[LINK] Virtual Murder, Real Arrest

[Jan Whitaker]

At 07:52 AM 25/10/2008, Roger Clarke wrote:

>[The world's gone mad.  At least people playing 'popular interactive
>games' are harmless.  But when the State intrudes into spats like
>this, on the pretext that "illegally accessing a computer and
>manipulating electronic data" is an indictable offence, we really are
>collectively losing our grip on reality.]

Wayyyyy too much time on the police's hands if they are doing this. 
It's like the Special ops ones in Vic infiltrating protest groups 
instead of being on the street and deterring real crime like bashings 
and drug dealing in the open.

However, I saw a program yesterday on -*cough*- Dr Phil -*cough* 
about cyberbullying that was truly ugly. Xbox players are threatening 
other players. And in Xbox games with webcams, people are parading 
nude and leud in family games like Uno. Microsoft was doing nothing 
to address complaints unless there were 10 registered, and even then 
they did nothing. Phil's office contacted MS with questions as to why 
they were not enforcing their no tolerance policy, and MS saluted and 
said they'd get right on it. I don't know when that program 
originally aired, so I have no info if anything was done. The show 
was produced because of the teenage girl who had been enticed into a 
fictional online relationship by some kids down the street and 
subsequently committed suicide. There were charges that an adult 
mother was involved or at least was aware of the bullying that had resulted.

The online game abuse was describe by a black man with four kids. He 
was racially abused, had his kids threatened with murder, and had 
continually complained to Xbox with no action taken. He said Mr Gates 
had better put some of the 10s of million earned on one game in one 
month to clean up the system.

Jan



Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
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Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or 
sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

Writing Lesson #54:
Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for 
guests. - JW, May, 2007
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