March 1, 2007
According to a post on presidential candidate John Edwards' official blog, the Democrat's Second Life campaign headquarters was trashed, apparently by Republican gamers:Shortly before midnight (CST) on Monday, February 26, a group of republican Second Life users, some sporting "Bush '08" tags, vandalized the John Edwards Second Life HQ. They plastered the area with Marxist/Lenninist posters and slogans, a feces spewing obsenity, and a photoshopped picture of John in blackface, all the while harrassing visitors with right-wing nonsense and obsenity-laden abuse of Democrats in general and John in particular.
The author of the blog post, identified only as robinrising, was apparently a witness to the incident and provided screen shots and chat logs to SL publisher Linden Lab for possible disciplinary action.
Comments
I think this is hilarious. That's what the fool gets for trying to advertise on a game.
my vote will go to him anyway, though, since he IS on a game. woot.
Ever since 06/06/06, Linden Labs has taken away verification for new accounts. Correlationly (if I am using it right), the amount of griefing has increased. Yes, sometimes it is made to be a bigger deal than it is supposed to be.
And yes, griefing is against TOS.
Sincerely,
Max
I'm told that the program itself doesn't really do "hardware support" as much as would be reasonable for any newer program. Couple this with intensive cpu-usage due to the way the program works (everything but avatar form and simple terrain works in costumizable primitives), and you're going to get a low fps no matter your graphics-card.
On the other hand, I'm hearing good things about the beta-tester program First Look. It's supposed to run a whole lot better, due to some sort of significant rendering changes.
As for Second Life itself. I tried it, but immediately deleted it from my Hard Drive when I found out that my 300 dollar ATI X1950 video card was struggling to hold a steady frame rate. Despite the fact that the game looks like at Nintendo 64 tittle.
Second Life has got to be one of the most horrible coded games in existence.
That contract IS the "Law" governing second life, with all other in-"game" laws subject to the government of the people playing therein. Government was defined by G. Washington as simply force. Hence the ability of victims to track down virtual perpetrators and their virtual property becomes the duty of the victim. The victim might then engage in free speech tactics to affect the virtual perpetrator by damaging their reputation and thus damaging their credibility and ability to engage in the commerce of the land is the punishment they can mete out. Also, in a free market, caveat emptor is the watchword of the day. The friends of Edwards campaign should have engaged the proper security features in Second Life to watch over their virtual property, to ensure lockdown of various critical items, to backup their data for easy restoration, etc....
Those who say that virtual world actions such as these are insignificant have none-the-less spent time devouting responses to this issue, highlighting the importance of the internet, of public relations and of virtual environments, thus demonstrating that their arguement about irrelevancy of this is flawed.
Anonymous doesn't care for pretty much anything, they only do the crap they do...
For the lulz.
Yes, they're stupid, but it's what they do. There's really nothing to look into here, just /b/ being.../b/.
Ty
this is exactly something that would show up on "Sick Sad World"
@MrKenyon
Rules #1 and #2
Anyway, it's done. And it obviously did the intended job, look at all the buzz.
Whoever you are, no doubt you're congratulating yourself right now.
Enjoy your 13-year-old humor moment, because people will now be watching. . .
That's how you can know FOR SURE that it was a Rethuglican.
Pot, kettle, kettle, pot. Given the chance, the Democrats would probably ban the game (if you can call it that..) outright to protect the precious children. As such, I can't find a violin tiny enough for them here...
Besides, I'm with Hannah, eShirl, et al on this, in that it was probably W-Hat or, even more likely, some copycats. It's almost too obvious-- to the point of being sloppy --that they were out to make *both* parties look silly. Not that this is hard to do, since both parties are duplicitous, partisan asshats.
Not that the US Democrats are all that democratic anyway...
It does seem far too obvious, that the offenders be bush'ies. Though it HAS happened that people wanted the constitution amended to allow Bush Jr. a 3rd term - an amendment that couldn't have been denied fast enough.
I reckon the perpetrators being of the W-Hat group or SomethingAwful may be the most logical conclusion here, as no one can show themselves as being THAT retarded unless it was on purpose. Remember, SomethingAwful has a mean-streak at grieving others, while W-Hat lives for it. ;)
Considering the fact that they are advertising in the game itself this seems incredibally unlikely and you shouldn't say all democrats would do that, since most people in the U.S. are democrat republican or politically indifferent (there is no third party with a strong chance in 08). Also if all you're ever fed is lies and borderline slander about games from a certain lawyer . . ..
I doubt it's the "official" w-hat group. Their FAQ specifically forbids racist stuff, harassing people, and "highly visible disgusting content". So unless they broke all three of those rules, I'm guessing it was someone else...
Now thats against the rules
So they put them up in the last few days to cover their tracks then? ;)
"We are at war with Oceania. We have *always* been at war with Oceania..." :D
SL is about people who can't get laid, so they fantasize in an online game about having sex with anthropomorphic foxes and having fictional relationships. It is the lowest form of the internet. I have no idea where these deluded morons get the idea that SL is worth "Millions in economic transactions per day" but they are pretty goddamn retarded. I would be ashamed to even associate with it.
In my opinion, Second Life is definitely a game. Hell, it's not even the first of its genre -- MOOs have been around for over a decade, and people have been allowed to make small changes to graphical game worlds (eg. changing the image on a player-specific banner) for an awfully long time. The thing is... when you take a game and let people do whatever they want in it, it's still a game. Not a particularly fun game, but a game nonetheless.
What kind of "feces spewing obcenity" was it?
administration vis a vis anyone who objects to the principles of the Republican
Party. Namely, that Democrats are "enemies of the State" and should be stamped out. This behavior is condoned and egged on by the Administration and it's toadies.
