The case dates back to 2007 when two youths used violence and threats of violence to forced another player to log into the game of RuneScape. After the victim logged in to the game one of the defendants transferred virtual items and virtual currency from the victims account to their own. The Supreme Court upheld the conviction for theft but reduced the number of hours of community service to be served (taking into account Juvenile detention served).

The appeal did not turn on the material facts, i.e. whether there were threats were made or items were transferred. Rather, the appeal centred on the question of whether what had occurred was ‘theft’ as defined by the law of the Netherlands.

Key Arguments

The key arguments against the incident being defined as ‘theft’ considered by the court they were as follows:

1. Virtual items are not goods but an ‘illusion’ of goods made up of bits & bytes i.e. they are data
2. Virtual items are Information
3. The point of the game is to take objects from each other
4. The virtual items are and remain the property of the publisher of the game not the victim or the defendant - hence they could not have been stolen

The ‘Illusion’ argument

The court ruled that:

• Virtual items have value in virtual of the effort and time invested in obtaining them
• The value in Virtual items is recognised by those that play the game (including the defendents who went to the trouble to take them)
• The Virtual items were under the exclusive control of the player – who was relieved of this control

The court made reference to cases of electricity theft which is a similar intangible good but certainly has properties of power and control, and consequently can be stolen.

The ‘mere data’ argument

The court agreed that virtual items are data, but crucially added that they are not just data. That is, the fact that virtual items have data like properties does not mean that they don’t also have properties that make them capable of being stolen. In particular the court noted again that the virtual item had perceived value and were under the exclusive control of a player.

The ‘I was playing a thief’ argument

The defence argued that one of the points of the game of RuneScape is to take virtual items from other players. The court noted that this was true but the way that the property was taken was outside the ‘context’ of the game.

The ‘not your property’ argument

The court agreed that under the RuneScape terms and conditions, the virtual items in the game are owned by the publisher of RuneScape who grant the players have a ‘right to use’. However it concluded that the items in question were under the ‘exclusive dominion’ of the victim until they were removed from them, hence the position of RuneScape being owners of the items (from the perspective of  intellectual property / contract law) is ‘not relevant’ in the context of the criminal case under consideration.Here the court made defence to money – which is the property of the sate but can still be stolen.

In coming to these conclusions the court noted that it is down to the discretion of the court to determine whether “due to the digitization of society, a virtual reality has been created, all aspects of which cannot be dismissed as mere illusion where the commission of criminal acts are not be possible” [Google Translation with amendments by R Reynolds].

tVPN Commentary: Significance

This case is significant because it changes the relationship between individuals and service providers in respect of digital objects. That is, RuneScape’s contract clearly states that the players of the game do not own the game or any of the digital objects within it, whether they control them or not. This has long been a contentious matter as there is a large trade in the sale of objects between players for hard currency, so called Real Money Trading (RMT).

This ruling means that there is a degree of control that someone can have over an object which is sufficient for that object to be stolen. The question that has puzzled both the industry and academics for many years is: if a digital object is capable of being stolen, does this mean that other rights accrue to a player? For example, irrespective of what the contract says, can a player:

• sell an object?
• claim rights if an object is deleted or changed by company?
• claim compensation if a game is closed?

For the moment, this matter is restricted both to The Netherlands and to the specific matter of theft. However in China and South Korea there have been similar types of cases which have made it to the courts, in these judges have displayed a general trend to grant more rights to players than are stated in their contract and to see digital objects as being akin to physical property in certain important respects. The fact that a case in the EU has got to such a senior court and has ruled along the same lines is likely to carry some weight with other cases that may occur in the West.

For details of the Chinese, Korean and other cases see tVPN’s white paper on Virtual Objects and Public Policy which examines both cases and statute in detail.

tVPN Links

tVPN White Paper: Virtual Items and Public Policy

Li Hongchen v. Beijing Arctic Ice (2004 China)

External links

Supreme Court of the Netherlands Ruling: LJN: BQ9251, Hoge Raad , 10/00101 J

RuneScape Official Site

TerraNova: Dutch Court recognizes Runescape items as legal “goods”

FULL TEXT OF RULING

Below is the full text of the Dutch Suprem Court, the base translation is by Google Translate with amendment and formatting by R Reynolds.

LJN: BQ9251, Supreme, J. 10/00101         Print statement

Date of decision:        01/31/2012

Date of publication:  01/31/2012

Jurisdiction:   Punishment

Type of procedure:   Cassation

Inhoudsindicatie:    Virtual amulet and mask in the online game Runescape can be regarded as ‘good’ in the sense of Art. Sr and 310 are susceptible to theft. Suspect and co-defendant forced the victim to violence and threats of violence to login to his account in the online game Runescape and virtual objects to leave (dropping) in the virtual game environment. The suspect was then the virtual amulet and mask to transfer to his own Runescape account, making the victim the power to dispose of these objects is lost. These virtual objects, which the actual victim and exclusive sovereignty had had for him, suspect and his accomplice a real value. In light of the intent of the legislature to the disposal of the holder of a ‘good’ protection, and the earlier case as including non-physical objects can fall, the Supreme Court held that the virtual nature of the objects itself does not preclude the state to be regarded as good in the sense of art. Sr. 310. The mere fact that an object also has properties of ‘data’ in the sense of Art. 80quinquies Sr. does not mean that this object has therefore not as good in the sense of art. 310 Sr can be considered. In borderline cases where non-physical characteristics of both a business ‘good’ as ‘data’ show, the legal interpretation depending on the circumstances of the case and their valuation by the court. The complaint that the removal of the virtual property of another is precisely one of the goals of the game Runescape is bounce up to it that the rules do not provide the suspect and his accomplice followed method of removal.

Location (s):   Rechtspraak.nl

Statement

January 31, 2012

Criminal Chamber

No. S 10/00101 J

Hoge Raad der Nederlanden

Judgement on the appeal in cassation against a ruling of the Court of Appeal Leeuwarden 10 November 2009, number 24/002668-08 in the criminal case against: [Defendant], born in [place of birth] on [birth date] 1992, living in [].

1. Cassation proceedings in the action is brought by the accused.

On behalf of these is Mr. RP Snorn, attorney in Heerenveen, in writing appeal proposed funds.

The scripture above is attached and forms part. Hofstee The Advocate General has applied for annulment of the contested decision regarding the amount of the penalty imposed and otherwise dismiss the appeal.

2. Proven Statement, qualification and evidence

2.1. Paid by the suspect is proved that: “he September 6, 2007 in Leeuwarden, together and in conjunction with one another, for the purpose of unlawful appropriation has removed a virtual amulet and a mask, which are virtual objects of the online computer called Runescape, belonging to [victim], the theft was preceded and accompanied by violence and threats of violence against [victim], committed the theft with the intention to prepare and easy to make, any violence and the threat of violence existed in this that he, defendant and his co-perpetrator [victim] repeatedly and forcefully with into fists clenched hands to the head and ribs and elsewhere on the body beaten and [victim] repeatedly and forcefully against the chest and the legs and elsewhere against the body have kicked on the body of [victim] started to stand and a knife towards the body of [victim] have kept with knives swinging and swaying movements [victim] made and [victims] have added the words “I will kill you”, and [victim] back in his chair and pulled to the ground have worked and neck [victims] have taken a stranglehold. ”

2.2. This finding of fact based on the following evidence:

a. a record of police, to the extent which includes a statement of [victim]: “I put a game on the internet. It’s called Runescape. It is a game where you have a little doll that you can make money. This afternoon I cycled from school home. When [co-defendant] suddenly I opfietste, he told me that he Runescape money and possessions I wanted. I said that my stuff was. He said he had me clapping would give. He had many times said, but he had me never done anything. Suddenly there was another guy I knew him by name [defendant]. [Defendant] is about 20 cm taller than me and 15 or 16 years old. [co-defendant] and [ Defendant] know each other well.

Both began to threaten me that I have my money and property from Runescape to give. I had come along to their home, or I would be most affected. I was very scared. I dared not refuse. I cycled forced along with [co-defendant] and [defendant] to the house of [co-defendant]. I then had with [defendant] and [co-defendant] shadowing for a bedroom in the house. There was a computer. Then I had to [co-defendant] and [defendant] to contribute money and goods from my account to transfer to the account of [Defendant]. When I said that I did not want me to hit and both began to kick. I was apparently deliberately and forcefully with hands clenched into fists against my head beaten. Both intentionally and forcefully struck many times against my head against my ribs. The blows I fell to the ground. Then I saw and felt that both me and apparently deliberately kicked with force against my chest and my legs. also saw and felt that both kennelijk deliberately and forcefully on my chest stood up. I heard they said to me they kill me would make. Then I saw and heard that first [co-defendant] to the kitchen was and a knife, picked up and shortly afterwards [Defendant] also to the kitchen and two knives picked up. with knives threatened [co-defendant] and [defendant] kill me. Then I could not help but participate. I saw that [Defendant] his account logged on the game Runescape on the computer in the bedroom. then I had both of them to a computer in the living room, where I had to log into my Runescape account. I had to [defendant] to play. He played from the bedroom. [co-defendant] stayed with me standing in the living room. then exchanged. [Defendant] came down and stayed with me and I played against [co-defendant] above Sat Suddenly I was by [Defendant] with the chair I was sitting back pulled. I lay on the floor and gave [defendant] back blows and kicks to my head and my body. When it stopped, I saw that [Defendant] was in the chair at the computer in living room. I got up and saw that [suspect] all my money and property from my Runescape account on set for his own account, from my house. After [defendant] all the money and property from my account was stolen, I noticed that he uitlogde. Also [co-defendant] walked in the living room. With both I was then put out of the house. ”

