Political Speech or Land Extortion? Or Both?
by Alphaville Herald on 16/11/05 at 11:02 am
by Prokofy Neva
Huge, bright blue spinning signs calling on Americans to IMPEACH BUSH and RESTORE U.S. CREDIBILITY have spread like kudzu all over the Second Life grid in recent weeks on numerous plots for sale. Many residents — even those who share the billboard artist’s sentiments about the U.S. president — are increasingly angered by the intrusion into their view. They’ve been especially exasperated to click on the signs and see them go away — only to reappear 20 minutes later.
Lazarus Divine, a 10-month-old avatar who belongs to just two groups, Scripters of SL and Impeach Bush!, has peppered the SL landscape with the large signs which have alternately drawn approval — especially from some Europeans who marvel that so many Americans could have voted for Bush, whom many loath — and annoyance from others who believe politics should be kept out of SL or at least should not be allowed to make the virtual world’s landscape more blight-filled than it already is with competing notions of beauty, commerce, and efficiency.
While some residents have pushed the abuse-report button on the creator of the anti-Bush signs, and the Lindens acknowledge receiving many such reports, no action has been taken and call for impeachment spreads to each new sim as fast as land goes for sale on them. Unless it incites hatred or racism, the expression of even radical political sentiment is tolerated by Linden Lab, provider of the SL platform, and it appears to fall within the Terms of Service. Yet because Divine is also setting the land upon which the signs hover to what many view to be extortionist prices of $3000 for 64 m, or $46/meter, some residents feel he has gone too far in violating the spirit, if not the letter of the law in SL.
At a vigorous discussion Tuesday evening at the Gilded Cage Club in Derwent, residents both debated the validity of interpreting the annoying signs as political expression and enjoyment of the liberties of the free land market.
On the forums, debate was brisk between those who favoured the signs, as a form of legitimate and necessary political dissent and a means of sparking discussion in SL, and those who felt the political message was merely a gimmick, meant to hook liberals into guiltily paying for the land under the signs to make the sign go away in order to preserve their view. The Land for Sale list on the user panel contains hundreds of listings of the Impeach Bush! sign parcels, with parcels selling constantly.
Land for sale in SL is usually parceled in sizes of 512 m2 or larger, but since the land market crash in the summer and ensuing difficulty for people in selling their land, there has been a trend to mark up smaller lots to appeal to a growing industry of billboard advertisers, who then often set the land to very high prices per meter, which are sometimes still affordable as the lots are small, to capitalize on the desire of most people to preserve their view.
Lindens contacted about the signs said they were legal under the TOS, unless the build could be shown to violate Community Standards in some fashion. Appeals to a notion of “substantial interference in the enjoyment of Second Life” fall on deaf ears — the Lindens are not willing to intervene to such an extent in player-made content. “If “ugly” is a TOS violation, then we’re in serious trouble,” said one Linden, implying that one man’s ugly could be another man’s beauty, and efforts to adjudicate such values would lead to lack of freedom for creativity in SL and numerous citations.
Unpersuaded by Linden logic, some residents are taking matters into their own hands. Suggestions have been made to start a counter-campaign, and one enterprising sign-maker, Jonny Dingo, is causing double takes with his bright blue spinning facsimile sign that spells out IMPEACH LAZARUS DIVINE and RESTORE BEAUTY TO SECOND LIFE. Lenin Camus, another activist, had earlier joined Divine’s Impeach Bush group, but then left when he discovered it was being used as a cover for exhorbitant land deals. He has since made a sign highlighting what many feel to be the extortionist nature of the Divine invasion of the SL landscape, with a graphic of a gun at a dog’s head and the slogan “Don’t Extort Land or We Will Shoot This Dog”.
