This week, Dekka Raymaker has transformed much of Brooklyn is Watching into a political statement on Linden censorship. Dekka’s exhibit has also inspired some comments.
Dekka’s piece shows a man hanging from a gallows, with a knocked-over portable staircase next to it. The man is Male Noob AFK by Art Laxness, a faithful reproduction in prims and textures of White T-shirt Guy, the most common male newbie avatar (or at least until a couple of months ago when LL introduced a bunch of new starter avatars). Around his neck is a sign saying Ageplayers, Ad-Framers, Land Barons, Vampires, Goreans, Furries, Forum Posters, Goths, Artists, all written in a stencil typeface; the first two are crossed out. (Those are two groups of people that LL has already acted against. Gamblers and Bankers might have also been included and crossed out, but are not listed.) Above his head is the name Censor Linden in orange hovertext, the same shade used for the nametags displayed by the viewer. (It does not have the partially transparent black oval around it that name tags do; there isn’t any way to do that. A prim nametag would be an alternative, but it would look off-angle and grow and shrink as camera position changes, and thus look less like a nametag than the hovertext does.) The build is set for sale for L$100000, but the comment field says “NOT FOR SALE - Please don’t buy”.
Next to that is a bright red sign that says CENSORED VIOLATION OF TOS; clicking it gives you a notecard. A box with the same texture is nearby that contains related textures and a copy of the sign (not the gallows build); you can buy it for L$0. The notecard explains some actions taken by Linden Lab against an image named “Virgo” by loki Popinjay.
Just to the left of Virgo Violated, Nebulosus Severine has put up a sign, Fuck Censorship, which also says “Offensive is in the eye of the beholder”. That has an L$0 box nearby that contains the T-shirt on the sign, and a green armband. To the left of that, Dancoyote Antonelli has put up a giant flexible penis named xbox cock; it’s on one of the original Gene Replacement megaprims, and the creator of the giant cock is unknown (according to Pavig Lok, who commented on the image on Flickr); the placement strongly suggests that it is intended as another comment on censorship, fucking, or both.
Finally, Dekka has put T.O.S. Violation by Censor Linden signs near many of the works at Brooklyn is watching; each has hovertext that explains the “violation”. A picture of one example, Inciting Violence by Child Avatars, a comment on most of what I needed to know I learned from cartoons… by LittleToe Bartlett, is shown above; many more can be seen on the Flickr feed and on the island. (The pictures of Dekka’s comment works are carefully cropped screen shots rather than the usual SL snapshots so the hovertext shows.)
My short response: this kind of censorship is an important issue, and one that residents need to think about. I will be posting a longer message on that issue on my personal LiveJournal.
one thing i would like to add is that since I started this ‘project’ it has slowly dawned on me that the lindens policy of censorship is based on ’shoot first, ask questions later’, just that they don’t ask questions later.
it appears they have now took a firm stance that their decisions are always correct and so any suggestion on their part that there is such a thing as a right of appeal is deceptive at best, this is so very wrong.
i also wonder if recent censorship decisions are being allowed to be influenced by personal moral ideologies, religious and/or political, of some lindens, for it seems the decisions are going that way, or it could just be a combination of pure laziness/inability/ignorance to monitor complaints properly at all.
the main point here is that recent actions by the lindens have led me to suspect this may be true, whether it is or not. they speak about being a transparent company, but the TOS and their avoidance of giving straight forward to answers indicates strongly that, with their residents at least, they will never be transparent, this is so very wrong.
also regarding their recent actions and threats of banning residents if they don’t fully agree with linden policies (also see the new forum policy guidelines), i have noticed how this is changing the behavior of SL residents, Linden Labs have instilled fear into it’s residents and even in a virtual world, to control your people by fear is so very very wrong.
Left by Dekka Raymaker on September 4th, 2008