Ugh. Bill Moyers Journal recently published a segment in which they report on the US Government’s proposal to use Second Life and World of Warcraft as data mining opportunities. Code-named Reynard, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) would like to start watching the activities of avatars, because they believe that the worlds could be used by terrorists to coordinate future attacks.
There has been some discussion before about government crackdown of these sorts of virtual worlds. Linden Labs, creators of Second Life, have modified their rules to disallow gambling (so that they don’t run afoul of US gambling laws – even though those laws may not apply to SL). The IRS has made some rumblings about the monetary transactions occurring in SL and the eBay transactions of World of Warcraft players. They argue that these transactions should be taxable income.
After the past 7 years, reports such as these make me uneasy – not just for my own personal liberties, but also for the potential uses by educators for such platforms. With the current Administration’s bias against certain types of educational content (e.g. evolution, nude statues), with our work be subject to that same bias? Will our open discussions about the sciences and art and the democratization of access to assets suddenly be called into question? Will my museum, which has a great collection of Jewish Middle Eastern objects, be under scrutiny for displaying representations of these artworks?
It may be far-fetched to think so, but I have to admit to being a bit gun-shy these days. Things I never expected to happen have happened. And I don’t know what the rules are anymore, if by accidentally flying over a certain area in a world will subject me and anyone else I know to increased scrutiny. It’s worthwhile to keep these things in mind, even though it might be uncomfortable to do so.
PDF to the Reynard Project proposal
another article from the Washington Post from February
a perspective in favor of the proposal, but the comments are worth a read, too
