens (Q in Virtual Resilience in Cyber Space, June Cabron, Lou /more‐dots‐cried.html, accessed ; available at . Cahill, Marshal b , Prop , Second Life Forums, August http://forums.secondlife.com/showpost.php?p= Cahill, Marshal , Marshal Cahill Speech . . Doc?id=dd mx r _ fnc qk, accessed June Canadian Broadcasting Corporation CBC Norman Mailer , The Way It Is, broadcast Carr, Paul and Graham Pond Boxtree Carruthers, Susan L. &postcount= , accessed &postcount= . . ; ; available at , accessed June ; available at http://docs.google.com/ , Marshall McLuhan in Conversation with November . , The Unofficial Tourists' Guide to Second Life London: , The Media at War: Communication and Conflict in the Twentieth Century Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan 57 Carter, Denise , Living in Virtual Communities: An Ethnography of (uman Relationships in Cyberspace , Information, Communication and Society, Vol. , No. , pp. Castells, Manuel ‐ . , The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society Oxford: Oxford University Press Castronova, Edward , Virtual Worlds: A First‐(and Account of Market and Society on the Biology, Vol. , No. , pp. ‐ . Castronova, Edward , On Virtual Economies , Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute Cyberian Frontier , The Gruter Institute Working Papers on Law, Economic, and Evolutionary for Economic Research Working Paper Series No. , accessed May ; available at http://ssrn.com/abstract= . Castronova, Edward , Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games Castronova, Edward , Exodus to the Virtual World: How Online Fun is Changing Reality Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan Castronova, Edward, Dmitri Williams, Cuihua Shen, Rabindra Ratan, Li Xiong, Yun (uang and Brian Keegan , As Real As Real? Macroeconomic Behavior in a Large‐Scale Virtual World , New Media and Society, Vol. Channel , No. , pp. ‐ . , Anarchy in Second Life , Channel 4 News, March ; available at http:// www.channel .com/news/articles/science_technology/anarchy+in+second+life/ accessed June . Chesney, Thomas, )ain Coyne, Brian Logan, and Neil Madden , , Griefing in Virtual Worlds: Causes, Casualties and Coping Strategies , Information Systems Journal, forthcoming . Claridge, David , State Terrorism? Applying a Definitional Model , Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol. , No. , pp. ‐ . 58 Clark, Andy , Mindware: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Cognitive Science New York: Oxford University Press Cochran, Andrew , Event Transcript and Related Links: Meta‐Terror: Terrorism and the Virtual World , transcript of special panel, Washington, D.C., February , ; available at http://counterterrorismblog.org/ Counterterrorism Blog, March event_transcript_and_related_l.php, accessed July / . Connolly, Kate , Second Life in Virtual Child Sex Scandal , The Guardian, May Cooper, (.(.A. , Terrorism: The Problem of the Problem of Definition , Chitty’s Law Journal, Vol. , No. , pp. Cooper, (.(.A. Scientist, Vol. ‐ / . . , Terrorism: The Problem of Definition Revisited , American Behavioral , No. , pp. ‐ . Cornish, Paul, Rex (ughes and David Livingstone , Cyberspace and the National Security of the United Kingdom: Threats and Responses London: Chatham (ouse Coyne, )ain, Thomas Chesney, Brian Logan and Neil Madden Griefing in Second Life , paper presented at the Czech Republic, ‐ July . , Cyber‐Bullying and th European Congress of Psychology, Prague, Damer, Bruce, Stuart Gold, Karen Marcelo and Frank Revi [ ], )nhabited Virtual Worlds in Cyberspace , in Jean‐Claude (eudin, ed., Virtual Worlds: Synthetic Universes, Digital Life, and Complexity, New England Complex Systems )nstitute Series on Complexity Cambridge, MA: Westview Press , pp. DATOPS Forums Usenet, article_ ‐ . , Des Listes de Discussion et du ‘Militantisme Virtuel’: Le Front National Dans les January ; available at http://www.temps‐reels.net/)MG/_article_PDF/ .pdf, accessed July De Boeck, Filip , On Being Shege in Kinshasa: Children, the Occult and the Street , in Theodore Trefon, ed., Reinventing Order in the Congo: How People Respond to State Failure in Kinshasa London and New York: Zed Books; Kampala: Fountain Publishers , pp. ‐ . 