Aliasi Stonebender, another activist who is critical of Bush but dismayed by the pressure tactics to sell land, purchased one tiny plot amidst Divine’s signs and deployed Dingo’s parody; Divine summoned Lindens but it was determined her sign was as permissable under the TOS as his. Faced with a mounting sign war, land owners are trying to come up with other strategies, such as banning Divine from their land parcels and also IMing him regularly with protests about his defacement of the view.
“You can’t buy the view,” is an oft-repeated adage in SL; now that the view has come to cost nearly $50/meter to keep it free of anti-Bush signs, some people are fleeing to the more controlled island havens of residential communities managed by land baroness Anshe Chung. Indeed, some observers have pointed out that Divine would be unable to deploy so many anti-Bush signs across the land if it weren’t for the liklihood that SL’s top land dealers were cutting off strips to sell to him probably at a rather profitable price, which he is likely able to pay because he can easily recoup it at the high prices he is charging.
rich
Nov 16th, 2005
Those signs are particularly stupid since it’s clearly not within America’s power to stop the war in Iraq. Sure, they can withdraw their forces but that will just result in the brewing civil war spreading faster. This is a fact ignored by ant-Bush and anti-war simpletons who somehow think that Iraq is a peace loving country that would get on just fine if the west left it alone. For Iraq 2005, see Afganistan in the late ’80s. Who will get control of Iraq? Will it be local warlords or Taleban or maybe the Baath Party can regain control. It sure as hell won’t be any democratically elected government if we leave now, that’s for sure.
Marsellus Wallace
Nov 16th, 2005
Ok a couple of things I just wanted to comment on…
First, that was a long ass story. Of course everything P Neva does is overly long. You could have gotten the same story across in a lot less reading. It doesn’t have to be long to be effective. You start to lose your audience at some point though in the reading when it is this long about a semi-boring topic.
Second, I think the signs are annoying. I think Bush is a weasel and the signs annoy me. However, just because the land is selling for $3K per 64m2 doesn’t mean it’s extortion. I adjust the price up on my land just in case there is 1 jag off who is stupid enough to buy it or wants it bad enough. Is that extortion? No. Even if my building is ugly? Nope. I drive around town in my car in real life and see billboards that annoy me occasionally. I don’t have the option to buy that land or remove the billboard. Annoying yes. Extortion no. I think you should look up the term extortion, becuase I don’t think you understand what it is or how it works.
You want to see extortion (btw the dog thing is not too original and you will see by going here) check out this website: http://www.savetoby.com. There you will see extortion and a poor little rabbit held hostage lol
You stated P Neva that Lindens confirmed they have received several complaints about this. Where did you get this confirmation? I find it hard to beleive that they have received a ton of complaints about this. I find it even harder to beleive that they would confirm that with you of all people. Don’t they dislike you? lol Not trying to pick on you or mess with ya, just trying to see where you got your info becuase I am truly intrugued by this particular topic.
Marsellus Wallace
Just my two cents for the day
Cocoanut
Nov 16th, 2005
a. I got a few of paragraphs down this piece and just had to look up to see who had written something so well-written (and well-spelled!). Lo and behold, ’twas my friend Prok. I shoulda known, lol.
b. The Lindens are apparently getting “one man’s ugly is another man’s beauty” mixed up with “land extortion.” Two very different concepts. However, the residents themselves will probably deal with this, and, as reported, they are starting to, and this, too, shall pass.
c.) Marcellus, anyone who thinks Prok doesn’t have a relationship with the Lindens – i.e., a number of individual Lindens – and/or they refuse to talk to him informally, as they do with other residents, is flat out wrong.
First off, the Lindens are almost invariably polite, and frequently forthcoming and candid.
Second, they want to know what Prok thinks. If for no other reason, because they would be STUPID not to want to know what he thinks, as he is often a vocal and widely-read critic. But it’s also because what Prok thinks is always interesting, and more often than not, of value.
Third, don’t assume that because someone is controversial (or, in some cases, has been made controversial by vocal people on the forums who don’t share their views) that the Lindens don’t listen to them. Or even like them! And encourage them. And, basically, have friendly relationships with them.
