by: Lynette Webb
This makes an interesting point. Crimes can happen in virtual worlds, just as in ‘real life’. But there are fewer laws and established codes of behaviour; and even fewer places you can turn for help. Once upon a time Ebay fraudsters weren’t taken that seriously by offline law enforcement; (Click image to enlarge)
As Ebay has grown – along with the scale of frauds – that’s started to change. At some point, the same will probably happen in virtual worlds too.
An interesting question is, whose responsibility is it? Is it the company who created/hosts the world, just like moderators in a chatroom have the responsibility to (at least attempt) to keep a semblance of order? Or, at some point does it become bigger and the responsibility switches – like police are responsible for catching/fining shoplifters in real life?
This isn’t a theoretical problem, it’s happening already. The BBC article claims “earlier this year, nearly a quarter of a million characters were created in the Korean online game Lineage using stolen identities”. And PSFK have talked about how the “Second Life Liberation Army” have been blockading stores in SecondLife. www.psfk.com/2006/08/militants_ambus.html
Image from Flickr CC www.flickr.com/photos/sillydog/8443156/ thanks to sillydog
Quote via BBC via Reuters news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4794139.stm
Original post: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lynetter/228142864/
