I believe that the biggest problem Second Life faces as a communication technology is the fact that even though these avatars have real people operating them, they are not always 100 percent reliable. It can not necessarily be certain all of the time that the avatar you are talking to is the person you think that it is behind the avatar.
Not knowing who is actually behind the avatar can complicate communication because communication is one of the strongest pieces of our society that keeps structure continuous. If you do not know who you are talking to specifically, there could be someone who allegedly claims that they are someone else and impose on your business or life in general. This could be a problem for obvious reasons such as someone could easily lie about who they are and get information out of another person or even lie just to try and make someone believe that they are someone who they aren't.
This creates flaws in the communication process because one cannot be fully 100 percent sure that who they are communicating with is actually who they think they are talking to.
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I definitely agree that this is a big problem. It's so easy to change your information when registering. However, I also feel like this is not only a Second Life problem but also a problem Facebook has.
ReplyDeleteI remember that mom who made a facebook account as a teenage boy and was talking to a girl her daughter was having problems with. The girl the mom was talking to actually committed suicided because of what the mother was doing.
It's a scary problem that hopefully will be fixed in the near future. I think they should ask for more information or do a background check
I was wondering about Facebook and how linked it is to our "real life" identities.
ReplyDeleteI encountered the assumption, in posts at New World Notes, that all FB accounts correspond to a realistic portrayal of a person. I'm not so sure.
As for verification in SL, you'll want to read about one reason Linden Lab offers a business solution for SL: so businesses can verify identity. see:
https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/workinginworld/blog/2009/11/04/introducing-second-life-enterprise-now-in-beta-and-second-life-work-marketplace
On the main grid, however, Linden Lab would be very hesitant to ask for avatars' profiles to display their real identities (though they do ask for names and other information when one creates an avatar). Many observers of SL feel that having real life information in the avatar profiles would dry up many subcultures in SL--not all privacy there is for "creepy reasons."
Some folks using the Story Quest about Uncle D are HIV positive, for instance, and they use the anonymity of SL to find out more about their disease. In their real life communities they might be ostracized and SL provides a safe place to find out more.