Those on the forums who think they know everything that goes on, that they know the Lindens opinions so well they can – and literally do have the audacity to – speak for even one of them, much less all of them as an aggregate, really don’t know all that. Those people just really aren’t all that.
They try very hard to marginalize people, and make pariahs of people, but the truth is, they are not in on all the private conversations residents have with Lindens, and are not in those relationships. Those people who think they are all that are actually just other residents, like you, me, and Prok.
coco
Prokofy Neva
Nov 16th, 2005
Marsellus, I spoke to 2 Lindens at length, and Lindens do talk to me, strange as it may seem to you. All you have to do is IM them, they usually respond after awhile if oneline. One of them definitely said they had received abuse-reports over this sign. And I personally abuse-reported one in Brown, and a Linden came out to remove it twice, because you can’t post signs in Brown. So these statements are all accurate.
As for overly long and boring, well, it feels short to me, we don’t get edited much at the Herald, the idea is to get the news out there and get people responding. For me, it’s also about provioding material for other website authors to cite where there might be more journalistic or academic approaches taken. That’s how I see it, anyway.
As to extortion, I don’t think you’re getting that many feel this isn’t about land prices, really, let alone about Bush. People set land to wild prices all the time, like $9999999 for a 512. It’s their right. Nobody cares, unless they might have their eye on that particular parcel, and be fuming.
This is different. This is about deliberately coming into a sim, creating a nuisance, and then telling people that they have to pay to get rid of that nuisance. It’s not just one expression on your own property property home or business — it’s on thousands of little parcels for sale at outrageous prices all over SL. That *is* extortion.
You’re supposed to go on eloquestly about your liberal notions of free expression and the free land market…but your view is blighted, your own property value is now destroyed, you lose land you have to sell for less or you lose tenants or customers to your business becaues the signs annoy them and they don’t want to be next to them. That’s destructive. That’s creating a threat of damage — destruction of your view, business, property value — and making people pay to not have that happen. All this stuff about “you can’t buy the view” overlooks the fact that no one should have to pay protection to racketeers to avoid destruction of property values or loss of business. That’s what real life mafias do, ya know?
Marsellus Wallace
Nov 16th, 2005
Prokofy:
I see exactly what you are saying. I wasn’t trying to knock anything. Herald doesn’t edit? hehe Oh Uri!!! The stories I could tell! haha Anyway, This is still not extortion. No one is saying pay to remove the sign. You do that of your own free will. I have seen the signs all over. But to the same note, I see political signs in peoples houses all the time in real life. Bumper stickers on cars too. Does this mean that I have to buy the house or the car to end it? No.
Extortion requires you to force someone to do something they do not want to do. For example when the W-hats extorted Anshe Chung. They truly had things that people did not want next to the land in an effort to drop prices to buy the land cheaper and resell for profit. That is extortion. I am VERY familiar with how the Mafia works and how it extorts. What you are describing is not extortion, maybe by a stretch, but by the standard definition, it is not. You may call it that becuase you do not agree with the particular thing advertised and therefore feel compelled to purchase the land.
Marsellus Wallace
*Taking it easy on Prokofy since I usually enjoy his rants*
Marsellus Wallace
Nov 16th, 2005
Coco:
As usual, you always speak so elequently. I love it when you post. =) Anyway, I wasn’t trying to knock Prok stating I find it hard to believe they would speak to him. I was simply stating that usually the internal information would be hard to come by and why would they give it to an outspoken critic of Linden Labs? That’s adding fuel to the fire. I said I found it hard to beleive, didn’t say it was impossible. That’s why I asked how the info came about, I was truly curious. Most game makers do what they can to avoid problems with outspoken influential gamers.
Marsellus Wallace
When you gonna say hi in game? We been on these boards forever now haha
Harlequin Salome
Nov 16th, 2005
People have the right to express their views, surely, but lets be honest. This is not just an expression of views, this is ramming your views down peoples’ throats.