b. a record of police, to the extent which includes a statement of [co-defendant]: “While [victim] and I had played the game, I wanted to [victim] to hack. I to [victim] walked [defendant] took the game from me. I walked into the bedroom where [victim] was playing. [Defendant] was on that time in the living room to play against him. When I [victim], I saw how rich he was in the game . I was very jealous. I told [victim] that I wanted to continue playing under his account. In this way, because I could steal things from him. I am with [victim] to fight, because he would not sign. I kick him. I think I’ve kicked him twice hard. I hit him hard on his legs. I [victim] also pushed and pulled. I worked him to the ground. [Defendant] has [victim] beaten at head. He also squeezed in the head of [victim]. [Defendant] has [victim] knocked to the ground and [defendant] and I are on top of [victim] stood. [defendant] and I were on his hips and take turns to side of his ribs. I then walked into the kitchen and I grabbed a knife from a kitchen drawer. It was a big fat steak knife with a black handle. [Defendant] also picked up two knives. I made threatening motions with the knife in my hand . I swung it a little. [Defendant] made with two knives threatening movements by the blades back and forth. [defendant] and I wanted to [victim] and I’m frightened by [victim] said, “I’ll kill you . “We have the knife then put back and said [victim] had to get in logging. [victim] is then logged, because he was afraid. He has logged on the computer in the living room. I went behind the computer to play and have things of him dropped. I have an amulet and a mask dropped. I’m in an arena in the game dropped. I walked into the living room, where [defendant] was on the computer. I’m against [Defendant] said that the stuff of [victim] in the arena were dropped and that he had to tackle. I saw [defendant] had found the mask. He put the mask on his stuff. It was now his property. [Defendant] and I share many things in this game, so I could also benefit. Immediately after that [defendant] off the computer in the bedroom and I went back to the living room to even turn off the computer. I saw [defendant] and [ victim] had a fight. [Victim] was that the computer was turned on. I saw [defendant] [victim] grabbed at his clothes at the height of his chest. I saw [defendant] [victim] hard on the ground threw. ”

c. a record of police, to the extent which includes a statement of [co-defendant]: “You ask me if [defendant] and I the theft of the coins had planned. [Defendant] and I had this really the day before agreed on MSN . I told [defendant] that [the victim] a lot of stuff had found a dead man on the game Runescape. I said, “Let’s go steal his stuff.” [Defendant] said he liked it. It was an idea of both of us. If [victim] did not want to work, we would beat him. ”

d. the statement of the defendant at the hearing at first instance, provided holding: “On September 6, 2007 are [co-defendant], [victim] and I went to the house of [co-defendant] in Leeuwarden. [co-defendant], [victim] and I all play the online game Runescape. A day earlier had [co-defendant] and I are using MSN talked to virtual goods from the online game Runescape from the account of [victim] to transfer to our account. I’ve seen that [co-defendant] [victim] has beaten. I have also seen that [co-defendant] a knife, packed and thus the direction of [victim] walked. A virtual amulet and a virtual mask by [co-defendant] from the account of [victim] transferred into my account. [co-defendant] and I would each half of the value of those items get. ”

e. a medical certificate on September 7, 2007, prepared by MT Zarza, doctor, if holding:

“Externally perceived injury tenderness on the right chest:

abrasions and tenderness on the right shoulder and low on the back:

pressure sore right buttock and right ankle. ”

2.3. The Court regarding the judicial finding is further held as follows:

“II. Is a virtual object good?

The position of the defense to accused is primarily charged with that he, along with one another, as a player in the online computer game “RuneScape”, a principal in that game illegally acquired amulet and mask (and violence) has allocated appropriated. Counsel has argued that a virtual amulet and a virtual mask can not be considered “good” in the sense Article 310 of the Penal Code. It is good not only tangible nor material, but – unlike, say, electricity – no value in trade. Now the element ‘good’ according to the counsel can not be proven, should defendant be acquitted of the principal charges laid. The assessment by the court Declarants and defendants are all avid players of the global online computer game RuneScape. Players do so through a personal account, an alter ego, through which they conduct various nature to flourish, develop skills to fight and communicate with fellow players and individual tasks to perform. They obtained thereby points and earn “items”, such as here at issue virtual amulet and mask. to suspect and his co-defendant is primarily robbery (with violence) these virtual objects accused.

The court must now answer the question whether a virtual object is a property within the meaning of Article 310 of the Penal Code. The idea that the requirement of materiality should be met in order for a well within the scope of the said Article has been since the Electricity Judgement in 1921 abandoned. That electricity output object with a use was – and concerned – by the Supreme Court at the time of greater significance considered the answer to the question whether the whether or not a theft prone went well, then the immaterial nature. Gradually, the jurisprudence also the economic value concept continues perspective and subjectified.

What is relevant is mainly whether it is good for the possessor of value. In the present for assessment existing thing is clear that possession of virtual goods and points to be obtained very desirable for principal defendant and the co-defendant.

The – then 13 years – principal in this regard said, essentially: “I am very rich in RuneScape because I’m rich, I’m also very strong. I am very much with different weapons, and almost unbeatable. My great hold on RuneScape I change my password almost every three days, because I fear me that someone “hacked”. The co-defendant [co-defendant] stated: “[victim] (the principal) had a few days ago lucky because he had stuff found on a dead man and the man was very rich and had so many valuable things. I was there actually jealous of. ” This suggests that principal suspect and his co-defendant in the game, their accumulated assets have real value, who can be decreased. The court notes that this is in the course of the game resulting values, which effort and time investment acquired or are acquiring. The court is based on one and another to the conclusion that a reasonable interpretation of the law implies that this virtual objects shall be regarded as goods within the meaning of Article 310 of the Penal Code.

Also relevant is that the rules of RuneScape do not provide a method of acquiring these goods in this case is done. The wegnemingshandeling was committed outside the context of the game. It is thus not a virtual actions within a virtual world, but to physical acts resulting in a virtual world is affected.

III. Satisfy the other conditions for criminal liability under Article 310 of the Penal Code?

Another argument of the defense is that there is no ownership nor possession of the virtual goods, but only a right to use the Runescape game. Changing ownership of virtual property rights does not change in the physical world. The game, and everything happens inside, is owned and will remain with the owner, knowing Jagex Ltd.. in the UK. In this way, the defense in the opinion of the court a narrow meaning to the term “accessory” in Article 310 of the Penal Code. The court notes that the principal in the actual game and exclusive dominion had the goods. Only he could, by logging on his RuneScape account, in which he acquired the amulet and mask out and dispose. In a criminal sense were the goods in issue to the principal. He is the theft affected in the undisturbed enjoyment of the available power that he exclude one another on those goods had. That the RuneScape game obviously an owner and / or administrator, eight court in the context of this criminal case is not relevant. Thus, a passport undisputed property of the State of the Netherlands, but this document does through theft from the disposal of the container getting. Further, the court noted that in this case met another case-condition for theft, which includes the goods at the hands of the accused from the disposal of the declarant must have become suspicious and that have come. This is different, so the Supreme Court has held, with regard to the stealing – for example – software, computer and a PIN as well not matter the decision power of the declarant become undesirable but also in those of the ontvreemder. In those cases can not therefore be said to be stolen. All in all, the Court considers that in the present case there is standing at the discretion of theft under Article 310 of the Penal Code. Furthermore, the Court held that due to the digitization of society, a virtual reality created, not in all respects, be dismissed as mere illusion, for which the commission of criminal acts would not be possible. ” 2.4. The Court the proven facts qualified as “theft, preceded and accompanied by violence and threats of violence against persons, committed with a view to the theft to prepare and easy to make, while the offense was committed by two or more persons”, punishable under Art. 310 in connection with Art. Sr. 312.

3. Assessment of the first plea

3.1. The plea challenges the opinion of the Court that the virtual amulet and virtual mask in RuneScape the online computer can be regarded as a ‘good “susceptible to theft in the sense of art. Sr. 310. 3.2. Art. 310 Sr. reads: “He that any property which wholly or partly belonging to another takes away with the intention of it illegal to appropriation, is guilty of theft, punishable by imprisonment not exceeding four years or a fine of the fourth category. ”

3.3.1. the plea, the question of whether virtual objects such as this can be regarded as a ‘good “within the meaning of Art. 310 Sr.. The legislature at the time of the creation of art. 310 Sr. in 1886 with this question obviously unable to make. In the case of the Supreme Court, this particular question is not before the been discussed. Nevertheless, both the law and the law earlier clues to answer the present question.

3.3.2. The legislature has, through various penal provisions envisaged the power to dispose of ownership of any well protected. in art. 310 Sr is punishable intentionally evading the effective control of any property which belongs to another with the intention of unlawfully appropriating it. The concept is good only while an independent criminal significance. A material object can not be below understood if it is an object that by its nature is appropriate for the effective control of another to be extracted.