59 Della Porta, Donatella , Social Movements, Political Violence, and the State: A Comparative Analysis of Italy and Germany Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Devji, Faisal and Company , Landscapes of the Jihad: Militancy, Morality and Modernity London: (urst Dibbell, Julian , A Rape in Cyberspace: (ow an Evil Clown, a (aitian Trickster Spirit, Two Wizards, and a Cast of Dozens Turned a Database )nto a Society , The Village Voice, December . Dibbell, Julian a , Mutilated Furries, Flying Phalluses: Put the Blame on Griefers, the Sociopaths of the Virtual World , Wired, gaming/virtualworlds/magazine/ Dibbell, Julian ‐ January ; available at http://www.wired.com/ /mf_goons, accessed June . b , Sympathy for the Griefer: MOOrape, Lulz Cubes, and Other Lessons From the First Two Decades of Online Sociopathy , paper presented at Games+Learning+Society 4.0, July , Madison, W). Diski, Jenny , Jowls are Available , London Review of Books, February Douglas, )an , Second Life Goes Open Source and Up in Flames , Daily Telegraph, January . ; available at http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/iandouglas/ Second_Life_goes_open_source_and_up_in_flames/, accessed July Duranske, Benjamin / . , Reader Roundtable: Virtual Rape Claim Brings Belgian Police to Second Life , Virtually Blind, April ; available at http://virtuallyblind.com/ / open‐roundtable‐allegations‐of‐virtual‐rape‐bring‐belgian‐police‐to‐second‐life/, accessed July / / . Duranske, Benjamin , Virtual Law: Navigating the Legal Landscape of Virtual Worlds Chicago: American Bar Association Economist , A World Wide Web of Terror , July . 60 Elliott, James , (elp – Somebody Robbed My Second Life Avatar! , Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, Vol. , No. ; available at https://journals.tdl.org/jvwr/article/view/ accessed June Ewry, Zha . / , , (appy Jumpy Ruths… )nterop Takes a Step , Zha’s Virtual Musings, June ; available at http://zhaewry.wordpress.com/ takes‐a‐step/, accessed July . / / /happy‐jumpy‐ruths‐interop‐ Fanon, Frantz [ ], Black Skin, White Masks, tr. Charles Lam Markmann London: Fanon, Frantz [ ], The Wretched of the Earth, tr. Constance Farrington, preface by Fawkes, Piers , Militants Ambush Brands in Second Life , PSFK.com, Fernback, Jan , There is a There There: Notes Toward a Definition of Cybercommunity , Paladin Jean‐Paul Sartre London: Penguin Books available at http://www.psfk.com/ / /militants_ambus.html, accessed August June ; . in Steve Jones, ed., Doing Internet Research: Critical Issues and Methods for Examining the Net London: Sage Publications , pp. ‐ . Foo, Chek Yang, and Elina M.). Koivisto , Defining Grief Play in MMORPGs: Player and Developer Perceptions , Proceedings of the 2004 ACM SIGCHI International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology, ACM )nternational Conference Proceeding Series, Vol. , pp. ‐ . Frazer, Elizabeth and Kimberley (utchings , On Politics and Violence: Arendt Contra Fanon , Contemporary Political Theory, Vol. , No. , pp. Friedman, Doron, Anthony Steed and Mel Slater ‐ . , Spatial Social Behavior in Second Life , in Catherine Pelachaud, Jean‐Claude Martin, Elisabeth André, Gérard Chollet, Kostas Karpouzis and Danielle Pelé, eds., Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents, ‐ September (eidelberg: Springer , pp. , Paris, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNAI), Vol. – . 61 Friedrich, Carl J. , The Pathology of Politics: Violence, Betrayal, Corruption, Secrecy, and Propaganda New York: (arper and Row Front National de la Jeunesse FNJ , Le FN Ouvre un Bureau Virtuel dans Second Life , Front National de la Jeunesse 57, December archive/ / . Galtung, Johan No. , pp. ‐ / , Violence, Peace, and Peace Research , Journal of Peace Research, Vol. , . , Peace: Research, Education, Action Copenhagen: Christian Ejlers Gardner, Robert and Karl G. (eider , Gardens of War: Life and Death in the New Guinea Stone Age London: André Deutsch , Gartner Says in the Virtual World by the End of Percent of Active )nternet Users Will (ave A "Second Life" , press release, http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id= Gewirtz, Paul .hautetfort.com/ /le‐fn‐ouvre‐un‐bureau‐virtuel‐dans‐second‐life.html, accessed July Galtung, Johan Gartner, )nc. ; available at http://fnj April , accessed June ; available at . , On ) Know )t When ) See )t , Yale Law Journal, Vol. Gillies, James and Robert Cailliau Web Oxford: Oxford University Press Gilligan, James , pp. ‐ . , How the Web Was Born: The Story of the World Wide , Violence: Reflections on Our Deadliest Epidemic London: Jessica Kingsley Gourlay, Chris, and Abul Taher , Virtual jihad hits Second Life website , The Sunday Graham, (ugh and Ted R. Gurr , Editor s )ntroduction , in (ugh Graham and Ted R. Gurr, Times, August . eds., Violence in America: Historical and Comparative Perspective New York: Praeger , pp.xxvii‐ xxxiv. 