Satirical Aritst Kake Broek Banned From Second Life

By Bixyl Shuftan

Adolf Chaplin, known as Kake Broek in Second Life, has been known in some circles for his satirical artwork. Often strange and weird, and sometimes not safe for work, his art (Flickr Page - warning definitely not safe for work) was described in a New World Notes article as "Broek’s challenges convention without fear of offending." He was mentioned in a Newser article as having one of the few pictures in "Avatars Against Trump" made in humor. But satire can be a difficult art to understand even when done by an expert. Sometimes it's too subtle for the point to come across easily, or someone just doesn't get the point. Or sometimes when pushing limits an artist gets a much stronger reaction than expected, which may include lasting consequences.

On May 31, Kake posted a letter in his Flicker page sent by Linden Lab in which they stated he had been banned "for severe or repeated violations of the Second Life Terms and Conditions ... or related policy." The violation was "Misrepresentation as Linden. Falsely identifying oneself as a Linden Lab employee, a representative of Linden Lab, an official Mentor volunteer for Second Life or otherwise claiming or acting as if you are in position of authority within Second Life is a violation of the Second Life Terms and Conditions." He had appealed, and the Lab's response was, "we have determined that the permanent closure of your accounts was justified and correctly applied. The evidence shows that you have severely or repeatedly violated the Second Life Terms of Service or Community Standards and therefore your account and any alternate Second Life accounts are now permanently inaccessible." The Lab went on to say the matter was over and done with and there would be no responses to further communication.

In an article by Hamlet Au, Kake was quoted as saying, ""Maybe 'cause sometimes I'm wearing overhead text, 'I'm not a Linden'. But clearly I'm just a common good citizen old clown invested in the grid [for] 11 years, never griefing, harassing, hacking or any aggressiveness. And anyway, this conviction is so enormously disproportionate. I'm shocked sad and so disappointed!"

Others began writing to Linden Lab in support of Kake, and his alts which were also banned, including DrFran Babcock whom wrote for the Newser in the past. But the Lab's response was, "While we appreciate your concern for your friend, we are only able to discuss account matters with the owner of the account. Please have this person contact us if they are having issues with their account." So in effect, he was in a catch-22, the Lab telling his friends if the person had a problem that he himself should contact the Lab, but telling him not to bother calling again as they considered the matter closed. Not everyone commenting was in support of Kake, one remarking in the comments after Hamlet's article, "People who do this kinda expressive work and then fall into the abyss they have created for themselves, remind of me of how a Bart Simpson concert goes. Opening with Love and closing with I Just Can't Help Myself."

On June 6, there was apparently a protest in the Amsterdam sims in Kake's support (article not safe for work). He had an exhibit in a gallery at the same area, at Amsterdam (23/166/25) which has since been modified into a memorial of sorts by his supporters. On the wall is a sign, "This was the residence of SL's most dedicated artist Kake Broek. He was expelled from SL for making satire." On the sidewalk rests a picture of one of his oddly-shapped avatars with candles next to it, set up as if honoring the dead. In the next sim at Amsterdam 2 (141/210/25), there is a carousel set up also to protest Kake's banning made by Dekka Raymaker, "If it ain't Broek, it ain't worth a Linden." A panel in front of the interactive artwork reads, "This Round-a-Bout art piece was made in support of Kake Broek, who was expelled from Second Life because his world view and satire of Second Life probably doesn't match Linden Lab's management." On the carousel itself were messages like "censorship reflects Second Life's lack of confidence in itself."

As the Lindens do not go into great detail about why they ban someone, such as last year when buisnesswoman Luna Pawpad was banned from Second Life for no clear reason, Kake's expulsion invites speculation as to the exact reasons as to why. As Linden Lab has spoken out against the actions of the current President in the past, the artist's poking fun of Donald Trump can be ruled out. As his art can be strange and weird, it's understandable people would have a problem with it. But is making art in questionable taste reason enough to throw someone out of the Grid?