3.3.3. Over the years the Supreme Court has interpreted various questions about the meaning of the term ‘good , also with regard to other provisions which that understanding is a part. In HR 23 May 1921, NJ 1921, p. 564 concerned the question of whether electricity could be regarded as a ‘good’ in the sense of Art. 310 sr. That question was answered in the affirmative by the Supreme Court. It was considered that include electrical energy to “a certain independent existence can not be denied” and considerations were devoted to it that electricity can be generated by man and controlled and that they “represent a certain value, on the one hand because her acquisition for him coupled with cost and effort, on the other because he’s able to use either their own benefit or remuneration to others to bear”. This led to the conclusion “So that, where Art. 310 Criminal law aims to protect assets of another and that in order to remove “any good” under the circumstances mentioned in that article criminalizes without any way to be determined what constitutes “any good” to be counted, based on those properties this Article to electrical energy is applied. ” In HR 11 May 1982, NJ 1982/583, on Art. 321 Criminal Code which embezzlement is punishable, the question arose whether bank money can be regarded as a good as belonging to another is subject to appropriation. The Supreme Court ruled that a reasonable interpretation of Art. 321 Criminal Code creates an affirmative answer, “given the role of so-called book money in society.” Furthermore, the Supreme Court ruled that in the mind of a person with knowledge stored in its corresponding digit debit card can not be regarded as a ‘good’ in the sense of Art. 317 (old) Sr and the (involuntary), naming a PIN can not be regarded as issue within the meaning of that Article, if it can only be spoken by the sender that issued the decision issued on the loose (see HR 13 June 1995, NJ 1995/635).

3.4. It contains, according the notes three problems. First, that the present virtual objects are not good, but a visual illusion, consisting of “bits and bytes.” Second, it is argued that these objects fall under the definition of ‘information’ as defined in art . 80quinquies Sr, so no room these objects to be regarded as ‘good’.

Third, it is argued that it is one of the goals of the game Runescape is the virtual property of another to take away.

3.5. For the evaluation of these complaints is important that the Court inter alia held that:

- the principal virtual amulet and mask of effort and time investment is acquired, that for him a fair value, and that the possession of the principal as well as for the suspect and his accomplice highly desirable was,

- the principal by logging on his Runescape account the actual and exclusive dominion had the virtual amulet and mask, and that the hands of the suspect from the disposal of the principal have become in the disposal of the accused have come and that the principal said was taken in the undisturbed enjoyment of the available power that he exclude one another on the virtual object was, and

- the rules of Runescape do not provide a method of acquisition as in this case occurred, so the wegnemingshandelingen committed outside the context of the game.

3.6.1. The complaint that there is no good because the objects present “bits and bytes’ existence fails. The virtual nature of these objects is at itself does not preclude them to be regarded as good in the sense of art. 310 Sr.. The corresponding opinion of the Court does not demonstrate an error of law and sufficient reasons, taking into account also that the Court regarding this objects has determined that “principal, defendant and his co-defendant to them in the game opgebouwde bezittingen fair value, who can be taken” and that “this is in the course of the game resulting values, which effort and time investment acquired or are acquiring “and that the principal objects within the game on the” actual and exclusive dominion “and he had by the actions of the defendant and his co-perpetrator of the power to dispose of these objects is lost.

3.6.2. This last findings also meets with the complaint that these objects by the Court should have been classified as “data” within the meaning of Art. 80quinquies Sr. (“Under the data means any representation of facts, concepts or instructions in an agreed manner, suitable for transmission, interpretation or processing by people or automated work “). The mere fact that an object also has properties of data in the sense of Art. 80quinquies Sr. does not mean that this object has therefore not as good in the sense of art . 310 Sr can be considered. Remark deserves that easily borderline cases may arise where the relevant non-material things both characteristics of a good as the data show. In such a case, the classification depends on the circumstances of the case and The valuation by the court. In light of the findings of the Court that the principal within the game on the virtual amulet and mask “the actual and exclusive dominion” and had he the actions of the defendant and his co-perpetrator power over these objects is lost, gives the opinion of the Court did not commit a wrong conception of art. 310 Sr and believes that it is not inconceivable

3.6.3. The latter, apparently mainly for the purpose of unlawful appropriation related to the complaint Removing the virtual property of another very purpose of the game Runescape, met with the finding by the Court that the rules do not provide for the suspect and his accomplice followed method of removal.

3.7. The product fails.

4 . Assessment of the second plea , the plea can not lead to cassation.

This need, in view of Art. 81 RO, no further reasons are the plea requires answers to legal questions in the interest of the legal entity or the development of law

5. Compulsory assessment contested decisionon the defendant’s criminal law for young people applied. The Supreme Court makes a decision after more than sixteen months have elapsed since the establishment of the appeal. This means that the reasonable time referred to in Art. 6, first paragraph, ECHR been exceeded. This should lead to a reduction in the defendant imposed community service of 160 hours, or alternatively 80 days replacement juvenile detention.

6. Conclusion

Since none of the means of appeal may result, while the Supreme Court no other than the one under 5 are based present considers that the contested decision automatically would be properly disposed of, brings what has been considered that the following should be decided.

7. Decision

The Supreme Court:

destroys the contested decision, but only with regard to the number of hours to perform community service, and the duration of the replacement juvenile detention, reduces the number of hours community service and the duration of the replacement juvenile detention in the sense that these 144 hours, or alternatively 72 days juvenile detention, amounts, dismisses the rest.

This ruling was given by the Vice President AJA van Dorst as chairman, and the justices BC Savornin Lohman, HAG Splinter Kan, WF Groos, and Y. Buruma, in the presence of the Registrar SP Baker, and pronounced on January 31, 2012.

- ENDS -

These complex proposals are intended to achieve a number of aims, which include:

• Giving EU citizens’ greater rights over data about them, by
  • Requiring companies to be more explicit about what they are going to do with data when they ask for consent
  • Providing access to users’ data
  • Providing a ‘right to be forgotten’, i.e. a duty on companies to delete user data if the user chooses
• Clarifying the responsibilities of companies by:
  • Harmonising data protection rights across the EU
  • Allow companies to work with the authority in the country in which they have their main EU base (rather than in every country that they operate)
  • Increasing penalties on companies that breach the rules (up to €2 million or 2% of global turn over)
  • Requiring companies to notify users of a data breach within 24 hours
  • Requiring companies with more than 250 employees to have a designated Data Protection Officer
  • Strengthen the duties on companies in non-EU States, i.e. when dealing with European citizens’ data, the above duties apply to companies wherever they are based

Industry Impact

Computer Games

Games increasingly have an online component either in the game itself or through the distribution of game software, patches etc. This means that more and more games companies are collecting user data, and thus will be impacted by these proposals should they be made law.

While computer games may still be seen as a fringe activity by some of the media, the EU Commission is certainly taking notice. In the proposal communication document they state on page 5:

“Hackers attacked a gaming service which targets users in the EU. The breach affected databases containing personal data (including names, addresses and possibly credit card data) of tens of millions of users worldwide. The company waited for a week before notifying the users concerned.

The reform of the EU’s data protection rules will ensure this could no longer happen.”

Social Media

Social media may present a more complex case than computer games. By their nature social media sites have at their heart personal data. However social media also allows individual to upload data about each other and intertwine those data – meaning that the ‘right to be forgotten’ seems unclear at this point.

Biometric & Location data

The directive makes specific reference to ‘location data’; ‘physical identity’ and ‘genetic identity’, which means any company that is gathering and / or using one or more of these should keep a close eye on how the regulations take shape.

EU Proposal in detail

The details of the EU Proposal are contained in a set of documents released in January 2012. Key among these is the proposed directive itself, the main Articles of which are as follows:

A12(1) ‘Right of access for the data subject’:  people have the right to find out about the data companies hold about them
A12(2) ‘People also have the right to have a copy of the data’: this is intended to make it easier to move between services
A15 ‘Right to rectification’: people have the right to correct data about them
A16 ‘Right to erasure’: people have the right to get a company to erase data about them ‘without delay’
A28 ‘Notification of personal data breach’:  if a company is hacked and personal data is lost people must be informed within 24 hours
A33-34 ‘Transfer of personal data to third countries or international organisations’: the EU rules apply to any company that holds data on EU citizens

tVPN Comment

While the proposed regulations bring the online world closer to the EU’s vision of human rights they are likely to come as an unwelcome surprise to companies in the EU and a shock to those outside.

The difficulty, as with all such regulations, is going to be in the detail. While the commission explicitly talks about social media and games it is unclear what the rights to be forgotten and data portability are going to mean in practice. How will the rights of someone to say something about an individual sit with that person’s right to be forgotten? Will ones social network be seen as part of ones data that is transferred between services – if not, how effective is the right? And how much of this will extend into the world of game characters, achievements scores etc.

External Links

• EU Commission page on the proposals: Commission proposes a comprehensive reform of the data protection rules

The internet has brought about a radical shift in politics through three As: Amplification, Association and Agency. The combination of these factors is leaving traditional politics in its wake, yet power is still largely controlled through established institutional structures. This widening gap is problematic for everyone.

Online politics is the flowing, ever-shifting practice of micro-political decisions and stances, which might be termed “Liquid Politics”. The powerful currents of these Liquid Politics tend to go unnoticed until they come together in one of the many “Agile Movements” that emerge from time-to-time. Movement such as Anonymous and the Tea Party are not political organisations as traditionally understood. They are generally leaderless and coalesce around a vague yet simply stated ideology. But if we look inside these movements we see complexity, and we can detect a core of deeply rooted pre-industrial human behaviours mediated through a digitally interconnected global society. This combination of ancient practices and new technology means that Agile Movements, or something like them, are unlikely to be a fad.

The result of this widening gap between the powerful flow of Liquid Politics and the static institutions of traditional politics is hard to predict. However we can speculate about the spectrum of outcomes that may lie before us. At one end we may see very little change as the power of institutions withstands these social forces. At the other end we may see collapse in party politics and asynchronous processes of representative democracy, as we know it. What seems likely is a mid-point where traditional institutions and structures become more open, participative and malleable recognising that a connected society needs a new dynamic democratic bargain.

