GRIEFING AND THE ETHICS OF METAVERSE JOURNALISM

So over the last week or two, there's been several grid attacks that have taken down the world for a few hours--some coverage here, and from popular graphic novel writer Warren Ellis, here.  Where you haven't read about them is here, on this blog, and that's actually by choice.  My reasoning runs like this:  like griefers, grid attackers are motivated by the desire for attention, so giving them publicity operates as a reward, and inadvertantly becomes an incentive for further attacks.  (What's more, the attacks themselves don't seem to have much appreciable impact on Second Life culture or usage patterns; after Linden Lab cleans up the mess and signals the "all clear", concurrency levels go right back to where they were before the attack, as if they never happened.)  Attentive readers may be inclined to see parallels to conundrums from real world journalism-- for example, when the media gives prominent coverage to a minor terrorist attack, are they just reporting the news, or unintentionally becoming an abettor after the fact, while unnecessarily alarming the public?-- but for now, at least, I'll let just let this post be a marker in my willy nilly effort to come up with a workable ethics for reporting in the metaverse.

Comments

[Melissa Yeuxdoux]

Perhaps the approach suggested in Dean Ing's book _Soft Targets_ would work, i.e. mocking the griefers.

[T_S_Kimball]

From the Internet's point of view, that's just as bad. *Any* reference, however its bent, will be found by the search engines and just all glommed together.

The question then becomes, what can you do after the fact that helps the public but does not help the perpretrators?

As someone who's dealt with system security - including password policies - I'm contemplaying an article or two that expands beyond what I've seen in SL's security reminder in its newsletter. That's just the basic stuff; The harder stuff can be easy too, just need to learn now.

Of course, it's not just for the benefit of SL's readers; Other online environments (Uru Live ;-) can take advantage of this too.

--Timothy
sungak.net

[rikomatic]

I guess I'm not supposed to post a comment to a story about not covering the grid attackers. oh, poo.

[bryan campen]

Or like streakers at a baseball game: better just to turn the cameras away. Listen to this week's OTM.