There was one satirist whom got some attention in Second Life a decade ago, Christophe Hugo. His "Caricavatars" was the subject of controversy, both for it's political humor and that he would sometimes ban people from the area. He would state that his time in Second Life led him to conclude a "for-profit" virtual world wasn't the best place to express satire as the owners "want to be mainstream, and will avoid controversy at all costs and aim for political correctness, even if it means curtailing freedom of speech." Christophe though stated he wasn't banned, but left on his own. So except for inside the corridors of Linden Lab, just exactly why Kake was banned may remain unexplained.

Sources: New World Notes, Apmel

Bixyl Shuftan

What Happened to 7Seas' Meissa Thorne?

In late May, 7Seas threw it's twice a year "Fishiversary," and their builders and other staff were there to celebrate along with the fishers. But one of the team was not there: Meissa Thorne. The lady whom had once contributed much to the fishing game beloved by many Second Life residents, such as SL Newser reporter Gemma Cleanslate, was gone from the Grid. Her profile page was blank, save for the name and rezz date. There was only an occasional texture at various Fishiversary exhibits to remind people of her.

The Newser came across a rumor that she had some trouble with the IRS and Linden Lab had been pressured by them to ban her. I decided to check things out with the 7Seas team to get the story about what really happened. I got in contact with Jen Shikami, and she was willing to explain what happened.

As it turned out, Meissa had no trouble with the IRS, "she wasn't having any problems, Jen explained, "we all pay taxes on our SL money nice and legal-like. Instead, this is actually about LL's new identification policy. So it was in February that they started asking for her ID and SSN." She had provided them the information before, but through a third party, Aristotle Systems, "In this case they wanted her to actually send all this info, including a copy of her driver's license, in their helpdesk ticket system, which... well, in terms of privacy, it's reasonable for her to have concerns about whether it will remain secure. She would have been fine with sending the information if it were through some system she'd considered sufficiently trustworthy. But considering how many months we've seen it take for LL to address basic system-wide security issues in the past, I can see why she'd have some concerns."

"The other weird thing is that as you see in that FAQ, they're saying U.S. law requires this 'for users that submit a certain volume and/or amount of Process Credit requests in a year.' But this was February, and the policy was just announced a few months prior. In the prior version of this FAQ they specifically cited the Patriot Act and the IRS limits, but her process credit requests weren't near either of those limits. Odd. So between asking for clarification on that point and asking if there's some more secure way to send this information, perhaps through a third party like Aristotle last time... all we got back was boilerplate responses and repeated links to the same FAQ."  

Meissa offered a third option for the Lab if they were so concerned about legal details, "She also tried requesting to simply never transact $L again, but they wouldn't accept that either. ... Our concern was that if they deleted her account, it could cripple 7Seas, since she created so many of our objects and servers. We've worked around that, but at the time that was a real concern. Plus, honestly, why should she have to go? Why not just stop transacting if that's their real concern? The thing is, they're blaming this on U.S. law, but this doesn't appear to be consistent with U.S. law. If they just said 'This is LL's new policy, because we said so,' then actually that would be well within their rights. I mean, I wouldn't agree, but it's within their rights. But blaming it on apparently inapplicable U.S. laws seems like a cop-out. And sure, maybe I'm misinterpreting them... I'm not a lawyer... but it's not like we got any other explanations either."

With Linden Lab refusing to bend, they began to prepare for her exit, "Well, my last-ditch effort was to talk to the concierge. Though usually they only allow account transfers when the other person is dead and names you as controlling their estate, they have done account transfers before without any fatalities, apparently. So I was trying to gain ownership of her account, since I was already ID-verified, and it's for my business anyway," Jen is the main IP holder fot 7Seas, "But they wouldn't do that either. I decided not to bother lawyering up."

Meissa herself helped her friends prepare for her leaving, "To work around it, she very generously spent the last couple weeks of her existence there transferring as many objects as possible to me. Seven reviewed our code and it'll all work for now as long as her server is still rezzed. If we have to later, we can replace it by cobbling together the parts and contents from my inventory. All the objects she had legal right to transfer, of course. There are builders kits that don't allow that, but I just bought most of those if they seemed relevant. So now I'm just paying her her cut using real life U.S. dollars. It's more like royalties really, I suppose. As thanks for her prior role."

