According to an e-mail I got this week, the next meeting of the Israel Internet Society, ISOC, will focus on “the phenomenon of nazism in virtual worlds, like Second Life.”

Huh?

As if we didn’t have enough to worry about in the first life! Although in a recent interview I did with Efraim Zuroff of the Israel branch of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, nobody pays attention to “real” Nazis, the ISOC – a very respectable organization – has found it necessary to address nazism in Second Life, and the meeting will discuss a demand by Israeli users of the platform to ban nazi symbols, uniforms, and group. According to the e-mail I got, the “Israelis” in Second Life have been demanding that the site close down a virtual uniform store which sells uniforms of different nations and time periods – including Nazi uniforms. The store claims that it’s only interest in historical period pieces, but the protesters say it’s just a front for Second Life Nazis to buy paraphernalia. At it’s meeting, ISOC will discuss the ramifications of asking to censor a virtual world.

Naturally, this was too good a story not to pursue – and at this site, I found a full dossier on the Second Life Nazis. Known as the “Furzis,” the group operated a Second Life store which sold Nazi “memorabilia” and banned Second Life Jews. The whole story was documented by the “Jewish Defense League of Second Life” at their site, which managed to get the Second Life admins to close the store down (because it was violating SL’s TOS by promoting hate). As the site says,

“Whether they are white, black or arab antisemites, we have remained vigilant in our efforts to free SL from intolerance, and have also grown in numbers.”

So they got them on a violation of TOS. If only things were that easy in “First Life!” But based on the e-mail I got from ISOC, the Nazis (perhaps no longer in the form of furballs) seem to have returned. The SLJDL recommends all users who observe this kind of behavior to nudge the SL admins.

BTW – did you know there was a magazine specifically dedicated to “Jewish Second Life?” Check it out at http://www.2lifemagazine.com/. Lots of interesting stuff, about Jewish life and culture – except it’s virtual. And all this time, I thought Second Life was just another dumb game!

This entry was posted on Monday, June 29th, 2009 at 11:35 pm and is filed under computers, hi-tech, israel, social media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.