social-influences

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  • With persistent worlds comes persistent racism

    by 
    James Egan
    James Egan
    09.12.2008

    The promise of what virtual spaces can bring us is significant -- erasing geographic limitations on interaction with others while fostering an exchange of cultures, beliefs, and languages. To this high-minded end, millions of dollars have been spent and many thousands of hours of work have been invested into creating rich graphical settings coupled with immersive environmental soundscapes. Crisp digital communication at its finest, right?Much like the promise of the the eradication of artificial barriers to meaningful communication through the Internet, virtual worlds and online spaces in general have fallen short of expectations. It's generally not the fault of the companies or the service providers though. The fault lies with us, the users.