Avatar Disclaimer: Do You Feel The Need To Disclaim Your Second Life Activity From Your Company?

While inveterate metaverse tinkerer Dedric Mauriac was showing me the touch-sensitive globe he made, I couldn't help noticing the disclaimer on his profile:  "The views expressed here are mine alone and do not necessarily represent the views of [redacted] Corporation."

"Why do you feel the need to attach a real life disclaimer on your avatar?" I ask him.

"A couple years ago," Mauriac says, "a company policy came out about our personal blogs outside of the company."  At the same time, he adds, mentioning the company in his profile allows fellow employees to find him in Search. "So just to protect myself, I posted it on my simulators' covenant, my group and my avatar... I don't know all the legalities of me telling people that it's OK to talk about my company."

Unlike IBM employees in SL, who have to abide by a code of conduct on their virtual corporate campus and outside it, Dedric's corporation doesn't conduct official business in-world.  Still, he says, "There are ethics involved. It affects my decisions when I find that something I do starts to cross over into what I do at work. Sometimes I've stopped working on projects (especially with web integration) when it starts to appear as if it may be related to what I do [in RL].  Also I often avoid the 'sins of SL' (gambling, relationships, etc), but I don't act in SL as if i am here on behalf of my company."

It's a strict barrier to maintain, but then, similar issues have come up over Facebook profiles, Twitter profiles, and more.  "I'm wondering if any others do something similar," Dedric wonders.

So do I.  I turn that question over to readers: to you feel a need to explicitly distance your avatar's behavior from your company?  Or worry that someday, you should?

Comments

[Vint]

I try to behave, both offline and online. I wonder if my atomic would need a disclaimer when going out in the weekends, printed on my tshirt: "The views expressed here are mine alone and do not necessarily represent the views of Rezzable." :D

I trust people realise that vintfalken.com posted stuff is... well.. Vint, and that rezzable related opinions go on the Rezzable blog. (And everybody except that-what-shall-not-be-named seems to understand that.)

[Eirik]

I simply keep my SL avatar disconnected from RL me. I'd never mention my RL company on my profile, just because it's part of my real life, which SL people shouldn't have to know about.

[Annyka Bekkers]

My job has an explicit compliance policy forbidding anyone to speak publicly as an employee of the corporation without approval. I think its a pretty standard to avoid employees speaking as representatives of the company. Its why on game shows you have "contestant #2 works in the pharmaceuticals industry" but never says which specific company it is.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

If the avatar represents the company or is associated with the company, the company has the right to take steps to protect its image.

On the other hand, if my company tried to tell me what I can or can't do with my personal avatar (with no links to the company), or tried to tell me that I can't run an alt, I would cheerfully ignore them.

Companies infringing on employees' non-work lives is an increasingly common trend, and it is my moral obligation to fight against such.

[Ordinal Malaprop]

I of course maintain decorum at all times, regardless of matters of employment, but I would not expect anything that I do in my Personal Time to automatically be associated with whomever I work for, nor have I ever felt it necessary to issue a disclaimer.

I am sure that people are intelligent enough to be able to disassociate my own opinions and actions in Second Life from my employer's, in the same way that they are able to disassociate them outside of it. If I attend, say, a political protest in RL, it is not expected that I am representing whatever company that I work for.

[Becca Imako]

The way I navigate around this problem is simply create 2 different avatars. One for research and attending educational events (I am a PhD student in RL) and one I use for fun (the Becca Imako avatar for DJing).

Both avatars in no way participate in the same activities nor have the same friends. The one I use for research has all my public information in its profile and other has no rl info in its profile (with the exception of the state I am from and my approximate age).

[Ordinal Malaprop]

Probably, if I were to start again now I would create an alt and become them in work hours - there are all sorts of advantages, such as not wasting my group slots on work-only groups, being happy to just hand my password over to an employer if they needed to access my inventory and so on, it being clear when I was on "personal time" and so on. It would be quite easy to do, as I save all of my scripts and assets outworld _anyway_.

However, it would not be because of my opinions. Everyone would likely know whose alt my alt was and so opinions would just carry over.

[Dedric Mauriac]

Take my own personal blog for example (lewismoten.com) - it has nothing to do with my company, yet I am required to add a disclaimer about my company.

The problem is, even if you create a separate avatar for your company, and another for personal life - you are still in control of both. If you took your non-company avatar and started expressing your views, they may go against your company. Someone may actually figure out that you (in real life) are the owner of your non-company avatar. If they know who you work for, then they may associate your views with the company. At least, that is how corporate lawyers may see it.

In SL, we have a protection of anonymity. It is as if everyone expects that no one should be able to figure out who we are. Eventually, over time, the links may be made. We may tell our friends who we really are. Things simply start connecting.