Political beings

To be human in any society is to be political – we do politics all time. Almost every choice we make can be seen in a political light. Yet ‘politics’ at the individual level has often been used to denote a small set of our actions, typically things like voting or making overtly public stances on certain issues. Politics on the grand scale has been seen as the business of governing nation states and the relationships between states. The interface between these two types of politics has been confined to discrete acts of voting or interacting directly with representatives e.g. writing to them. Institutional politics has been presented to the citizens through traditional broadcast outlets such as newspapers and television that construct it as political universe for citizens to observe.

Politics framed in this way is a system of two worlds that meet occasionally on distinct terms. This system of politics is entirely reasonable in an age when humans are confined to physical meetings and postal systems, and the average person can only expect to gather an audience for their messages composted of those geographically close who shared enough interest or at least curiosity to listen. That is, this is reasonable when physical constraints limited the scope of action that could practically be called politics in any effective sense.

We do not live in such an age – but our political system still does.

In this paper we will look at how a new politics termed Liquid Politics has emerged from the affordances of the internet, and how Agile Movements are continually emerging from the underlying flow of micro-political acts. We will examine some of these movements in detail to understand how both they and the underlying politics that generate them result in a combination of ancient human practices sited in a new technological atmosphere.

To understand the new role of the individual in a networked society we shall review three key changes that the internet has brought in the relationship of the individual to the whole. These we shall term: Amplification, Association and Agency.

Amplification

The utterances of ordinary people now have a much wider active and potential audience. Blogging is a widely popular way for individuals to publish their views on all matter of subjects. It is not known how many blogs there are; Neilson Media currently track about 177 million blogs but there are most likely many more[1]. According to Technorati’s annual State of the Blogosphere report, bloggers represent all ages and income brackets and the topics covered are as wide and diverse as the bloggers themselves[2]. What’s more, while many blogs are inactive and have very few readers, there is a substantial percentage of blogs that are regularly updated and have audiences that certainly extend beyond friends and family.

Through these mechanisms the reach of any connected individual that has the requisite literacies may be amplified, such that more people can see what they say than only a few years ago an average individual might have expected to meet in a lifetime.

Association

Amplification as characterised above is a largely one-way process of publishing and consumption. A tightly related phenomena is Association, i.e. the ability for people to have on-going relationships with individuals and groups. Just looking at Twitter and Facebook, currently there are over 75 million Twitter users who have an average of 27 followers each, and 800 million Facebook users with an average of 130 friends[3]^,[4]. Now these are far from evenly distributed but these Associations still form a global network of rolling conversations that give people a day-to-day insight into each other’s lives and spread endlessly around the globe as new associations are formed from old ones[5].

Some suggest that technology has served to isolate us (Putnam 2001), however other studies show that many people use technology to establish genuine trust relationships (De Laat 2005). This will be seen more clearly when we look at how effective social media are at motivating physical action.

In addition to the overt acts that occur online such as conversations and link sharing there are more subtle effects that we need to be cognisant of to understanding the nature of the underlying flow of political sentiment online. The work of Christakis and Fowler for example demonstrates, that social networks can have unconscious impacts on our choices. For example in studies of smoking they found that is people in a smoker’s social network (both physical and virtual) stop smoking, then the smoker is more likely to stop smoking themselves, similar effect have been found with many other factor such as obesity (Christakis & Fowler 2010), it thus seems natural to surmise that the same subtle effects occur in the political sphere.

Agency

Amplification and Association are two components of a general sense of Agency that online users have. People have always had power at the micro-level of their every day lives e.g. to decide whether to walk or stop to persuade another person of something. Social power is not evenly distributed, a head of household has more power than a child, someone in an institution may have more power than an ordinary institution etc. The internet can disrupt this by, at the very least, making people feel like they have agency. At the simplest level many that have access to technology for over, say, a year can probably do a lot more than they could last year through a combination of technological change (tools get better) and their own literacy. What’s more the Amplification and Association effects noted above mean that people can feel themselves having a greater impact – by someone on the other side of the world reading and commenting on one’s blog for example.

To take a specific example, some studies of the attitudes of players of online games have shown effects such as a positive impact on civic participation (Williams 2006) – which is not surprising if people spend time in environments and with groups where they are empowered at least within that context (Castronova 2007)[6].

Agile Politics

The combination of Amplification, Association, and Agency factors means the digitally included ‘do’ politics in a different way than previously less connected generations. Online people debate, influence peer groups, and publish to potentially millions – all from their home, office or mobile phone. People have always acted like this, but now factors of scale, connection and immediate feedback loops change the nature of these acts. In a sense, it changes the nature of us as a social being.

People are immersed in a world that is both saturated with politics yet often not overtly political. An individual’s internet journey in any give day may flow from shopping for shoes, to encountering a debate about eco-fashion, to who is wearing what this season. It is also easier to be overtly political as an individual and as a group. Individual acts can be as simple as re-tweeting a political message, or donating to a crowd-sourced social fund.

What’s more the internet is full of tools that enable people to collaborate. Groups can be created on Facebook, events organised on Upcoming and manifestos created by thousands using a wiki. These tools enable political sentiment and action to coalesce around a node – which may be a person or more likely a site, or even a hash tag that spans multiple platforms. The simple overt acts noted above are given greater resonance in these group contexts that, on the whole, ebb and flow through people’s internet lives.

Agile Movements tend to start online or at least use online tools as their organisational scaffolding. Multi-modal existence is intrinsic to Agile Movements; online and offline are simply different aspects of these movements, which continually combine and re-combine Tweeting from a live event. This can be contrasted with traditional groups that give primacy to physical events and meetings, and use online tools as a support for the ‘real’ group. This means that Agile Movements in all their instantiations tend to have less demarcated boarders than traditional organisations, with transition in and out of the group being much freer.

For example, one can be a part of an Occupy movement by tweeting about it, by donating online or leaving a book for the library, being physically present at a camp and uploading a smartphone video, or by staying and being a part of the camp. To use the Burning Man phrase this ‘Radical Inclusion’ is both physical and virtual and is at the heart of the organisational structure (or lack there of) of the groups we will look at.

This Radical Inclusion enables a flow into and out of groups. This allows political movements (both virtual and physical) to form seemingly in an instant and dissipate just as quickly. This is the nature of Agile Politics and it is not confined to a specific set of movements we see at the moment. These individual movements are simply the visible signs of a larger underlying trend of old sensibilities combined with new tools.

To understand how Agile Politics operates it is best to start at the movements that are its visible form. A number of movements typify the practice of Agile Politics. These include: Occupy, Anonymous, The Tea Party, and to some extent The Pirate Party and Al-Qaeda. It is worth noting that while some movements share elements of political sensibility, others do not, as the form and practice of Agile Politics have little to no relationship with the cause that individuals believe in.

An Agile Movement will have all or most of the following characteristics:

1. An ideology that is simple to state
2. Individuals are free to interpret the ideology and give primacy to different aspects of it
3. Individuals self-organise and act in the way they determine
4. A culture of not identifying a leader / actively rejecting any one individual that claims to lead
5. Individuals in the movements change over time, this can include the notional leadership
6. Membership is not exclusive – individuals may identify as part of multiple movements at the same time

These movements are proving difficult for the media, politics and states to deal with. They tend to be mischaracterised. The media in particular tend to identify individuals as leading, speaking for, or being a member of a given movement. Whereas in interviews a typical response from someone who self-identifies with an Agile Movement will be: “I don’t speak on behalf of….. but what I think is…”

While the points above characterise Agile Movements, the details of how any given movement is structured, how the underlying flow of politics operates, and how these are related, is subtle and complex. In the following section these will be illuminated first through looking at the complexity of a number of specific Agile Movements then by employing a range of theories and metaphors from pre-industrial culture, social sciences and philosophy.

Anonymous

The quintessential example of this form of movement is Anonymous. Anonymous is about as close to leaderless, directionless and formlessness that one can get while still being identifiable as something. What’s more, most public identifications of what Anonymous is are largely or wholly incorrect.

This is not to say that Anonymous does not have structure or indeed hierarchy – but that it is nuanced, often tacit and always fluid. What binds Anonymous is a vague sensibility, a range of practices, and a set of tropes both visual and linguistic. The closest thing to an ideology that Anonymous has is summed up as follows (Crenshaw 2011):

1. Do it for the lulz.

2. Internet censorship is bad.

3. Don’t hurt cats.

These essentially come from the web site 4Chan and the /b/ image board which can be considered as the one thing that binds Anonymous. However everything to do with 4Chan and this simple ideology is difficult to explain because of the dense semiotic layering. That is, few things literally mean what they appear to mean nor do they mean the opposite – most are signs to yet more signs.

At first sight /b/ looks chaotic and offensive. It is. And in a sense it isn’t. In Turner’s anthropological terms, /b/ can be seen as a liminoid space (Turner 1982) that acts as an on going ever-evolving initiation ritual. That is, a necessary but not sufficient condition for being considered by others as Anonymous is commutative competence indicated by, among other things, the appropriate use of in-group markers. Like many in-group markers, those outside the group often mistake these competences as incompetence – in this way they act as a purposeful cultural barrier, a linguistic and discursive boundary maker, between those in the know and those outside.

For example the phrase “i can haz lulz” may look incorrect as it contains seeming misspellings, grammatical and temporal errors. In fact it follows a highly formalised code typically of the normative nature of many subcultures.