62 Graham, Stephen , The End of Geography or the Explosion of Place? Conceptualizing Space, Place and )nformation Technology , Progress in Human Geography, Vol. . Grenier, Yvon , No. , pp. ‐ , The Emergency of Insurgency in El Salvador: Ideology and Political Will Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press Griffin, David Ray , Unsnarling the World Knot: Consciousness, Freedom, and the Mind Body Problem Berkeley, CA, Los Angeles and Oxford: University of California Press Gurr, Ted R. , Why Men Rebel Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press (afner, Katie , The Well: A Story of Love, Death and Real Life in the Seminal Online Community New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers (ann, Dave and Steve Tilzey , No Retreat: The Secret War Between Britain’s AntiFascists and the Far Right Preston: Milo Books (arkin, James , Get A Second Life , Financial Times, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/ /cf b . (arkin, James c ‐ a‐ db‐aea ‐ November e ; available at .html, accessed June , Cyburbia: The Dangerous Idea That’s Changing How We Live and Who We Are London: Little, Brown (eeks, Richard , Current Analysis and Future Research Agenda on "Gold Farming": Real‐ World Production in Developing Countries for the Virtual Economies of Online Games , Development Informatics Working Paper Series, No. University of Manchester: Development )nformatics Group, )nstitute for Development Policy and Management ; available at http://www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/idpm/research/publications/wp/di/documents/di_wp df, accessed June (obbes, Thomas . [ .p ], Leviathan, edited with an introduction and notes by John C.A. Gaskin Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press 63 (obson, Neville and Shel (oltz , The (obson and (oltz Report, Podcast No. , For August ; available at http://www.forimmediaterelease.biz/index. (odges, Adam and Chad Nilep , )ntroduction: Discourse, War and Terrorism , in Adam Immediate Release, php/weblog/the_hobson_holtz_report_podcast_ _august_ _ /, accessed June . (odges and Chad Nilep, eds., Discourse, War and Terrorism Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins , pp. ‐ (onderich, Ted . , A Theory of Determinism: The Mind, Neuroscience and Life Hopes Oxford: Oxford University Press (ook, Alan , Second Life – The Lag, the Time Glitch and the Picnoleptic Assemblage ; available at http://www.alanhook.co.uk/second_life_the_lag_the_time_glitch_and_the_ picnoleptic_assemblage.pdf, accessed June (oskins, Andrew and Ben O Loughlin . , Pre‐Mediating Guilt: Radicalisation and Mediality in British News , Critical Studies on Terrorism, Vol. , No. , pp. (oward, Brian Clark secondlife.html, accessed ; available at http://www.brianclarkhoward.com/ August . (uang, Patricia , Online Shopping , Forbes.com, accessed . http://www.forbes.com/ June (utcheon, Stephen . , Virtual Journalism in an Online Second Life , Editor and February Publisher Online, ‐ / / June ; available at /american‐apparel‐retail_cz_ph_ secondlife.html, , Second Life, Same Mess , Sydney Morning Herald, March available at http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/second‐life‐samemess/ / / )hde, Don .html, accessed June . / ; , Bodies, Virtual Bodies and Technology , in Donn Welton, ed., Body and Flesh: A Philosophical Reader Malden, MA, and Oxford: Blackwell Publishers 64 )nternational Monetary Fund )MF , World Economic Outlook Database, April available at http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/ accessed July / . )ntrona, Lucas D. and Fernando M. )lharco , On the Meaning of Screens: Towards a Phenomenological Account of Screenness , Human Studies, Vol. Jackson, Richard, Eamon Murphy and Scott Poynting Theory and Practice London: Routledge, forthcoming Jantzen, Gitte and Jans F. Jenzen Corporation Johnson, Steven , No. , pp. ‐ . , Contemporary State Terrorism: , Powerplay – Power, Violence and Gender in Video Games , Artificial Intelligence and Society, Vol. , NO. , pp. Jenkins, Brian /weodata/index.aspx, ; ‐ . , The Study of Terrorism: Definitional Problems Santa Monica, CA: RAND , Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software London: Allen Lane The Penguin Press Joinson, Adam , Causes and )mplications of Disinhibited Behavior on