Sky News' Five News crime reporter Jason Farrell launched his own investigation into representations of child pornography in Second Life several months ago. With a new story issued by Sky News, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Agency (CEOP) has been prompted to launch a team of detectives who will use avatars to explore the charges in Second Life. "Wonderland is a virtual children's playground where paedophiles cruise and kids are solicited," said Farrell. "At first site it looks like a real-life playground. Here child-like avatars are not just playing on swings - they're offering sex. These are virtual children of all ages - even toddlers. After talking to one child I was offered a range of sordid and sick sexual acts. My avatar had entered a virtual paedophile ring. Obviously, I declined the offers and reported my disturbing findings."
While it's certainly possible that children are active on the adult grid, Farrell is conflating child-shaped avatars with actual children. And while most countries would prosecute an adult for simulating sex online with an actual child, the depiction of child-like sexual activity between two adults is a separate matter.
Why would a 56-year-old man masquerade as a 13-year-old child? That’s something that would concern us," a CEOP spokeswoman told Reuters.
In the United States, where Linden Lab is based, only sexual images of actual children are illegal. Computer-generated images, like those in Second Life, are still protected under the First Amendment as free speech, though some have argued that this creates an unnecessary loophole.
In the UK, images that could potentially be real are illegal, punishable by up to 10 years in jail. Almost all users would agree that Second Life's graphics don't meet that standard, though. However, members of the government have taken steps (PDF) to broaden that scope and make possession of child pornography in cartoons, computer-generated pictures, animations, drawings, or actual photos altered to look unrealistic punishable by three years in jail with an unlimited fine.
"The ease with which images can be circulated or altered brings fresh challenges in combating the availability of child sex abuse images. It’s critical that the law stays one-step ahead and nowhere is this more important than protecting children from harm,” said Home Secretary John Reid, introducing a consultation on the new law. "The Government is determined to do all we can to protect children from abuse."
When contacted by Sky News, Home Secretary Jacquie Smith said that she was planning to publish a consultation paper on whether to outlaw virtual imagery of child abuse used in virtual on-line worlds.
Likewise, the CEOP is apparently already involved in multiple virtual worlds, not just Second Life.
“Our interest is wherever on the Internet children are,” a spokeswoman told Reuters. “We place officers into a number of virtual worlds.”
Earlier this year the Dutch examined a similar issue, and reports of child pornography led Linden to look at adding country-specific filtering for Germany and other parties to look for open-source age verification tools.
Linden Lab now has its own verification system in place, and is continuing to experiment with tracking. Also, it previously banned broadly offensive content, and sims like Wonderland have fallen into the category, so it seems likely that the locale may not be around long enough for the UK police to investigate it.
[Sky press release here]
Thank you for your summary, which was considerably more insightful than Sky's sensationalist approach, which entirely neglected the quite serious issues of civil liberties and "thought policing" between consenting adults.
@"'Why would a 56-year-old man masquerade as a 13-year-old child? That’s something that would concern us,' a CEOP spokeswoman told Reuters."
First, the vast majority of kid avis are extremely protective about real kids, and have *zero* tolerance for RL child molestors or anyone who harms real kids.
Second, I don't think it is any of CEOP's or any one else's business what consenting adults want to do in SL ... but if they really wanna stick their noses in, maybe he had a rough or unhappy childhood, and wants to relive it the way he wishes it had been?
Third, shouldn't the UK be spending their limited police resources on protecting *real* kids, rather than "inventing" problems based on dubious presumptions about what people might potentially do? Simply put, this is fascist thought policing. As you point out, even the US Supreme Court (hardly a bastian of liberalism/libertarianism ín recent years) has ruled that such virtual/fictional activities are protected free speech.
Finally, does the state have the right to presume guilt on the basis of what it thinks someone *might* do? Protecting real kids is indeed extremely important - but insofar as we are in the realm of thoughts and not acts, so are civil liberties. I regard "thought policing" by the state as a step on the slippery path to fascism.
Posted by: Disappointed | November 01, 2007 at 11:04 AM