Two key tropes that are often repeated on /b/ because of their symbolic power are:

• “Rule 34”
• “Not your private army”

Rule 34 refers to the so-called Rules of the Internet[7]. Rule 34 states: “There is porn of it, no exceptions”. This is a humorous, accurate and powerful statement. It is a declaration of the power of the community to transform the meaning of anything. The notion of pornography is being used for a number of reasons. Many of the users of /b/ like and consume pornography. Also pornography denotes the opposite of the sacred or cherished. Hence whatever you hold dear (including the community itself) can transformed into something that you are supposed to hold in the opposite regard. Though given the community’s practices of consumption and self-production of pornography, this inversion of value is itself inverted. The statement is also a playful challenge – if anything can be turned in to pornography then what about a chair, or an bishop, or the number seven, or last Tuesday. Lastly – it is funny. There is also a deeper cultural argument for use of the fetishisation of the banal that stems from writers such as J G Ballard (Ballard 1990).

While “Rule 34” is a statement of the power of the community, “not your private army” is a seeming refutation of that power. The phrase denotes that the community knows it has power but that the power cannot be used or targeted by any member of the community. This speaks to an anti-leader notion that we will see recurring in all Agile Movements.

These are just two of the tropes on /b/. There are hundreds of similar symbolic phrases and images, and many variations on each theme. These are constantly combining and recombining to make new meanings.  Attaining and maintaining communicative competence in the symbolic meanings that flow through /b/ requires participation in online fora in which this competences is continually developed and changed.

/b/ acts as an on-going membership rite, as it contains many of the elements identified and outlined by Tuner referencing Van Gennep’s 1908 Rites de Passage. Specifically 4Chan and /b/ are separate spaces that require the individual to find, enter and understanding them (as the rules there are different). The sense of time in 4Chan may be altered, messages move at an unbelievable pace that can lead participants to a type of flow state; also many who post there do so in the middle of the night. The language is highly symbolic – what words there are seem meaningless or have little relation to the meaning one might suppose; much of the communication is in the form of images rather than words (a 4Chan post must contain an image). Lastly there are, at least superficially, simple symbolic inversions of meaning – bad taste is good.

At this level /b/ can be seen as layers of challenge to both the newcomer and the participant. Indeed, many posts are explicitly written as challenges, the underlying layers of which are:

• Don’t be offended
• Offend us
• Keep up

To use Van Gennep’s terms, after setting up the separated ritual space participants that enter it are in a state of transition. With /b/ this state is constantly challenged. Those that do gain an expertise of the cultural markers gain status in the hierarchy of /b/ for a time but will most likely be left behind as new, unexpected markers come and go. Also /b/ is completely anonymous in the literal sense (hence the name ‘Anonymous’[8]). So generally no one knows who the individuals that attain status are anyway. Events occur on /b/ that few witness; these sometimes become an essential part of the lore of /b/. Those that were not there are no longer part of the new in-crowd, whatever their previous status was. For example, at the time of writing, liking My Little Pony is important to people on /b/; however this may have changed by the time you read this. Those that pass through this into Van Gennep’s final state of incorporation do so by either exiting /b/ (possibly to return), or becoming part (for a time) of one of the many movements, both political and humorous, that emerge out of /b/.

As Coleman and others have documented (Coleman 2011; Crenshaw 2011) the movements that emerge from 4Chan have more of a structure than 4Chan generally, and /b/ in particular. This is because they need at least a minimal form of leadership and direction. Leadership in these movements tends to be pseudonymous, and power is either tacit (through displays of expertise and communicative competence) or through some direct power such as having privileges on a chat board or IRC channel.[9]

The movements, especially their online forms, tend to be a mixture of management and chaos. The agency of the individual to act remains a core principle of anonymous Agile Movements. After all with Radical Inclusion and anonymity or at least pseudonymity it would be difficult for the movements to be otherwise. However there can also be structured decision making grounded in the collective. Coleman quotes a self-identified participant in Anonymous as describing this as “ultra-coordinated motherfuckary” and notes that in the case of the 2010 DDoS[10] attacks in the wake of the Wikileaks funding controversy IRC was used for vast and highly complex debate over what websites should be targeted.

Key movements that in large part emerged from 4Chan’s /b/ message board include:

• 2008 Project Chanology – A protest against Scientology that has including leaking documents and other online activities and protesting Scientology offices around the world.
• 2010 Operation Payback – Protest against the United States’ film industry
• Dec 2010 OpLibya, OpEgypt, OpTunisia  – support for the Arab Spring uprisings, one of a number of revolutionary support movements that have stemmed from Anonymous[11].

Here ‘emerge’ is used to denote that as soon as any of these movements starts to form as a movement, it ceases to be part of the undercurrent and takes on a life of its own. What’s more, while each movement may share some individuals, they are likely to be organised by different people each time and those that are acting as a centre of gravity are likely to change over time. Often very few individuals will know who anyone is other than a screen name. Some of these movements take on even more form such as the Project Chanology which now sees protesters around the world wearing V for Vendetta masks and other Anonymous tropes picketing Scientology offices. Coleman quotes another self-identified Anonymous participant saying “I came for the lulz but stayed for the outrage”.

This extended examination of one movement is intended to illustrate the complexity of Agile Movements and how the particular nature of the nuances of the community are difficult to understand from the outside. That is, the particularities of Anonymous are not important, but the fact that they exist is. The other Agile Movements discussed here are different from Anonymous as it is on the extreme edge of formlessness, however the underlying processes that Anonymous uses to self-define and manage membership are found in some form in the types of movements that we now see occurring globally.

Occupy

There is an overlap between the Occupy movement and Anonymous. Some Occupy protestors self-identify as Anonymous (through the iconic ‘Anon Suit’ signs and V for Vendetta masks), however as noted above those that identify with one Agile Movement may well identify with others. Accordingly, Occupy is made up of people that collectively identify with a wide range of other movements, ranging from other Agile Movements such as Anonymous to more traditional ones such as Greenpeace.

Like the other Agile Movements described here Occupy is an emergent set of practices with their roots in cultures mediated by the internet. Of the Agile Movements covered here, Occupy is the only one that is centred on physical presence. While Chanology has protest events and the Tea Party has rallies and conventions, Occupy has on-going occupation.

The central ideology of Occupy is ‘the injustice of wealth inequality and the negative role of the banking system’. Hence the focus is on financial institutions whose staff are paid high sums, and which are seen as both the cause of the global financial crisis and, if anything, having profited from it.

As Occupy is occurring at the time of writing there is little critical academic coverage of it. Thus this report relies on media coverage and the author’s personal observations of Occupy London and the online global Occupy presence.

With this in mind, it appears that each of the Occupy camps is self organised and collectively managed by the individuals that make up the group. There is knowledge sharing both over the internet, and through some people physically traveling between camps (Captain 2011) for the purpose of knowledge sharing. The fluidity of form and hierarchy maintained by Anonymous is more difficult to sustain in an on-going physical encampment, but there are models of self organisation that Occupy seems inspired by, such as the ten principles of Burning Man[12].

1. Radical Inclusion
2. Gifting
3. De-Commodification
4. Radical Self-Reliance
5. Radical Self-Expression
6. Communal Effort
7. Civic Responsibility
8. Leaving No Trace
9. Participation
10. 10. Immediacy

The camps appear to be falling into similar structures around things such as collective decision-making, media hubs, food gifting systems, and libraries. The Occupy London camp (alternatively Occupy LSX[13]) has ‘General Council’ meetings held twice a day that are live-streamed and recorded; the meetings are open to anyone who can attend or watch. Occupy Wall Street (alternatively OWS) has a library that has its own web site, catalogue and lending rules[14]. In these ways Occupy maintains its status as both an online and offline movement.

Occupy’s relationship with institutional structures and its stance are summed up well by C Einstein who states, “Demands have to be specific. Anything that people can articulate can only be articulated within the language of the current political discourse … making explicit demands reduces the movement” [15].

The Tea Party

The American movement know as the Tea Party is on the political right and thus may seem poles apart from Anonymous and Occupy, which are seen as being on the political left. However Anonymous and the Tea Party share at least two key distinguishing features.  First, both movements share elements of a libertarian sensibility. Second, they are both Agile Movements in the term defined here.

The Tea Party has a simple central overt ideology coupled with a philosophy of leaderless (or at least small group) self-organisation powered by the internet (Branson 2011) and is characterised by in-group language markers (Livne et al. 2011) and symbols.

The binding ideology of the Tea Party is ‘smaller government’, but within that there are a wide set of, sometimes contradictory, goals and techniques. These assertions appear to be contradicted by the existence of national Tea Party groups and events; however closer examination reveals that there is a separation and tension between those national groups that have sought to capitalise on the movement and the thousands of individuals and groups across America. As the recent report from the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights points out, the six national Tea Party ‘organisational networks’ (FreedomWorks Tea Party, 1776 Tea Party, Tea Party Nation, Tea Party Patriots, ResistNet, and Tea Party Express); have social and political agendas that are distinct from each other and the Tea Party as a whole (Burghart et al. 2010).

The difficulty that conventional US politics has with the Tea Party is illustrative of the general relationship with the types of Agile Movement being described here. First, politicians such as Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann operate within structures that centre on notions of leadership and, increasingly, personality. Ordinarily they would work with a movement such as the Tea Party to subsume it within their campaign or claim some form or notional ownership of it or its ideals. However nether claimed to be the leader of the Tea Party, as they understood that as with Anonymous, this would mean instant rejection from the movement.