AND it is disgusting and dangerous to our democratic way of life --more so than
another Al Quaeda attack. We have a Dictator now after the first. Next attack and we'll have the Gestapo.
I mean c'mon. OBVIOUSLY if you're a republican you're both an idiot AND a loser. Jeez.
That was sarcasm, by the way, and I am a conservative. Who ever the people responsible for the trashing of the Democrat's SL HQ are either extremists, immature, or just people dicking around.
This party-bashing is getting tiresome and pathetic. Making generalizations like the statements I've seen from the majority of these comment posters are seething with a bitter taste. You're stepping on broken glass, I suggest you back off the rude comments about a party as a whole.
It seems to me that the Whole 'Second Life' space needs a LOT of reviewing, if you have political opinions being openly represented on Second Life, you ARE going to get your hellraisers as well as your more pacifistic objectors.
Linden Labs cannot have their cake and eat it, which is essentially what they are trying to do, basically standing in the middle and taking money from both consumer AND retailer, they've practically created a 4th type of media which is seperate from 'Video Games'.
In the words of Granny Weatherwax, 'There will be a reckonin''. If they increase 'Policing' in their environment then they will be placing restrictions on the freedom of their own paying members, if they don't then they start to endanger their links with the more commercial side of things.
It'll be interesting to see how much longer LL can keep these plates spinning.
I am wondering if someone has written about why the "game" is so prone to such attacks? Can you "legally" emote/modify other people's property or is it that the game does not define well enough where one's property starts and ends? Or, perhaps, it is just a hack where some vulnerability in the system is used?
I am curious, from a technical viewpoint, why these issues keep coming up. Any leads would be appreciated.
Gus
They also have been taking an interest in SL lately. Though they haven't been on there to make positive contributions. Their main focus is to cause as much chaos as possible to write articles about "alternative" lifestyles of the niche users of the service.
I personally don't mind the "attack" as I like the idea of the web being free enough to still contain a little danger like this. It means we still have freedom on the net and it hasn't been fully controlled.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/16/AR200605...
Of course, later we learned that RNC personnel were responsible. Remember, this is the party of Nixon and Rove we're talking about, they live for dirty tricks.
Democrats all too often hide behind "free speech" to justify their moronic, hate-filled statements, but take regular pleasure in telling those they disagree with that they should not exercise "free speech".
Republicans are ... well ... republicans.
You have every right to say what you are saying, and I have every right to recognize that you are an idiot for saying it. If people weren't allowed to exercise their right to free speech, it wouldn't be so easy to spot the morons. Embrace it.
March 1st, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Anyone who says Second Life is ‘’just a game'’ has no idea what they’re talking about.
Yeah actually it's a hidey hole for social deviants with no other outlet for their failed existence. kthnx
Now if Edwards brings this up in a speech or whatever, that I want to know about. If there is a fallout from this, that would be interesting to read about.
Just remember, it's about griefing, not politics, and whatever is going to cause the most outrage. Drumming up the gargantuan rift between our broken 2-party system in this manner is one way to flare up tempers on both sides of the issue, it pisses off everybody at once, except for the extremists, who just use it as yet another opportunity to go for each other's throats (as if they need the excuse, see: any semi-political blog or news site on the internet)
And yeah, if anything, these guys probably lean towards the left side of the politican spectrum. If you're planning on griefing, it makes more sense to target your own side and make the other side look worse in the progress.
Couldn't bother you for hint as to who, eh? :)
"Just like green phallic spam attacks on Ashne Cheung’s latest online press conference, or Grey Goo attacks on a busy holiday weekend."
Neither of which had logos attached to try to shift blame to an uninvolved 3rd party... If it was pure vandalism, sure, I'd agree. But they stuck around and specifically bashed Democrat supporters, while blasting out Republican propaganda. If they were merely anti-politician, wouldn't they be bashing both, instead of denouncing one while seemingly propping up the other?
You're thinking way too small about this. Conspiracies are ALWAYS big. Therefore you should think big too.
I think it was Al Qaeda. I mean, come'on! They're terrorists already.
They did it to trying to deflect the blame on republicans, so that the American people would vote for Democrats, therefore emboldening The Enemy (r) (tm) (c). Actually, now that I think about it...I KNOW it was Dick Cheney trying to blame it on Al Qaeda trying to blame it on the Republicans.
Wait, no, that's not right.
It was the Democrats trying to blame it on Dick Cheney trying to blame it on Al Qaeda trying to blame it on the Republicans. Dude, this is it! No...wait. Still not quite big enough. I've got even better one.
It was Karl Rove drafting strategy for the 2008 elections trying to blame it on Democrats trying to blame it on Dick Cheney trying to blame it on Al Qaeda trying to blame it on the Republicans. Dude! Yea! This is it! IT IS A NEO-CON RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY AFTER ALL! F*** yea!
Or does everyone just WANT us to believe that??? The mind boggles.
Shiny side out...
"Then why do it under the facade of Bush ‘08 supporters? Wouldn’t that be hypocritical? “
Because that's what's going to push the buttons and raise the ire of the Edwards camp the most.
I'm sure at least a few of the participants were of the 'rabid republican' breed, but my guess is that most of them just wanted to shake up the latest event in the manner that would generate the most controversy and coverage. Just like green phallic spam attacks on Ashne Cheung's latest online press conference, or Grey Goo attacks on a busy holiday weekend.
Neither. First, this actually makes Edwards look stronger, since the Republicans are so obviously threatened by his candidacy. Second, this doesn't affect the Republican Party at all, since everyone already equates racism with the Republicans. The GOP embraces its racism, which is why Nixon's "Southern Strategy" is still in play to this day.