Sasami Wishbringer is a submissive and prostitute for “Edge Escorts.” She looks like an eight-year-old girl. But…she is an avatar in Second Life.
Three years ago, Linden Labs stepped in and removed some of the Hentai pornography Sasami distributed for profit, but its Terms of Service remains extremely liberal.
Second Life is rife with sex commerce and recent reports show that some of these players engage with childlike avatars (only adults are allowed to register on the site. Teenagers play on an entirely separate “grid.”) Dutch prosecutors are even trying to ban this “age play” using their laws against virtual child pornography. However, most users believe the allure of Second Life is that it regulates itself.
“Most every adult sexual place bans the use of child looking avatars in sexual acts. The problem is there is no set child avatar, or adult, or anything… you can make your avatar look like anything at all that you can think of (or have enough skill to make),” writes a Second Life user in the comments in The Register.
Sasami even claims to be “808 years old.” She resembles a young girl about as much as any other Second Life avatar resemble live human beings — that is, not much at all. But what if you Photoshop an eight-year-old head on an eighteen-year-old boyish figure?
In 2002, the Supreme Court struck down a law that banned “virtual child pornography” (Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition 535 U.S. 234) drawing the distinction between speech and deeds. Altered photos and composites, in addition to photographs of adults appearing to be minors, were found legal under the First Amendment.
Recently, the Ohio Supreme Court heard the oral arguments for Roger Tooley Jr., who was found with child pornography on his computer.
In his defense, attorney Dean Boland claims that these “repugnant” images are virtual, and therefore legal under the first amendment.
The state produced an expert witness who identified the names and dates of birth of some minors in the images. However, the defense countered that new technologies make it impossible for a viewer to determine whether they are looking at actual persons or computer-generated composites.
Portage County Prosecutor Victor Vigluicci told the court, “It’s an impossible burden” to prove the veracity of these images. But he may not have to if the Supreme Court upholds the PROTECT Act this fall.
A year after Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, Congress updated the PROTECT (Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to end the Exploitation of Children Today) Act to include computer-generated child pornography. The “pandering provision” Section 2252A(a)(3)(B) covers “any material or purported material in a manner that reflects the belief, or that is intended to cause another to believe, that the material or purported
material is, or contains (i) an obscene visual depiction of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; or (ii) a visual depiction of an actual minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct.”
The US Supreme Court last week agreed to hear the case of Michael Williams, whose conviction in Florida for promoting child porn was reversed by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
In that case, a Secret Service agent had an Instant Message exchange with Williams, “Dad of toddler has ‘good’ pics of her an [sic] me for swap of your toddler pics, or live cam.”
Williams, a former Metro-Dade police officer, and the Agent swapped non-pornographic images. Then Williams suggested he send nude photos of his daughter, leading to a search warrant.
“You cannot make someone a criminal based on what you think they said, or what you think they meant, because you may be wrong,” Williams’ attorney, Richard Diaz told The Miami Herald.
The appeals court ruled that Section 2252A(a)(3)(B) is “overbroad.” It requires no “actual nature or even existence of the images.” Therefore even a grandmother that sends entirely innocent images via email with the subject “good pics of kids in bed” would have to watch out.
Joanne McNeil is Brainwash‘s Science and Tech Editor. Her website is joannemcneil.com.