Second, some (Bond et al. 2011) argue that the Tea Party has had no impact on electoral politics in the US, as overall results were not changed from what was expected. Hence the difficulty of defining a stance in respect of the movement is compounded by an uncertainty about whether the effort is worth it.

Lastly, while the previous point may be true about overall politics in the US, if we look at the actions of so-called ‘Tea Party’ candidates, they have, to a noticeable degree, not conformed to conventional political norms in that they have not engaged in the types of discussion and compromise upon which the US’s form of representative democracy is predicated (there is an argument that at least some of the Founders of the United States were opposed to a party based political system, however this does not mean they were opposed to compromise).

Al-Qaeda

Perhaps most controversially the arguments presented here lead to the conclusion that that Al-Qaeda is an Agile Movement. This is not a wholly novel claim. Powell and Hutchison have studied Al-Qaeda as an ‘adaptive organization’ (Powell & Hutchison 2010). Al-Qaeda’s ideology is summarised by the UK intelligence service MI5 as “The West represents a threat to Islam” where the exact interpretation of ‘Islam’ varies but is widely considered as radical[16].

Al-Qaeda operates using a loosely connected cell structure. To use Taylor’s rather ironically Western term this can be seen as a ‘McDonaldization’ of the terrorism movement (Taylor 2009).  Jenkins from RAND shares the sentiment employing the phrase ‘do-it-yourself terrorism’(Jenkins 2011). Al-Qaeda may appear very different from the Agile Movements described above because it had a distinct leader, Osama bin Laden; a central command and control structure, and takes direct aggressive action. However as with other Agile Movements this description of Al-Qaeda is a mischaracterisation. In this case it could be argued that the mischaracterisation is more purposeful than mistaken, as propaganda tends to rely on simple binary opposites and a particular construction of the ‘Other’.

The example of Al-Qaeda is illustrative of conventional politics’ difficulty in dealing with Agile Movements. The US has operated what has been described as a ‘decapitation’, i.e. killing the leadership, which has culminated in the killing of Osama bin Laden himself. A simple search on Google reveals a repetition of the narrative ‘Al-Qaeda commander killed’. However with Al-Qaeda’s increasingly de-centralised structure this strategy seems only to continually affirm the group’s central ideology.

It can be argued that for the last several years, bin Laden’s primary role in Al-Qaeda has been a symbolic one. Taken in this way the structure and methods of Al-Qaeda are strikingly similar to those of the other Agile Movements outlined here.  There are core tropes such as the concept of ‘bin Laden’ as an icon, and the home-made videos created by groups and disseminated to peer organisations. These videos act in complex ways including the assertion of the individual cell’s identity. Often the videos are of ritualised executions. The fact and nature of the ritual is important, as it the fact and nature of its communication to other groups. In this latter respect Al Qaeda is again very similar to other Agile Movements described here. Very similar media tactics are being deployed, so from a purely structural point of view, to use McLuhan classic phrase, ‘the medium is the message’ (McLuhan 2001).

The power of the undercurrent

As touched upon above, these Agile Movements are an emergent property of the underlying politics that people transact online. Agile Movements are identifiable things, hence they tend to interface with political establishments and states either in the form of a self-identifying individual and / or as groups. The structural similarity of Agile Movements coupled with their diversity of purpose and that they emerge all over the world seemingly all of the time are clues to them being an indication of a larger shift in politics, rather than the shift itself.

Underneath these Agile Movements is a set of day-to-day micro-political acts that we might term ‘Liquid Politics’. The nature of Liquid Politics is difficult to grasp and even more difficult to explain, as it embodies and expresses deep human behaviours being transacted through systems that are themselves emerging and changing. A reductive analysis of this Liquid Politics is likely to mischaracterise it hence; it is better to look to a number of metaphors and social theories to understand its nature.

A return to the village

The first useful metaphor to consider is the notion of a return to village based practices and sensibilities. In pre-industrial life our behaviour was governed, in part, by assumptions about the number of people that we had social connections with and the physical limitations of things like privacy (e.g. families sharing single room dwellings). On the internet we create similar social ties but ones that are based on factors such as professional and interest groups rather than facts about geography – though some aspects of this, such as the Dunbar Number, are common[17].  We negotiate these ties using nuanced practices i.e. people don’t think everyone online is their ‘friend’, and teens do have a complex notion of privacy and tactics to maintain it (Boyd & Marwick 2011).

One key difference between village life and now is that there are aspects of ourselves that in pre-industrial cultures we might have supposed to be unique. Indeed people might have though them of as odd as no one else shared them – enjoying the scent of a particular leaf, for example. With the internet though, however obscure a partial interest, love, fetish or vice we have, there are likely to be millions of other people we might virtually meet that share the same proclivity. This is all due to the factors of Amplification and Association noted above.

In the political sphere this means that however specific a political interest, we are likely to find a community of like-minded people – if you are interested in ‘industrial chemicals and the hoof health of elks’, there is probably a community for it somewhere.

As touched on above in the analysis of Anonymous, certain elements of this online thematic village life hark back to pre-industrial societies through the rituals and social structures that are established. However, the online is very unlike

pre-industrial villages in that just so long as we do not stay too long, they can be easy to move in and out of. Hence when certain events happen, an Agile Movement may see a flood of incomers and gain substance and power, only later to find that many have moved on leaving only a few behind. In the case of Anonymous anyone can download a tool such as Low Orbit Ion Cannon and be part of a DDoS attack, but very few remain as part of the Chanology groups that protest outside Scientology offices each Saturday.

If On A Winter’s Night a Trickster

The second illustrative concept is that of the Trickster recently investigated in great detail by Lewis Hyde in his work Trickster Makes This World (Hyde 2008). The idea of the Trickster may be unfamiliar to some readers of this paper as it is a concept that tends to have been marginalised and often misunderstood in modern Western culture, yet it has been a key metaphor for many societies over the ages. One reason the Trickster proves a difficult concept for many Western sensibilities is because it is not about binary opposites or end points but rather is about process and change.

As Hyde states “[the Trickster is the] spirit of the road at dusk, the one that leads from one town to another and belongs to neither” (p6). This captures the spirit of Liquid Politics we observe on the internet where power moves from one moment of engagement to another. When the flow slows, it becomes an Agile Movement. These movements still change and adapt but are will be left behind by majority of the flow – the movement has started to become a destination, not a road.

The idea of the Trickster is also one of adaptation. Again Hyde says, “Sometime it happens that the road between heaven and earth is not open. Whereupon trickster travels not as a messenger but as a thief, the one who steal from the gods and the good things that humans need if they are to survive in this world” (p6). If we replace the spiritual for the political, this stands as a good metaphor for how these Liquid Politics adapts to the contexts in which they are found, be it the affordances of particular technical systems such as forums or wiki’s, or the traditional institutions of power that the Liquid Politics may come into contact with. The identifiable political movements we see, the Agile Movements, are Liquid Politics’ malleable tactics of intervention.

Lastly, Hyde posits the idea that “…there are no modern tricksters because trickster only comes to life in the complex terrain of polytheism. If the spiritual world is dominated by a single high god opposed by a single embodiment of evil, then the ancient trickster disappears” (pp9-10). Again casting this in a political frame the lived experience of politics on the internet has not disappeared but is widely misunderstood and demonised through direct opposition[18], mischaracterisation or dismissal.

The idea of the Trickster sounds like one that characterises humorous interventions so is only suited to movements such as Anonymous who explicitly are in it “for the lulz”.  This would be to misunderstand the metaphor. The Trickster embodies concepts of change and adaptation; it is the power and spirit of agility that within the Agile Movements described here.

Rhizome in the digital underground

Rhizome (Deleuze & Guattari 2004) is a metaphor that is being adopted by some in the social sciences to embody the kinds of practices that first emerged due to the hyper-linked nature of the internet. Rhizome and the associated concept of the Assemblage are dense theoretical ideas by Deluze and Guattari that cannot be unpacked here other than to note some of their salient features. Ostensibly Rhizome is a biological metaphor that references a type of living root system made up of nodes and connections. It is held in comparison with the more structured idea of a tree (reminiscent of organisational structure diagrams).

Deluze and Guattari state variously that “A rhizome ceaselessly establishes connections between semiotic chains, organisations of power, and circumstances relative to the art oppositions, sciences, and social struggles” (p8) and that the Rhizome “is map not a tracing, the idea of a map being oriented toward an experimentation in contact with the real” (p13). They also bring into the concept the important facet of ‘multiplicity’) saying “[it is] when the multiple is effectively treated as substantive…”(p8) reminding us that with a Rhizome (and more particularly an Assemblage) we should not look at the parts but the whole.

Taken together, this set of overlapping and intertwining concepts gives us an impression of a living, interconnected world that must be taken in all its complexity and not as any single thing idea or object. A look at any visual representation of the structure of the internet or a map of a social network shows why this is such an attractive set of concepts for the social sciences. Deluze and Guattari’s concepts are not merely about the social relations between nodes but are deeply about what things are, and what they mean, i.e. the whole and the dynamics of the whole are a thing that, for some purposes, we should not try to decompose into individual items or, as earlier social theories may have it, a set of binary power relations.

Liquid Politics

None of the above theories are Liquid Politics. What exactly constitutes Liquid Politics at any given instant it is too complex, massive, and dynamic to be known. To Dissect and examine Liquid Politics we would have to stop the internet and analyse every possible political vector to understand what exactly was occurring. This is impossible. It would probably much of what was important, and the exercise is likely beyond any individuals comprehension. Hence to gain some understanding of what Liquid Politics means and what its implications are we have to rely on he kinds of metaphors and theories presented above. With these in mind we can turn to what the practical implications of these changes are.

