DEATH AND THE METAVERSE

A real murder involving Second Life?  If you glanced at a UK Guardian blog entry or read an article on the popular British site Spiked last week, that's the assumption you might have made.  Both of them point to a January 11th article from New York's Lockport Union-Sun, which reports on a second-degree murder apparently stemming from a bizarre Internet-based love triangle.  The Guardian's Niall Stanage entitles his post "From Second Life to second-degree murder", and taking that cue, Spiked's Robin Walsh writes of a "convoluted love triangle based largely in the virtual online game Second Life."

But according to the Lockport Union-Sun journalist who wrote the story, the murder had nothing whatsoever to do with Second Life. 

"That's not the case as far as I know," the Union-Sun's April Amadon told me, when I e-mailed her, to check.  "The District Attorney said MySpace, Pogo.com and Yahoo were used. I haven't heard Second Life mentioned at all during the investigation." 

Ironically, the Guardian's Stanage uses his essay to argue that Second Life involves "an unhealthy disengagement from, and evasion of, the real world"-- and therefore, more problematic than MySpace.  (A site which, unlike Second Life, is actually mentioned by the District Attorney.)  Spiked's Robin Walsh goes a step or two further into confusion (after a gratuitous hit-and-run anti-American swipe), by evidently misreading Stanage's post title, and proceeding from there.  (April Amadon's e-mail address is listed on the top of the Union-Sun article, so a simple fact check would have taken two minutes.)

Of course, like any popular Internet phenomenon with emotionally powerful engagements, it's almost inevitable that a serious real life crime will eventually intersect with Second Life.  (I've often wondered how New World Notes would write about it.)  It just doesn't appear to be the case here. 

If and when it does occur, however, one hopes reporters will be way more scrupulous with the facts.

Comments

[SignpostMarv Martin]

It would indeed be quite interesting to see how NWN would cover such an event. How does NWN view SL-related RL crime (e.g. things along the lines of the EQesque "he sold a sword I lent him") compared to SL-crime (e.g. griefing which you don't cover).

[Yakoub/Julaybib]

Spiked is a left lefty left wing jumble bag and some of its contributors talks absolute garbage. Speaking as a lefty Guardian reader, I don't understand why it gets the prominence it does. I think some of its writers are considered to have some credibility amongst the chattering political classes in UK/London, but in terms of its editorial values, it sucks! IMHO.

[Wholesale Pandora for Sale]

He is a good friend that speaks well of us behind our backs.