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PBS: Bill Moyers Journal on Project Reynard
It shouldn't be a shock that governments are interested in MMOs and virtual worlds. We hear that they even pay attention to the film industry, television, DVDs and other such new-fangled technological industries that turn over many millions of dollars and involve significant percentages of the population. The US Government's Project Reynard is a different breed of fox, however. The idea seems fairly simple on the face of it. Convince MMO and virtual world operators to open up their systems for complete surveillance and then try to establish 'normal behavior patterns' and see if it is then possible to determine 'suspicious behavior patterns'. Yes, this is technically unconstitutional (like all those warrantless wiretaps you may read about in the news), but as we've seen, a simple Executive Order signed by the Chief seems to be sufficient to brush that trifling obstacle aside. PBS' Bill Moyers Journal takes a look at the whole issue, and gives a refreshingly non-sensationalist look at Activision-Blizzard's World of Warcraft and Linden Lab's Second Life, in this rather sobering feature. [Via WoW Insider]
PBS covers the government's intrusion into online worlds
This clip, from PBS' Bill Moyers Journal, is notable for a number of reasons. First of all, I'm fairly sure this is the most balanced, objective look at MMORPGs I've ever seen in mass media -- they talk about both Second Life and World of Warcraft, but there isn't a single mention of addiction or cluelessness or any of the other stuff mass media throws at us.And it's also a good look at what was behind all the hubbub about the government searching for terrorists in WoW -- in truth, the fact that the government is interested in online communities isn't that huge a deal (who isn't interested in MMOs?), but the fact that they're doing it with the justification of terrorism is a much more disturbing discovery. And this piece then goes into the larger problems with this lately -- that the government is dipping into all kinds of supposedly private communications outlets with this lame justification of searching for terrorists.Nice piece, but especially so because of that very even look at our favorite past time. If only all reporters were so objective.