Riding the waves

Liquid Politics and the emergent Agile Movements appear to be wholly incompatible with conventional politics and institutions of power. Any alliance that is formed between an Agile Movement and any other structure is by definition weak as it requires the Agile Movement to crystallise into a static form, meaning that most of its motivating power will simply flow past.

Moreover, conventional politics looks increasingly outmoded from a Liquid Politics point of view. Liquid Politics is based on the culture of now and empowerment. Governments are opening up far more data to the public, and through cloud computing individuals have access to more computing power at a lower cost than was imaginable just a few years ago. This changes the dynamics of policy making and analysis as now it is likely that an individual or group could conduct far more detailed data analysis on a subject than a government – while this may have once been a situation restricted to the policy community of think tanks and education establishments, now it is available to many.

Conventional politics clings to its own structures and promotes them as if these particular structures represent an end-point in political evolution. Yet the political systems of today such as voting occasionally; congregating only in a physical place to debate; taking very little input from outside the process; are a product of the past.

Business and many social structures have used the internet to innovate and evolve. For many it seems as if conventional politics has not changed perceptively, and this is to the detriment of all. Voting figures demonstrate there is a gradual disengagement with certain political processes – politicians often characterise this as a lack of interest in politics. If we understand politics in the way outlined here, it is quite the opposite: it is politicians that have disengaged, not citizens.

For those engaged in conventional politics and policy making this analysis culminates in the question: what does the future hold for traditional politics? As with any futurology, predication is most likely wrong, however we might speculate about a range of possible changes:

1. Triumph of institutional power i.e. nothing happens – institutional power means that Liquid Politics and Agile Movements simply operate in-between and around it. There will be instances where given Agile Movements gain enough traction for politicians to have to take notice – if only to retain popularity with their voters and so as not to seem out of touch.

2. Reconfiguration of democracy and an end of the party system – this scenario sees a gradual erosion of the legitimacy of the system of representative democracy in place today where voters only get a single chance to vote every few years and representatives are formed around party systems that are an accumulation of political ideologies.

What form the reconfiguration will take is impossible to predict and will most likely differ on a state-by-state basis, but it is likely to take the form of a much more direct form of democracy, either through representatives that take direction from voters and / or a system that allows electronic voting on an issue by issue basis.

3. Listening, reacting, representatives – a mid-point view is that while the ostensible political and party systems remain there are more ‘independent’ representatives and single-issue parties (such as the Pirate Party), what’s more representatives in general become more in touch with and responsive to Agile Movements and views expression in online forums.

Governments open up ever more data and reconfigure themselves in a more Open Government / Gov2.0 state through the adoption of interactive tools and a degree of Agile Governance (O’Reilly 2010; Noveck 2010).

Conclusion

Politics occurs everywhere all the time. It always has. However through the Amplification, Association and Agency effects of the internet this practice of politics has become a much more powerful force than it was in a less connected world. Political practices are now far more fluid and their flows cover the globe every instant of every day. This Liquid Politics takes shape in Agile Movements which accumulate and attract power.

Conventional politics is slowly reconfiguring itself to be more accommodating of these technology enabled forces – various politicians and states are developing more interactive and inclusive modes of engagement.

It remains an open question where these changes will lead. Certainly some new form of democratic bargain seems necessary to avoid the majority of citizens losing ever more in the public process of politics.

References

Ballard, J.G., 1990. The Atrocity Exhibition Rev., Expanded, Annotated, Illustrated Ed., V/Search Publications,U.S.

Bond, J.R., Fleisher, R. & Ilderton, N., 2011. Was the Tea Party Responsible for the Republican Victory in the 2010 House Elections? Available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1912707 [Accessed November 20, 2011].

Boyd, D. & Marwick, A., 2011. Social Privacy in Networked Publics: Teens’ Attitudes, Practices, and Strategies.

Branson, T.S., 2011. Steeped in Rhetoric: Digital Populism and the Tea Party Movement. University of Kansas. Available at: http://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/handle/1808/8041.

Burghart, D., Zeskind, L. & Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights (Kansas City, M.), 2010. Tea Party Nationalism: A Critical Examination of the Tea Party Movement and the Size, Scope, and Focus of Its National Factions, Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights.

Captain, S., 2011. Inside Occupy Wall Street’s (Kinda) Secret Media HQ | Threat Level | Wired.com. Wired.com. Available at: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/11/inside-ows-media-hq/ [Accessed November 20, 2011].

Castronova, E., 2007. Exodus to the Virtual World: How Online Fun Is Changing Reality, New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan.

Christakis, N. & Fowler, J., 2010. Connected: the amazing power of social networks and how they shape our lives, HarperPress–E-books–General.

Coleman, G., 2011. Gabriella Coleman: Anonymous — From the Lulz to Collective Action | The New Significance. The New Significance. Available at: http://www.thenewsignificance.com/2011/05/09/gabriella-coleman-anonymous-from-the-lulz-to-collective-action/ [Accessed November 20, 2011].

Crenshaw, A., 2011. Crude, Inconsistent Threat: Understanding Anonymous. Available at: http://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=security/understanding-anonymous [Accessed November 19, 2011].

Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F., 2004. A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia, Continuum International Publishing Group.

Hyde, L., 2008. Trickster Makes This World: How Disruptive Imagination Creates Culture, Canongate Books Ltd.

Jenkins, B.M., 2011. Al Qaeda After Bin Laden.

De Laat, P.B., 2005. Trusting virtual trust. Ethics and Information Technology, 7(3), pp.167-180.

Livne, A. et al., 2011. The Party is Over Here: Structure and Content in the 2010 Election. In Fifth International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media.

McLuhan, M., 2001. Understanding Media 2nd ed., Routledge.

Noveck, B.S., 2010. Wiki Government: How Technology Can Make Government Better, Democracy Stronger, and Citizens More Powerful Reprint., Brookings Institution.

O’Reilly, T., 2010. Government As a Platform. In D. Lathrop & L. Ruma, eds. Open Government: Collaboration, Transparency, and Participation in Practice. O’Reilly Media, pp. 11-39.

Powell, T. & Hutchison, N., 2010. al-Qaeda as an Adaptive Organization: a Case Study.

Putnam, R., 2001. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community New edition., Simon & Schuster Ltd.

Taylor, M., 2009. The―McDonaldization‖ of Jihad: A Strategy for Combating the Franchise Operations of Global Corporate al Qaeda.

Turner, P.V., 1982. From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play, PAJ Publications.

Williams, D., 2006. Groups and Goblins: The Social and Civic Impact of an Online Game. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 50(4), pp.651-670.

Footnotes

[2] http://technorati.com/state-of-the-blogosphere/

[3] http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/12234/10-Essential-Twitter-Stats-Data.aspx

[4] http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

[5] http://www.deviantbits.com/blog/social-graphs-vs-interest-graphs.html

[6] These are studies of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Play Games (MMORPGs) that are online environments where players tend to take on a hero role and interact with each other to solve sometimes highly complex challenges that require group coordination.

[7] http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/rules-of-the-internet

[8] See also online forums such as Slashdot (http://slashdot.org/) where the default name given on a forum post used to be “Anonymous Coward”.

[9] IRC is Internet Relay Chat, a text based group chat system that is still used by many for reasons including the ability to retain anonymity.

[10] DDoS is a Distributed Denial of Service attack where web sites are bombarded with request causing them to slow down or perhaps become un-responsive. This might sound complex but tools such as Low Orbit Ion Cannon make is possible for people with little to no technical skill to be part of a DDoS attack.

[11] See: http://telecomix.org/

[12] http://www.burningman.com/whatisburningman/about_burningman/principles.html

[13] http://occupylsx.org/

[14] http://peopleslibrary.wordpress.com/

[15] “Occupy Wall St – The Revolution Is Love”, Directed by Ian MacKenzie, Co-produced with Velcrow Ripper http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRtc-k6dhgs

[16] https://www.mi5.gov.uk/output/al-qaidas-ideology.html

[17] The number of people we can have active social ties with. Based, among other things, on studies of pre-industrial societies; generally put at 150. Other research puts the number at up to 290. See here for interview with Dunbar: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/14/my-bright-idea-robin-dunbar

[18] As I write this in November 2011, students self identifying as being part of the Occupy movement are being pepper sprayed at the University of California Davis in the United States.

The focus of the report was the content that those logged into a virtual world might see in particular so called ‘explicit content’ which included both ‘sexually explicit’ and ‘violently explicit’ – defined as both visual imagery and textual content (which could include in-world chat). The report covered virtual worlds them selves and related content such as forums.

The report looked at 27 online services (some such as IMUV would not typically fall within the definition of virtual world), including virtual worlds targeted specifically at adults e.g. Second Life and Red Light Centre.

The report “found at least one instance of either sexually or violently explicit content in 19 of the 27 virtual worlds surveyed” (p i), but noted that “Significantly, almost all of the explicit content observed in the child-oriented worlds occurred when the Commission’s researchers were registered as teens or adults, not when registered as children. In addition, most of the explicit content observed was text-based and found in chat rooms, message boards, and discussion forums” (p i).

