Sunday, April 15, 2007

Annotations of “A Rape in Cyberspace” by Julian Dibbell

In her article, Dibbell discusses the complex distinction between “Real-Life” and “Virtual Reality” in regards to a specific, violent and very graphic virtual event that occurred in an online gaming community called LambdaMOO. Dibbell convinced me that a rape in cyberspace does produce real life consequences and should be reprimanded. The character of Mr. Bungle and later Dr. Jest was appalling. I was shocked that NYU students would take virtual reality to such an offensive level. Regardless of whether it was a collaboration of several students or just one, the virtual characters they created were horrifying. I believe that the wizard, TomTraceBack, did the right thing in toading Mr. Bungle. Even if characters are imaginary, they can still cause pain and destruction in real life. I had never read an article that delved into the issue of rape in cyberspace, in fact, I didn’t even know such a thing existed. I found this article shocking and incredibly frightening.

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