[MUD-Dev] Free Speech

[Geoffrey A. MacDougall]

Greetings,

While I believe that this area is ripe with possibility for endless
sessions of intellectual masturbation, I, somewhat regrettingly, have to
agree with the "Thank-him and forget about it" school of thought.  It's
true that customers with complaints in the form of civil rights abuses
are not going to turn around and take a MUD operator to court.  So, it
becomes a simple matter of another pissed-off customer.

However, for the sake of discussion, I have another way of interpreting
the events that may lead to some different conclusions...

Jeff Freeman wrote:

> It is rather the "nature" of the forum and
> whether
> it appears to contain more or less of the traditional and historical
> elements of a "public forum" where one's right to speak on any and every
> subject can not be content restricted.  The court house steps, the
> downtown
> sidewalk, the municipal park....all of these are examples of traditional
> public forums.

> This "private" town had all of 
> the halmarks of any other municipality.  It had a post office, stores, 
> restaruant, etc.

> Given that we talk of WoD as a "community", it is modeled upon a "town" 
> structure, we have venders, we have "town meetings", we have real life 
> gatherings of players, we have relationships, marriages, and friendships
> who 
> all gather here to communicate.  


The lawyer's argument is founded upon the notion that a MUD is a public
forum due to its (virtually) physical structures - as it is the physical
structure of a space that defines it as a public forum.  The remainder
of the argument, therefore, must take shape within the immersion of the
virtual context.  Otherwise, the reasons for a MUD being a public space
do not hold true - as we're not really talking about buildings, or even
space, for that matter...

In his argument, the lawyer is not asserting that two people had a
telephone conversation cut-off, but that two people engaging in a
conversation within a public space had their actions cut short.  I.e.,
they were asked not to pursue their activity in public.

Now, in a text based reality, action and communication both take the
form of text-based statements - say "I have to go buy a fruit" vs emote
I go buy a fruit.

So, whether or not a violation of the right to freedom of speech took
place or not comes down to verbal structure.

If the two people were saying "I would like to lick..."  "You look good
enough to..." - then they were engaging in a conversation about sex.
And, for the sake of argument, you could state that the admin violated
their rights by stopping a conversation between two willing people in a
public space.

However, if the two people were using phrases like "I lick..."  "I touch
your...", etc., then, within the context of the MUD - which is where the
supposed violation took place - the activity was not a conversation, but
the actual, physical act of having sex.

In this case, the laws in question would not be freedom of speech, but
those concerning how we are generally not allowed to fornicate in public
- in the real or (some) virtual world(s).

The drug deal related conversation would not be permitted by any law in
either context.

Thoughts, counterpoints?

Also - our company's lawyer has taken it as his personal quest in life to
write the world's ultimate user agreement to address exactly these issues.
If any of you are interested in getting ahold of him, give me a shout, as
I'm sure he'd be more than willing to expand his client base. ;)

Cheers,

Geoffrey 



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