I won’t go into the idiocy of the sentiment expressed, as Rich alredy touched upon it, but those signs are *damn* ugly. Big, bright blue signs that totally ruin the landscape in a horrendous manner. As though people didn’t already make some ugly-ass buildings (Though again, its the beauty and ugly thing), these signs… I mean, the whole “Some might find it beautiful” doesn’t really work here I don’t think, if only because they’re obviously designed to be bright, gaudy, and obtrusive so as to gain notice.
It may be possible that its a land extortion idea, I dunno, I don’t have evidence to make a judgment like that. I can say, however, that its an example of someone who thinks that they’re right, we all need to see their opinion, and who doesn’t care what we think.
Maybe there’s not complaints filing in, or whatnot. However, if one of those suckers gets put right in front of my nice, unblocked view, you’d better be damn sure I’ll complain. And do you think the signmaker will care? Evidence shows no.
*shrugs* I guess its the eternal problem in any game. Many people don’t respect others’ enjoyment. Unless its a TOS violation, far too many people will do whatever they want, others be damned, and its a sad state of affairs.
Aliasi Stonebender
Nov 16th, 2005
Just an an addendum, it was three plots, 64 sq. meters each, and they’ve since been sold to an established resident of the sim at the cost it took for me to get ‘em in the first place (L$375 each), and the signs have been removed. (Although one of the OTHER sim residents took it on themselves to copy the signs – they were free-to-copy – and make their own “upgraded” version. I’ve nothing at all to do with that.)
I don’t fancy myself an activist, but I am prone to spray graffiti and engage in a good jake from time to time on them that need it. I’m not at all a Bush supporter, but I’m a realist – he got us into this mess, and we’ll all have to get out of it; simple-minded “Impeach Bush!” cries aren’t going to help much. But I *do* know that this is yet another variant on the “put something annoying on the plot and charge an outrageous price for it” scheme, and political slogans don’t validate it to any greater extent.
That said, “annoying” and “outrageous price” are such variables that I don’t see a good hard rule to make, and small plots do have legitimate uses. I’d much rather just tell Mr. Divine to go to hell and refuse to have anything to do with him.
Teabaggin
Nov 16th, 2005
Typical Linden behavior not to do anything in an obvious exploitive means of land extortion. If it were one huge sign on one parcel this would not be the case probably. But shitting all over the landscape right next to others home builds is a typical extortion trick and the Lindens should have a backbone when dealing with these type of retards. In reality all they care about is money though and not really people overall enjoyment of the game itself. So this guy infact is probably bringing in more money to them than they would like to lose for tier fees alone, so they will just sit back and let you the customer take it in the rear over them losing profit.
Cocoanut
Nov 16th, 2005
Why thank you, Marcellus! Is that your name in game? I will look you up.
As for this situation, I’m pretty convinced it is extortion. One popped up next to my satellite store, and you have to see them – they are, like HUGE.
I think the fact that clicking on them makes them disappear, though, is pretty cool. You can just sort of click on it regularly, and it goes away. The building itself doesn’t, though, and its an eye-sore in itself.
Doesn’t matter what your politics are; you wouldn’t want that thing around. And people have been paying to get rid of it. That = extortion.
coco
Marsellus Wallace
Nov 16th, 2005
I’ve seen the signs. I have some by my place. They are tacky, but I don’t think it is extortion by any means. We have things rammed down our throat daily in real life so how should this be different?
However, I think there are possible fixes for this. Just like in real life if you have a sign you have to have a permit. They check to see it wont mess with anyone near by, its not profane, etc. I know that would be next to impossible to enforce in game, maybe there should be a limit on the types of advertisements allowed. Like it must look like a billboard sign or something. Like I said, there is no way to enforce that though.
