The Chronicle fears Second Life, continued

The Chronicle of Higher Education takes another whack at Second Life.  Michael Bugeja wants readers to think about liability and ethical issues, primarily.  It's good advice, as one legal education blog observes.  The author is also concerned about the nature of virtual worlds, insofar as they impact teaching and learning.  It's a fascinating article, at least in terms of fearsome cyberspace writing, and for considering how the Chronicle approaches technology. 

Notice the level of critique offered in lines like this:

somehow, the allure of technology is such that virtual worlds seduce us with instantaneous eye candy of the ego.

Instant gratification, egotism, visual allure - classic technology criticism.  Yet the article won't acknowledge that anyone else has ever written, posted, or presented on this topic.  Indeed, besides noting a Linden Labs blotter report, the author doesn't recognize the very public, very accessible debate about Second Life content that has been raging for a couple of years.  He doesn't even note the Chronicle's own coverage (for example here, here, here).  Instead what appears is this odd assumption that there's no criticism of Second Life, nor of technology in general: "When it comes to technology, we in academe usually only see the positives." 

This is a typical move for some academics, and for the Chronicle, not bothering to acknowledge a generation of cyber critique.  Technology affects us... "somehow".  Perhaps some reading into web studies or even technology criticism as a whole is in order.  Halfway through the piece, Bugeja almost touches on Dibbell's classic, widely-read 1993 essay about virtuality, sex, bodies, and power... then shies away, describing himself as a lone critical voice. 

In the 1990s, when I was a faculty member at Ohio University, I taught... I disagreed... I argued that journalists had a duty to warn society...
Controversy will occur, although many of us do not seem to be anticipating any in this realm. That perplexes me.

Indeed it must.  Towards the end of the article, the author asks faculty to invite "experts on cyberlaw, new media, technology, gaming, harassment, ethics, and other related disciplines" to participate in "a public forum and/or a faculty meeting".  One must wonder why the author doesn't get a head start by reading those experts' published thoughts, especially when publishing in academia's news journal of record.  One can infer from this description of one of Bugeja's books that he knows some of the literature - why leave out any mention here?  Why the lonely, heroic stance, especially when celebrating the virtues of networking in the article's conclusion?

A similar ignorance is tacitly allowed when it comes to researching the technology itself.  Anyone familiar with Second Life should catch this passage from the article's opening: "About nine million avatars reportedly interact on this digital landscape..." Nine million?  The classic Second Life numbers problem appears.  The author has swallowed that old, old fiction whole, without a glance at the controversy around it.  That number doesn't even appear on the Second Life homepage any longer (which reports "Online Now: 42,182" as of this writing). 

Bugeja locates the source of his knowledge with a quick adverb: "reportedly."  No direct Second Life experience appears in the article, surprisingly, nor any explicit reference to anyone who has written on the subject.  Reportage, criticism, reflection are set aside, and something close to urban legend put on the page instead.

But which technology is actually Bugeja's target?  The article is putatively about Second Life (not virtual environments more generally), yet touches on Web 2.0 platforms in order to draw more general lessons.  For example, when discussing objectionable video content, Bugeja references YouTube, warning "us" (presumably instructors) to consider letting students leave the room (does he think students don't watch videos out of class?), then goes on:

We also should prepare students for mature content over which we have little control, especially when requiring classes to visit virtual worlds whose avatars enjoy anonymity in anything-goes environments.

How is this different from requiring classes to surf the web, in either 2.0 or 1.0 modes?   A broader anxiety about digital materials in the open web might be the target here, rather than simply Second Life.  Once again, there's no sense that any other person has written about these issues (the American Library Association started thinking about digital information fluency in the 1980s).

The main point of the piece, that campuses think hard about Second Life's legal implications, is a good one.  And it's damning that the Lindens haven't answered Bugeja's attempts at communication - I recommend getting inworld and looking for Pathfinder Linden.

Previous posts on the Chronicle and fearsome virtual environments: on Facebook, pro Gorman, egomania online.  And Second Life: September, July, June.

PS: I know the Chronicle doesn't hyperlink very much, but why not link to Bugeja's homepage?

(via Stephen Downes)

Comments

[peter naegele]

The Chronicle constantly plays both sides of the fence on this issue. There's an article in the issue coming out on the 21st which includes an article regarding the use of SL in the classroom.

[Prokofy Neva]

I think it's good that this very thoughtful and articulate piece got some very prominent expose. There's far too much dismissal of the problem of griefing and harassment, first by the makers of Second Life itself, Linden Lab, and then by their cheerleaders among the tekkie set. Oh, of course Bugeja goes way over the top with his concerns, which are probably a product of lack of familiarity with Second Life, and the actually rather full set of land tools that can mitigate a lot of griefing and control the experience for groups like classrooms.

Still, he is absolutely right to raise the issue of crime and liability for litigation -- this never gets enough really serious thought, and is too easily dismissed by those waving away bad actors and their disruptive actions merely because they are online and pixelated.

While he may be blinkered in not having kept up with the official blog or the host of third-party blogs flogging the issue of crime and punishment (like mine), it's normal in that he is a normal guy at a normal university asking the common-sense questions. We need more people like him to come at Second Life and kick the tires, as it is entirely too precious and entierly too swathed by its fanboyz and dependent tech media and corporate-sponsored blogs.

The real issue Bugeja is addressing is how the university can maintain its liberal, critical environment against the pressures of the rampant extremist ideologies gaining amplification and viral spread through social media and the SL platform. His concern, I gather, isn't just that students see all kinds of offensive racist and abusive and hateful content, but that it corrodes their minds and souls and makes it impossible to pass on the values of liberal Western civilization. And rather than screaming FUD and Luddite, more people should be worried about this than are.

[Alan Levine]

Well-placed comments, Bryan. The author did elaborate on several points to the SLED listserv (SL Educators) citing the difficulty of being comprehensive in the limited word count available... for the PRINT version (a whole other thread for perhaps a Chronicle 2.0 might be to ask why the limits of print publication extend to the web??).

As a sidebar, we are hopefully ready soon to share the results of a survey we did of 200+ SL educators in May. On the question of negative experiences, one of the common responses was in the area of harassment and a desire to feel "safer" from attacks.

What was even more interesting was when we split by gender, it was evenly distributed. I am not in any way advocating any sort of policing or systemic monitoring, but it is worth noting that a common shared concerned -- in a virtual world where you cannot be physically harmed -- is feeling safe and free from virtual harm.

This will play out more as it seems the participants in SL are nudging over the line from the early innovators (Prokofy's fanboyz) who are/were a lot more comfortable in thw wild wild virtual west.

[Gxere,op]

What made me sad when I read Bugeja's piece was that people considering the use of SL for education will read it and think this guy has any idea what he's talking about. As you rightly point out, much better and more useful criticism has been written elsewhere. His article was filled with fear, half-truths, and a shocking unwillingness to consider any of a number of possible solutions for the problems he sees. The title itself, "A Second Look at Second Life," is misleading - this is not the work of someone who was an enthusiast and then discovered SL's flaws. It seems Bugeja feared SL from the first time he laid eyes on it. I had to respond with my own blogpost, and I'm glad you did too.