I brought up the "credit requests" again. Jen told me, "She was just withdrawing every couple weeks. The original info LL sent out listed some dollar or quantity threshholds and she was nowhere near them. Not that she was the only one affected -- sounds like lots of people got the same request. Like I said, it's within their rights even without claiming it's required by U.S. law. Not about to deny that. But it is a great example of poor customer service. Giving someone a deadline and then not responding to questions about it, or responding only with irrelevant boilerplate.... that doesn't help. And why not tell people 'To continue conducting transactions in SL, you must ID verify'? Why threaten deletion?  Because I'm real sure that nowhere in the Patriot Act does it say 'Delete people's accounts.' If this is related to some law, they should be able to actually explain that in a way that helps their customers believe this is both truly necessary as well as truly secure. If they can't reassure people of both those things, they aren't going to get positive responses."

Was there any chance of Meissa getting her old account back? Jen felt there wasn't one, "Not unless she forks over ID, and their handling of this whole thing has not made that increasingly likely. We support her right to draw a line there. for sure. And now I'm seriously wondering if it was a mistake to give them my own ID. I mean, think about this -- I do eBay auctions. I send money through PayPal. I sell through Amazon.com. None of them have required me to send them plaintext SSN or a copy of my ID. Which you'd think would happen if this were truly some universal constant of U.S. law -- see what I'm saying? So really, I just have to raise an eyebrow. Of course LL says they keep that very secure and so on. But they are ultimately asking for a leap of faith in response to answers that didn't feel like answers."

A case of "We're Linden Lab, trust us?" I asked. Jen answered, "We only got the 'trust us' response when I managed to get a sympathetic person on the phone. e's the one who said it should be possible to get the account transferred. It's certainly allowable within the ToS since it says you can do it with written permission from LL. o I requested that permission, explained why, pointed out that we have over 100,000 fishers who might miss 7Seas if this really ruined things. And... no. Not even an extension. So there was very little time between when we realized they weren't giving substantive answers, and the end there."

"Considering the number of people who use 7Seas," I suggested, one would think they'd be more willing to negotiate." Jen answered, "I really didn't want to play the 'Do you know who we are?!' card. Because that's kind of unreasonable, and like I said, it's within their rights to require this of their own volition. But I did want to make sure they understood what this could potentially mean. And that it's not just because she's somehow being too stubborn. Privacy concerns and identity security concerns are totally reasonable, and with this online customer base, they need to be very aware of that. We're pretty open about our RL identities and filing taxes and so on, but I'm sure there are plenty in SL who wouldn't even be comfortable with that. Remember the fuss about age verification? Ultimately, many of the people who agreed to do it only did so because it was through a third party with a reputation for strong information security. That's a totally different scenario than 'Just email us this.'"

"Anyway, that's the scoop on what really happened." Jen told me, "Sure, she could have just said yes and it would've been more convenient for everyone, but I think she actually did the right thing. If they want creators to feel welcome in SL, you can't just give them form-letter threats of account deletion without some clear explanations and rationale beyond 'uh U.S. law do it or else.' I am sure this is all LL's lawyers telling them to handle this in a certain way for risk management reasons. But it's remarkably inflexible. And clearly the folks who knew they'd have to use a third-party like Aristotle for identity verification before... those folks must be gone now. There's so much turnover at LL... that doesn't help assurances of 'Oh we keep this very secure.'"

"I remember when I went to SLCC and half the Lindens I met there had just been fired," Jen talked about her trip in 2010, "It was all terribly awkward, since they already had plane tickets and hotel rooms."

"As for 7Seas... (Meissa) has been our most active team builder for the past few years. Motherhood has cut into my free time, plus my RL job and so on. But I want to be sure the community doesn't feel abandoned, so I have some new plans for what to work on for them next (smile). ... Meanwhile I'm training Sass and some of my builder friends... maybe we'll have more help again soon. Lots of folks have offered but really, I like to work with people I know in RL. More accountability that way."

It was about this time the interview ended, and we went our seperate ways, though before parting, she handed me one of the cardboard cutouts of Meissa. One way of saying she might be gone, but not forgotten.

Bixyl Shuftan