UNIMPEACHABLE EDITORIALIZING

From the 2003 tax protest

Since I cited him in "Unimpeachable Offense", my story of the Resident outcry against a massive political poster campaign and/or griefing extortionist scheme that failed to generate an organized response, I e-mailed the link to Lawrence Lessig, and he was kind enough to offer his thoughts (and let me repost them here):

"Perfect [case study] for Code 2! But one question it begs is: is there no collective action because people don't think anything will be done anyway (because of Philip's point)?"  (Philip Linden, that is, quoted in that entry saying that Linden Lab wouldn't intercede on free expression principles.)

My editorializing reply to Professor Lessig:

"I think the lack of collective action was because most Residents in SL are not landowners," I wrote back.  "So even while 70% of them found the signs ugly, few had a direct financial stake in the issue.  (The main complaint was always, 'I'm paying Linden Lab X dollars a month to look at this guy's crap!')  The tax revolt I mentioned in the article occured before Residents paid for land, when SL operated under a more traditional monthly subscription fee.  I think it's why that 2003 uprising had a more public- spirited, patriotic, 'tea crates in Boston harbor' flavor-- the tax system penalized people the more objects they instantiated in the world.  That began to seem like a punitive measure on user-created  content, the very essence of what SL was supposed to be.

"Now with land ownership as the fiscal model... we mostly see protests that are really just bourgeois bitchiness."

Comments

[Icon Serpentine]

And once again I will comment on the impotence many of the arguments residents had against the signs.

There was no substance for a revolt. Despite the claims of many residents, there was a lack of evidence that any extortion was taking place. So ultimately the argument was coming from a weak self-involved point of view. The complaint was simply that some people didn't like the signs.

Which of course is never a good enough reason to censor work or ban a resident.

Had there been proof of extortion and a lack of action from LL to prevent it, I have faith in the community that more potent action would have been taken.

[Ingrid]

I think this is proof enough of extortion:

A spinning Bush sign went up in Brown, one of only 3 Linden-zoned sims. The land was set for sale for L3000 for 64m. When a Linden in charge of the zoned sims whisked the sign away because it didn't comply with the zoning rules, the land owner reduced his price drastically, because his means of extortion was removed. Or... draw your own conclusions. Perhaps he reduced the price out of the goodness of his heart.

Lawrence is right, LL is commited to free expression which is wonderful, except when it's used as an umbrella to grief and extort. As I mentioned in an earlier thread here, I had tons of IM's while Live Helping; residents who were frustrated and angry. Many of them so angry that they ended up swearing and threatening to tier down. Who knows, maybe some of them did.

We're just shit out of luck on this one. Period. There's really no point in discussing it any further is there?

[Icon Serpentine]

Well Ingrid -- there may not be a point in discussing it further. I just find the lack of counter-point and empirical evidence "disturbing" (for lack of a better word).

I don't argue whether Mr. Profane's actions were right or wrong -- just that there is no evidence to support whether he was engaging in extortion or not.

Let's take the example of:

ex·tor·tion Pronunciation (k-stôrshn)
n.
1. The act or an instance of extorting.
2. Illegal use of one's official position or powers to obtain property, funds, or patronage.
3. An excessive or exorbitant charge.
4. Something extorted.

One could argue that on point 3 alone, Mr. Profane has been actively extorting residents. However, I don't find that isolation plausible -- We don't complain that Nike or Apple are extorting their consumers.

In the greater context of the word, I believe that to actively extort a person; one must use a form of leverage to attempt to pressure a person to accept their charge.

Some people have felt that Mr. Profane has done just that -- but I think it takes more than ugly signs to be considered leverage. I imagine if someone had chat-logs of him actively telling another user to purchase the land the signs were on in order to make them go away... would definitely be direct evidence of extortion.

If that is the case, why hasn't the evidence come to light? Somehow it's still hard for me to believe that a man so incriminated would be able to "get away" with his actions with impunity from either the community or LL.

Anyway -- for the record, I don't think the signs are very attractive. However, I don't find 80% of the things I see today in this modern world very appealing either.

So is it moot? I don't know.