Are Your Conversations in SecondLife Private?

From the Second Life Community Standards, Section 4:

Disclosure
Residents are entitled to a reasonable level of privacy with regard to their Second Lives. Sharing personal information about a fellow Resident --including gender, religion, age, marital status, race, sexual preference, and real-world location beyond what is provided by the Resident in the First Life page of their Resident profile is a violation of that Resident's privacy. Remotely monitoring conversations, posting conversation logs, or sharing conversation logs without consent are all prohibited in Second Life and on the Second Life Forums.

A reasonable level of privacy. That is a good spirit for people to follow, isn't it? People who I respect who write/blog about SecondLife always get permission before quoting. Yet there are some that don't. I won't point a finger at anything or anyone specific - but if you follow SecondLife weblogs at all, you probably know at least one person who doesn't ask permission.

I haven't been following Honey Wendt, so I don't know her style and cannot comment on whether I agree with her ethics on quoting or not - but since Wrestling Hulka pointed at this entry where Meta Linden retracts a statement about Terms of Service violations when posting conversations on third party sites, I have to reference her. Maybe she gets permission, maybe not, I don't know.

I can see why Linden Lab won't enforce Terms of Service and Community Standards in that way, and yet - by not taking action, it removes privacy for SecondLife users. They could ban people for it if they chose to - most people who write are linked to their avatars in a very clear manner (as I am), or have where they write associated with their SecondLife avatars.

We can talk about 'Freedom of the Press', which I am all for - but that Freedom of the Press has no right to infringe upon individual freedoms which include privacy. If any fool can quote chat logs without permission, then any fool will. At least one fool often does.

Someone else had quoted me without permission recently - won't say who because this is an issue where action may be taken outside of Linden Lab. There is a principle involved - the same principle which appears to have been the premise of Disclosure aspect of the Terms of Service. Linden Lab won't penalize people who do not follow this spirit and do not ask permission to quote, which means that if you want your privacy - either zip your lips around certain people or find a way to protect yourself. Maybe copyright is the way to go, since what anyone writes has an implicit copyright. If you write an email to an editor of a newspaper, you would most certainly expect - if not hope - that your email be published. But if you say something in passing to an editor of the same newspaper, does that mean that you wish it published? Maybe not. Who is responsible for clarifying? Common sense dictates that the person ask permission before quoting. Will there be some action on this? Maybe, maybe not. I pay people to do that sort of thinking for me as they do it for a living.

What is most amusing about this is that a few people who do post conversation logs within SecondLife without gaining the permission of people is that they sometimes reference 'anonymous sources'. Well, if they can post chat logs without permission, why can they not divulge their sources in the same manner? Journalistic ethics are very flexible things for some.

Behind the legalities - and there may be legalities - there is a big word that some do not care much about. It is a big word with very few letters - 'Trust'. When a conversation log is posted without permission, people may lose trust in the person who quotes without permission (indeed, they should!). The context is completely flexible without that permission, and omissions and much more can completely change the meaning of what is being quoted.

And people who report on things do need the trust of people. Information doesn't move easily to those who cannot be trusted unless it is a blatant manipulation - thus quoting without permission can sometimes lead to laughable situations. When you have someone who reports everything without thought of implications, you can easily spread silly rumors through them - as has happened in the past.

There has to be a basis in trust somewhere. If you can't converse within SecondLife and have a semblance of privacy, what is the point? If you cannot trust people to ask your permission before quoting on a weblog or anywhere else - should you be talking to them?

And if you write, how can you expect trustworthy information to come to you if the people around do not trust you?

So - as to the answer - conversations in SecondLife are private in proportion to the amount of trust you have in the people in listening range. Could Linden Lab do more? Perhaps. Can you? Yes.

Oh - and it is possible to automate asking for permission. Here's the script for the GPL Chat Logger, or if it is too tough to copy and paste, you can pay me 1 Linden dollar on SLExchange. But if you can copy and paste chat logs without permission, you should be able to copy and paste a script.