the )nternet , in Jayne Gackenbach, ed., Psychology and the Internet: Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, and Transpersonal Implications San Diego: Academic Press , pp. Juul, Jesper MA: M)T Press Kalyvas, Stathis N. Press Kar‐Gupta, Sudip . – . , HalfReal: Video Games Between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds Cambridge, , The Logic of Violence in Civil War New York: Cambridge University , Surreal Campaigns as French Politics Go Virtual , Reuters, Kavoori, Anandam P. and Todd Fraley, eds. March , Media, Terrorism, and Theory: A Reader Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, )nc. 65 Keen, David , Endless War? Hidden Functions of the ‘War on Terror’ London and Ann Arbor, M): Pluto Press Ketstugo, Keiko , Second Life Liberation Army Rally and Protest ‐ ‐ Liberation Army, March ; available at http://slla.blogspot.com/ liberation‐army‐rally‐and.html, accessed Kington, Tom June . / , Second Life /second‐life‐ , Minister Upsets )talians in Cyber Row , The Guardian, March Klata, Keksakallu a , SLLA Forces Major Linden Labs Concession On Avatar Democracy , Second Life Liberation Army, January slla‐forces‐major‐linden‐labs.html, accessed Klata, Keksakallu ; available at http://slla.blogspot.com/ June b , Towards a Strategy for the Democratic Revolution , Koster, Raph f , accessed , Declaring the Rights of Players , Raph Koster’s Website, available at http://www.raphkoster.com/gaming/playerrights.shtml, accessed , m Virtual World Registered Accounts , KZero Blog, http://www.kzero.co.uk/blog/?p= Lange, Patricia G. , accessed / . ; available at http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd mx r _ c KZero . July . July / February June August July . . ; ; available at , 'Terminological Obfuscation in Online Research', in Sigrid Kelsey and Kirk St. Amant, eds., Handbook of Research On Computer Mediated Communication (ershey, PA: )G) Global , pp. ‐ . Laqueur, Walter , No End to War: Terrorism in the TwentyFirst Century New York and London: Continuum Le Nouvel Observateur December / . , Quand les Politiques )nvestissent le Monde Virtuel , ; available at http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/speciales/politique/elysee_ .OBS /quand_les_politiquesinvestissent_le_monde_virtuel.html, accessed July 66 Lechner, Marie , Le FN Ouvre un Front Sur Second Life , Écrans, December Leicester, John , Le Web Plays New Role in France Race , Associated Press, ; available at http://www.ecrans.fr/Le‐FN‐ouvre‐un‐front‐sur‐Second.html, accessed July . . January Leiner, Barry M., Vinton G. Cerf, David D. Clark, Robert E. Kahn, Leonard Kleinrock, Daniel C. Lynch, Jon Postel, Lawrence G. Roberts and Stephen S. Wolff (istory of the )nternet , Communications of the ACM, Vol. Lessig, Lawrence , No. , pp. ‐ . , The Zones of Cyberspace , Stanford Law Review, Vol. . Lia, Brynjar , The Past and Future , No. , pp. ‐ , Globalisation and The Future of Terrorism: Patterns and Predictions Abingdon and New York: Routledge Liang, Qiao and Wang Xiangsui , Unrestricted Warfare Beijing: PLA Literature and Arts Publishing (ouse ; available at http://www.terrorism.com/documents/TRCAnalysis/ unrestricted.pdf, accessed on Linden, Robin June . , Urgent Security Announcement , Second Life Blogs, September available at https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/ urgent‐security‐announcement, accessed June Lombard, Matthew and Theresa Ditton . / / ; / , At the (eart of )t All: The Concept of Presence , Journal of ComputerMediated Communication, Vol. , No. ; available at http://jcmc.indiana.edu/ vol /issue /lombard.html, accessed MacCallum‐Stewart, Esther June . , The Warfare of the )magined – Building )dentities in Second Life , International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, Vol. , Nos. ‐ , pp. McCarthy, Caroline , )n Second Life , the Ring of Revolution? , ZDNet, March available at http://news.zdnet.com/ Machiavelli, Niccolò ‐ [ ‐ _ ‐ .html, accessed June ], The Prince, ed. George Bull London: Penguin Books . . ; 67 Mackinnon, Richard , Virtual Rape , Journal of ComputerMediated Communication, Vol. , No. ; available at http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol /issue /mackinnon.html, accessed July Malaby, Thomas M. . , Coding Control: Governance and Contingency in the Production of Online Worlds , First Monday, Special )ssue No. : Command Lines – The Emergence of Governance in Global Cyberspace; available at http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/ / , accessed August . Mao Tse‐Tung [ ], On Guerrilla Warfare, tr. Samuel B. Griffith )), nd edn. Urbana Mauco, Olivier , Politicization of the On‐Line Worlds as a Problematic of a Private Space and Chicago, )L: University of )llinois Press Publicized: Comparative Study of MMORPG and Second Life , http://ssrn.com/abstract= Meadows, Mark Stephen Berkeley, CA: New Riders , accessed July . January ; available at , I, Avatar: The Culture and Consequences of Having a Second Life Mennecke, Brian E., Janea L. Triplett, Lesya M. (assall, Rex (eer and Zayira Jordán Conde , Embodied Social Presence Theory , Iowa State University College of Business Working Paper Series, June . Mesure, Susie January September ; available at http://ssrn.com/abstract= , Get a Second Life: The Age of the Avatar (as Arrived , The Independent, ; available at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/get‐a‐ second‐life‐the‐age‐of‐the‐avatar‐has‐arrived‐ Mistral, Pixeleen Alphaville Herald, / Mistral, Pixeleen .html, accessed June . a , Lindens (it the Bottle After SLLA Assault on American Apparel , August ; available at http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/ /aftermath_of_sl.html, accessed October , accessed June . b , SL S(OCKER! ‐ SLLA (ires Freelance (it Squads , Alphaville Herald, ; available at http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/ shock_slla_hire.html, accessed June . / / 68 Mistral, Pixeleen Alphaville Herald, a , Protesters Demand LL Send Le Pen s People to M‐rated Sims , January ; available at http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/ /protesters_dema.html, accessed July Mistral, Pixeleen . b , Supine SLLA Spawns SLDF, SLDM , Alphaville Herald, available at http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/slh/ June / . Mitra, Ananda and Elisia Cohen / April /supine_slla_spa.html, accessed ; , Analyzing the Web: Directions and Challenges , in Steve Jones, ed., Doing Internet Research: Critical Issues and Methods for Examining the Net London: Sage Publications , pp. ‐ . Moore, David , The Lads in Action: Social Process in an Urban Youth Subculture Aldershot: Moore, Molly , French Politics in ‐D on Fantasy Web Site , Washington Post, Arena ; available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp‐dyn/content/article/ /AR .html, accessed July Mortensen, Torill Elvira . March / / , WoW )s the New MUD: Social Gaming From Text To Video , Games and Culture, Vol. , No. , pp. ‐ . Muehlenhard, Charlene L. and Leigh Ann Kimes , The Social Construction of Violence: The Case of Sexual and Domestic Violence , Personality and Social Psychology Review, Vol. , No. , pp. ‐ . Mulligan, Jessica and Bridgette Patrovsky )ndianapolis: New Riders Nakamura, Lisa , Developing Online Games: An Insider’s Guide , Don t (ate the Player, (ate the Game: The Racialization of Labor in World of Warcraft , Critical Studies in Media Communication, Vol. National Security Council , No. , pp. ‐ . , Cyberspace Policy Review: Assuring a Trusted and Resilient Information and Communications Infrastructure, May Washington, DC 69 Next Up Research Report, June Nino, Tateru January , Virtual Worlds: Linden Lab – It’s A Wonderful Second Life, Research ; available at http://www.sharespost.com/, accessed July , Second Lifers (and Publicity Victory to Front National , Second Life Insider, ; available at http://www.secondlifeinsider.com/ hand‐publicity‐victory‐to‐front‐national/, accessed July / . / /second‐lifers‐ Nozick, Robert , Anarchy, State, and Utopia New York: Basic Books O Brien, Natalie a , Virtual Terrorists , The Australian, O Brien, Natalie b , Terrorists Practise on Cyber Game , The Australian, http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/ , , July ; available at ‐ available at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/ ,, , ‐ . Ondrejka, Cory . .html, , July July . ; .html, July , Collapsing Geography: Second Life, )nnovation, and the Future of National Power , Innovations, Vol. , No. , pp. O Shaughnessy, Nicholas Jackson ‐ . , Politics and Propaganda: Weapons of Mass Seduction Manchester: Manchester University Press Óskarsson, Pétur Jóhannes , The CSM A Summary Explanation of the Council of Stellar Management CCP Games ; available at http://myeve.eve‐online.com/download/devblog/ CSMSummary.pdf, accessed Parloff, Roger July . , Anshe Chung: First Virtual Millionaire , CNNMoney.com, ; available at http://money.cnn.com/blogs/legalpad/ millionaire.html, accessed Petrecca, Laura December June . / November /anshe‐chung‐first‐virtual‐ , Marketers Find a New Place to Set Up Shop: Virtual Reality , USA Today, ; available at http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/ marketers‐second‐life_x.htm, accessed June . ‐ ‐ ‐ 70 Pham, Khuê , Second Life Just Like the First , Spiegel Online International, March available at http://www.spiegel.de/international/ , , . Porter, Wayne accessed / .html, accessed June , Exclusive )nterview with Second Life Liberation Army and Reflections on Snow , WaynePorter.com, December / , ; ; available at http://www.wayneporter.com/ /exclusive‐interview‐with‐second‐life‐liberation‐army‐reflections‐on‐snow/, June . Resnick, David , Politics on the )nternet: The Normalization of Cyberspace , in Chris Toulouse and Timothy W. Luke, eds., The Politics of Cyberspace New York & London: Routledge , pp. Reuters ‐ . , Queman unas Sedes Locales del PSOE y el PP en Second Life , May . Rheingold, (oward , Virtual Reality New York: Summit Books Rheingold, (oward , The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier Rheingold, (oward [ Reading, MA: Addison‐Wesley ], The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier, nd rev. edn. Cambridge, MA. and London: M)T Press Rhem, Kathleen T. , Bush Signs $ Forces Press Service, newsarticle.aspx?id= Riches, David pp. ‐ . Ruhleder, Karen April Billion Wartime Supplemental Budget , American ; available at http://www.defenselink.mil/news/ , accessed August . , Aggression, War, Violence: Space/Time and Paradigm , Man, Vol. , No. , , The Virtual Ethnographer: Fieldwork in Distributed Electronic Environments , Field Methods, Vol. , No. , pp. ‐ . 71 Rushe, Dominic , Life in the Unreal World , The Sunday Times, December available at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/article June .ece, accessed . Sageman, Marc ; , Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the TwentyFirst Century Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press Sanchez‐Vives, Maria V. and Mel Slater available at http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/ June . , From Presence Towards Consciousness ; / /Presence_Consciousness_Jan Sanchez‐Vives, Maria V. and Mel Slater ‐ . , Preface to Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, tr. Constance Farrington London: Penguin Books , pp. ‐ Schachtman, Noah September .pdf, accessed , From Presence To Consciousness Through Virtual Reality , Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Vol. , No. , pp. Sartre, Jean‐Paul _ . , Pentagon Researcher Conjures Warcraft Terror Plot , Wired, ; available at http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/ warcra/, accessed July . / /world‐of‐ Schmid, Alex P. , Terrorism and the Media: The Ethics of Publicity , Terrorism and Schmid, Alex P. , Terrorism: The Definitional Problem , Case Western Reserve Journal of Political Violence, Vol. , No. , pp. International Law, Vol. ‐ , Nos. ‐ , pp. Schmid, Alex P. and Janny de Graaf . ‐ . , Violence as Communication: Insurgent Terrorism and the Western News Media London and Beverly (ills: Sage Publications Scott, Neil , My Activist Second Life , Red Pepper, February/March http://www.redpepper.org.uk/Left‐unity‐in‐Second‐Life, accessed July ; available at . 72 Second Life a , Second Life Residents Logged Nearly % over / Million (ours in , Growing ; available at https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/ /second‐life‐residents‐logged‐nearly‐ accessed June ‐million‐hours‐in‐ . ‐growing‐ ‐over‐ / , Second Life b , Terms of Service ; available at http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php, Second Life c , Community Standards , available at http://secondlife.com/corporate/ accessed June . cs.php, accessed June . Second Life Left Unity a , Our Group Press Release on the Anti‐Front National Protests , Second Life Left Unity, January ; available at http://slleftunity.blogspot.com/ our‐group‐press‐release‐on‐anti‐front.html, accessed Second Life Left Unity / . / b , Group Press Release: Free Speech in Second Life and the Anti‐ Front National Protests , Second Life Left Unity, blogspot.com/ July / ; available at http://slleftunity. January /group‐press‐release‐free‐speech‐in‐sl.html, accessed July . Second Life Liberation Army a , )ntroduction , Second Life Liberation Army, August Second Life Liberation Army b , Report in The Democrat an SL )n‐World Newspaper , ; available at http://slla.blogspot.com/ Second Life Liberation Army, August / Army, August begin.html, accessed Second Life Liberation Army August June June / . / c , SLLA Military Operations Begin , Second Life Liberation . / /slla‐military‐operations‐ d , Manifesto Change , Second Life Liberation Army, ; available at http://slla.blogspot.com/ . . ; available at http://slla.blogspot.com/ June June ; available at http://slla.blogspot.com/ report‐in‐democrat‐sl‐in‐world.html, accessed Second Life Liberation Army /introduction.html, accessed / /manifesto‐change.html, accessed 73 Second Life Liberation Army e , Article in the Second Life (erald , Second Life Liberation herald.html, accessed . Army, August ; available at http://slla.blogspot.com/ June Second Life Liberation Army Second Life Liberation Army, Liberation Army, October September ; available at http://slla.blogspot.com/ October accessed June . Liberation Army, October /update‐on‐ / /slla‐attacks‐reebok.html, i , Unrestricted Warfare – Midnight City , Second Life ; available at http://slla.blogspot.com/ warfare‐midnight‐city.html, accessed Second Life Liberation Army / h , SLLA Attacks Reebok , Second Life Liberation Army, . Second Life Liberation Army . ; available at http://slla.blogspot.com/ : available at http://slla.blogspot.com/ June June June . / /unrestricted‐ j , Volunteer Mikey Flyer Attacks Midnight City , Second Life Liberation Army, November ; available at http://slla.blogspot.com/ Second Life Liberation Army k , Embedded Reporter , Second Life Liberation Army, mikey‐flyer‐attacks‐midnight.html, accessed November accessed Liberation Army, January accessed . /embedded‐reporter.html, ; available at http://slla.blogspot.com/ June . / /slla‐new‐ b , )nternational Coverage , Second Life Liberation Army, ; available at http://slla.blogspot.com/ June / /volunteer‐ a , SLLA ‐ New (eadquarters in Second Life , Second Life headquarters‐in‐second‐life.html, accessed Second Life Liberation Army / . . Second Life Liberation Army February June ; available at http://slla.blogspot.com/ June / g , Update on Media Coverage of the SLLA , Second Life media‐coverage‐of‐slla.html, accessed Second Life Liberation Army /article‐in‐second‐life‐ f , Second Life Password Changes ‐ Damage to Organization , /second‐life‐password‐changes‐damage‐to.html, accessed Second Life Liberation Army / / /international‐coverage.html, 74 Second Life Liberation Army March ; available at http://slla.blogspot.com/ accessed June . Second Life Liberation Army March July c , SLLA on RL News in UK , Second Life Liberation Army, Semuels, Alana / /rights‐of‐avatars.html, accessed , Virtual Loses )ts Virtues , Los Angeles Times, available at http://articles.latimes.com/ /feb/ . Shaw, Martin /slla‐on‐rl‐news‐in‐uk.html, d , The Rights of Avatars , Second Life Liberation Army, ; available at http://slla.blogspot.com/ . / February /business/fi‐second , accessed ; June , War and Genocide: Organized Killing in Modern Society Malden, MA. and Cambridge: Polity Press Siklos, Richard , A Virtual World But Real Money , The New York Times, available at http://www.nytimes.com/ &_r= &sq=second% Sklar, Urizenus life% liberation% / / /technology/ virtual.html?pagewanted= army&st=cse&scp= , accessed Smart, John M., Jamais Cascio and Jerry Paffendorf . , Metaverse Roadmap Overview, Mountain View, CA: Acceleration Studies Foundation; available at http://www. metaverseroadmap.org/MetaverseRoadmapOverview.pdf, accessed July . , The Scene of the Screen: Envisioning Cinematic and Electronic Presence , in (ans Ulrich Gumbrecht and K. Ludwig Pfeiffer, eds. Materialities of Communication, tr. William Whobrey Stanford: Stanford University Press , pp. Sofsky, Wolfgang Steinhoff, Uwe . ; available at http://www.secondlifeherald.com /another_sl_firs.html, accessed July Sobchack, Vivian June ; , Another SL First? French Extreme Right Political Party Opens Office in Second Life , Alphaville Herald, December /slh/ / October ‐ . , Violence: Terrorism, Genocide, War London: Granta Books , On the Ethics of War and Terrorism Oxford: Oxford University Press 75 Stephenson, Neal , Snow Crash New York: Bantam Books Stevens, Tim , Regulating the Dark Web : (ow A Two‐Fold Approach Can Tackle Peer‐to‐ Peer Radicalisation , RUSI Journal, Vol. Stoll, Stephanie Suler, John pp. ‐ ‐ . , Le Pen is Mightier On the Net , The Guardian, June . , The Online Disinhibition Effect , CyberPsychology and Behavior, Vol. , No. , . Sulic, )van IGN.com, April June , No. , pp. , Second Life: A