Yes Coco my name in game is Marsellus Wallace. =)
Marsellus Wallace
I’m coocoo for Coco Puffs. =P
RB
Nov 17th, 2005
The US has credibility to restore??
- RB.
Cocoanut
Nov 17th, 2005
I looked that name up! Twice! And then with various spellings, etc. It didn’t come up!
coco
Marsellus Wallace
Nov 17th, 2005
It’s there I assure you. I was just on it earlier today in fact. =) Marsellus Wallace is the spelling. Sometimes the system doesn’t find people for whatever reason. Got to love modern technology! lol
Marsellus Wallace
antje
Nov 18th, 2005
Oh Prok you are such a great writer. Oh Coco, you are such a great writer.
When you’re all done jerking each other off, can we talk about the story?
I think it is extortion. I have talked to the individual in question, and he has more or less admitted it to me.
It’s a blight, and it’s going to get worse unless LL steps up to the plate and does something about it. The problem is that LL has to determine intent.
High priced lots are possible within the game system. Putting whatever you like on your parcel, within the TOS, is possible. I am thinking LL isn’t going to do much about this, and it will just go down in the annals of SL history as another rather boring chapter.
Lastly, those of you who are allowing yourselves to get wacked-out upset over the signs are giving him what he wants. Bravo.
Marsellus Wallace
Nov 18th, 2005
Done jerking each other off? Pissed because they are more elequent (sp) in their speech? Anyway, you’re not saying anything different than what was already said in previous posts and the story itself, so if you want to talk about the story, come up with something new to talk about and quit trying to knock other posts which you claim have nothing to do with the story. Just makes you look like a whiney hipocrit.
I will agree with you on one point though, the people who get upset over it are the ones who are letting him get away with it. If no one cared he couldn’t make a profit from it. With the amount of land he is holding though I doubt he is making much of a profit with tier fees involved. Still though, it’s not extortion except maybe the high price of land. Once again though, you have the right to buy or not. No one is twisting anyones arms here.
If anything you have more freedom in SL than you do in real life when it comes to things like this. You have the ability to buy the land and get rid of the signs. In real life, you can’t do that and I assure you I have seen much worse things in real life. Abortion signs/ads/picketers/vehicles with mangled fetus’s on them, war protests/ads showing nasty war wounds, the list goes on. People can even put things like that in the windows AND yard of their homes regardless of how offensive it is. It is protected freedom of expression and speech and every citizens basic right and there is nothing you can do about it like you can in SL.
The signs maybe tacky and ugly, but I tell you what… You drive down to Watt and A street over here or down to the Heights here in Sactown… You tell me a single place you find there that you find attractive or don’t bring down property value. What can you do about it? Not a damn thing. There is a cross, a huge fuckin cross in the Bhima sim on the border of that and Lebeda about 150m from telehub roadside. Can’t miss it. Controversial? Sure. Can you do anything about it even though its about 20 stories tall, blocks your view and you don’t support that particular religion, are offended, or whatever your view is? Fughedaboudit!
This is no different than those yellow ribbons you can buy for your car to support the troops or not support them.. Bumper stickers etc. You see a car for sale that says Impeach Buch all over it and its ugly in your neighborhood, what are you going to do? Have it towed? Better hope it’s parked illegally. Going to buy it? Sure it’s for sale, but you are not obligated to buy it. It’s your choice to ignore it or let it bother you. If you are too closed minded for other peoples opinions, then you need to join the republicans or become a communist. These signs are not intruding on your Second Life anymore than everyday political signs and ads that you see in your daily routine. You can choose to ignore them or not.
I wrote too much now, I’m bored with this topic already, but I will keep going if need be.
Marsellus Wallace
Round 1… I see this going further by Antje.
Larz
Nov 25th, 2005
I see 32sqm plots right next to these selling for 999,999,999$L.
That’s not extortion, that’s advertising.
mike czukor
Dec 6th, 2005
you all relize that gun is loaded next to that dog,THEY MEAN BUISNESS! lol