Few WW)) Online Players Rendezvous at Fort Second Life , ; available at http://pc.ign.com/articles/ . Sunstein, Cass R. and Richard (. Thaler University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. Talbot, David / p .html, accessed , Libertarian Paternalism )s Not an Oxymoron , , No. , pp. ‐ . , The Fleecing of the Avatars: Recent Fraud Allegations are Ominous for Those Who See Virtual Worlds as Future Centers of E‐Commerce , MIT Technology Review, December accessed ; available at http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/ May Taylor, Joel . , Second Life Under Virtual Attack , Metro.co.uk, available at http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id= accessed June . Textbot, Bayesian Firm? , Alphaville Herald, DEFCON 17, August Tilly, Charles February ; &in_page_id= , )s Second Life Liberation Army Founder Part of a Corporate Spy April /is_second_life_.html, accessed Thieme, Richard /page /, ; available at http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/slh/ June . , / , (acking, Biohacking, and the Future of (umanity , paper presented at , Las Vegas, NV. , From Mobilization to Revolution Reading, MA: Wesley Addison 76 Toavs, Dwight , Emerging Media: )ts Effect on Organizations , paper presented at the Director of National )ntelligence Open Source Conference, ‐ September , Washington, DC; available at http://blog.wired.com/defense/files/OSC‐TOAVS.ppt, accessed July Trend, David Publishing . , The Myth of Media Violence: A Critical Introduction Oxford: Blackwell Tuman, Joseph S. , Communicating Terror: The Rhetorical Dimensions of Terrorism Thousand Oaks, CA, London and New Delhi: Sage Publications Turkle, Sherry , Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet New York: Simon & Schuster Turner, Fred , From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press Vlahos, Michael , Entering the )nfosphere: Communications Network as Social and Webb, Stephen , Avatarculture: Narrative, Power and )dentity in Virtual World Political Place , Journal of International Affairs, Vol. , No. , pp. ‐ . Environments , Information, Communication and Society, Vol. , No. , pp. ‐ Weber, Aimee August , American Apparel Attacked! , Second Life Insider, available at http://www.secondlifeinsider.com/ accessed June Weber, Max . [ / / . ; /american‐apparel‐attacked, ], Economy and Society, ed. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich, tr. Ephraim Fischoff and others Berkeley, CA: University of California Press Weinberg, Leonard, Ami Pedahzur and Sivan (irsch‐(oefler Conceptualizing Terrorism , Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol. Wellman, Barry . , The Challenges of , No. , pp. , Computer Networks As Social Networks , Science, Vol. ‐ . , pp. ‐ 77 Wertheim, Margaret , The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space from Dante to the Internet London: Virago Press Wharton, Annabel Jane , Shaping the Public Sphere in Second Life: Architectures of the U.S. Presidential , Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, Vol. , No. ; available at https://journals.tdl.org/jvwr/article/view/ Whittle, Simon January issue% / , accessed August . , Cyber‐Fascists Forced Off Land , Scottish Socialist Voice, )ssue ; available at http://www.scottishsocialistvoice.net/back% .htm, accessed July issues% . , / Wilkinson, Paul [ ], Terrorism and the Liberal State, nd edn. London: Macmillan Wilkinson, Paul [ ], Terrorism Versus Democracy: The Liberal State Response, nd edn. London and New York: Routledge Williams, Matthew , Virtually Criminal: Discourse, Deviance and Anxiety Within Virtual Communities , International Review of Law, Computers and Technology, Vol. , No. , pp. Wood, Danny June , Don't Surrender to ETA, Protesters Say , BBC News, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/ /hi/world/europe/ .stm, accessed July Yee, Nick, Jeremy N. Bailenson, Mark Urbanek, Francis Chang and Dan Merget ‐ ; . . , The Unbearable Likeness of Being Digital: The Persistence of Nonverbal Social Norms in Online Virtual Environments , CyberPsychology and Behavior, Vol. Zhao, Shanyang and David Elesh , No. , pp. ‐ . , Copresence as Being With : Social Contact in Online Public Domains , Information, Communication and Society, Vol. , No. , pp. ‐ . 78

RELATED PAPERS

RELATED TOPICS

Log In

Second Life and Death: Political Violence and a Virtual World

Second Life and Death: Political Violence and a Virtual World

Related Papers

RELATED PAPERS

RELATED TOPICS