The summary of the report reads as follows (p iii):

“As a result of its study, the Commission suggests that virtual world operators make certain enhancements aimed at reducing the risk of youth exposure to “explicit content, including:

• • Ensuring that the age-screening mechanisms virtual world operators employ do not encourage underage registration;
  • Implementing or strengthening age-segregation techniques to help ensure that minors and adults interact only with their peers and view only age-appropriate material;
  • Re-examining the strength of language filters to ensure that such filters detect and eliminate communications that violate online virtual worlds’ conduct standards;
  • Providing greater guidance to community enforcers in online virtual worlds so that they are better equipped to: self-police virtual worlds by reviewing and rating online content; report the presence of potential underage users; and comment on users who otherwise appear to be violating a world’s terms of behavior; and,
  • Employing a staff of specially trained moderators whose presence is well known in- world and who are equipped to take swift action against conduct violations.

Given important First Amendment considerations, the Commission supports virtual world operators’ self-regulatory efforts to implement these recommendations.

In addition, the Commission recommends that parents and children alike become better educated about the benefits and risks of youth participation in online virtual worlds. The Com- mission is committed to ensuring that parents have the information they need to decide which online virtual worlds may be appropriate for their children.”

tVPN Links

• US FTC: Report on access and content of virtual worlds
• US FTC: Marketing of Violent Entertainment to Children

External Links

• Full FTC Report: Virtual Worlds and Kids: Mapping The Risks
• FTC Consumer Alert: Virtual Worlds and Kids: Mapping The Risks
• Press Release 10 December 2009: FTC Report Finds Sexually and Violently Explicit Content in Online Virtual Worlds Accessed by Minors
• H.R. 1105 Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009

CBC reports that CRTC (the Canadian Telecoms Regulator) too action after a complaints from the Canadian Gamers Organization. Rogers recognised that the problem impacted World of Warcraft and it is suspect that many other games, including Call of Duty Back Ops, have been impacted.

Full Story: Rogers asked to fix game throttling problem (16 Sept 2011)

Network Neutrality

What is it?

Net Neutrality (NN) is the debate over whether the internet should operate pretty much as it does at the moment or whether ISPs should be able to block or charge differently based on the application that a user is using, or alternatively give preferential treatment to a company e.g. Media Company X’s content streams just that bit faster than everyone else’s.

Net Neutrality stems from fact that some users consume a lot more bandwidth than others and often this is for services that are damaging the business models of existing companies. For example someone using Skype no long has to pay for their local phone company for long distance calls. The debate tends also to be linked with illegal downloading hence peer to peer services can find themselves being blocked.

Why it matters?

Net Neutrality seems like one of those obscure policy issues that never has an impact in the real world. But already companies have been caught out by non-neutral ISP policies. The kinds off issues that Net Neutrality presents for any game company with an online component (even if it’s just downloading patches), include:

• Online games can be inadvertently blocked
• Games that use peer-to-peer (p2P) networks for downloading can be blocked as bi-product of trying to cut down on illegal downloads
• Voice over IP (VoIP) services can be blocked, impacting the increasing number of games that have integrated in-game voice
• Ping time, which is critical to some games, is generally not part of the discussion but could be impacted
• To avoid these blocks companies may be charged by ISPs

For social media the potential direct impact on big providers is that ISP’s may come asking for more money for preferential treatment. This will be an additional cost of business for big providers and possibly a killer for small providers. What’s more users on different ISPs may start to see the internet very differently impacting the kind of sharing that fuels Social Networks.

See more from tVPN on Net Neutrality: http://www.virtualpolicy.net/tag/netneutrality

Media, Beliefs and Religions
“The role of the media in fostering intercultural dialogue, tolerance and mutual understanding: freedom of expression of the media and respect towards cultural and religious diversity”

- Agenda

Text of tVPN Submission….

The Internet, Convergent Media and Intercultural Dialogue

“Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.” Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

In its work on ‘The religious dimension of intercultural dialogue’, the Council of Europe has stressed in its various reports and recommendations (CoE 2008; Whittle 2010) that all parties should engage in dialogues based on mutual tolerance underpinned by a respect for fundamental human rights. The European Commission, in its work on the Information Society, has stressed the importance of the internet as a social and democratic tool.

We are all aware that the internet provides a platform for both mutual understanding and mutual hatred. Sites exist that inspire intolerance and division – in this respect the internet is a reflection of the society we live in for good and ill.

A wider question that we must face is whether, on the whole, the internet is a tool for greater understanding or division. There is no clear answer to this. Popular writers such as Shirky and Leadbeater (Shirky 2008; Leadbeater 2009) and before them John Seely Brown (Brown & Duguid 2000) have talked optimistically about the power of networks to allow individuals to organise in new and interesting ways.  This has been taken into the governmental sphere, especially in the US, by influential individuals such as Beth Noveck who served in the Obama Administration and Tim O’Reilly the writer, publisher and organiser of the Gov2.0 Summit (O’Reilly 2010; Noveck 2010). Faiths too have adopted the internet and modern social media which has added a new dimension to the notions of faith practice and faith community (Friesen 2009; Rice 2009; Campbell 2010).

Others however are sceptical of these trends. Keen, for example, suggests that as new media take over from old, we are losing respect for expertise and celebrating the Amateur, to our cultural detriment (Keen 2007); Putnam argues that digital media isolates us rather than bringing us together (Putnam 2001); and Hindman argues that Digital Democracy is a myth (Hindman 2008). Possibly worse given the cluster of faith communities that exist online is Cas Sunstein’s argument in Republic 2.0, that online communities tend to collect around similar views and then polarise them against what is perceived as the opposite opinion (Sunstein 2009) – Sunstein is currently in the Obama Administration’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

What this tells us is that the internet is not magic. The internet does not, in and of itself, promote beneficial dialogue. It can – but we have to work at it, and there are a number of pre-conditions to such a dialogue.

First, people need access to the internet. There are global, regional and national programmes needed to increase both internet penetration and the capacity-building technical and governance resources. However, even in the relatively prosperous European Union (EU), only 70% of households in the region as a whole have access to the internet, the maximum penetration being in the Scandinavian area with 90% of household, but also a number of countries being below 50% (source: EU Digital Agenda Scoreboard 2011).

Second, people need both the technical skills to access the internet proficiently and the media literacy skills to understand and use the information to which they gain access. Again, there is a wide discrepancy even within the EU and within individual states. Even in states such as Norway where around 90% of people have some internet skills, this leaves 10% with no skills and 25% ranked as having ‘low skills’ (source: EU Digital Agenda Scoreboard 2011).

But access and skills are not sufficient – there also need to be spaces for dialogue and positive interventions to create a culture of meaningful practices, not simply two or more groups typing at or about each other else Sunstein’s thesis is perpetuated.

The good news is that new media is no longer so ‘new’. For decades scholars and practitioners have studied the dynamics of internet communities and how these can be managed and, yes, manipulated. Writers such as Kim have created templates for the management of online communities such as online forums (Kim 2000). Theorist practitioners such as Ian Bogost have examined how digital games help people and communities engage with complex and problematic issues (Bogost 2007; Bogost et al. 2010). Practitioners such as Jane MgGonigal have used a mixture of online and offline gaming to create global communities to look at issues such as fossil fuels, for example www.worldwithoutoil.org (McGonigal 2011); and the US State Department have used a range of digital interventions to generate intercultural dialogue, for example the Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds project (King & Fouts 2009). What all of these have in common is a mixture of technology and skilled individuals with a clear understanding of how to use digital tools for positive communal outcomes.

So digital tools can and do offer new opportunities for communities to engage in dialogue and reach new levels of understanding. However, we must actively work to create spaces for dialogue, and then keep these spaces open to a plurality of views, while at the same time maintaining the rights and mutual respect we have resolved to uphold.

References

CoE, 2008. White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue “Living together as equals in dignity,” Council of Europe. Available at: http://book.coe.int/ [Accessed November 14, 2011].

Bogost, I., 2007. Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames, The MIT Press.

Bogost, I., Ferrari, S. & Schweizer, B., 2010. Newsgames: Journalism at Play, MIT Press.

Brown, J.S. & Duguid, P., 2000. The Social Life of Information, Harvard Business School Press.

Campbell, H., 2010. When Religion Meets New Media 1st ed., Routledge.

Friesen, D.J., 2009. Thy Kingdom Connected: What the Church Can Learn from Facebook, the Internet, and Other Networks 1st ed., Baker Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

Hindman, M., 2008. The Myth of Digital Democracy, Princeton University Press.

Keen, A., 2007. The cult of the amateur: how today’s internet is killing our culture, Currency.

Kim, A.J., 2000. Community Building on the Web: Secret Strategies for Successful Online Communities 1st ed., Peachpit Press.

King, R.J. & Fouts, J.S., 2009. Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds, Carnegie Council. Available at: http://dancinginkproductions.com/2010/06/22/understanding-islam-through-virtual-worlds/ [Accessed November 14, 2011].

Leadbeater, C., 2009. We-Think: Mass innovation, not mass production 2nd ed., Profile Books.

McGonigal, J., 2011. Reality is broken: Why games make us better and how they can change the world, Jonathan Cape.

Noveck, B.S., 2010. Wiki Government: How Technology Can Make Government Better, Democracy Stronger, and Citizens More Powerful Reprint., Brookings Institution.

O’Reilly, T., 2010. Government As a Platform. In D. Lathrop & L. Ruma, eds. Open Government: Collaboration, Transparency, and Participation in Practice. O’Reilly Media, pp. 11-39.

Putnam, R., 2001. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community New edition., Simon & Schuster Ltd.

Rice, J., 2009. The Church of Facebook: How the Hyperconnected Are Redefining Community New., David C Cook.

Shirky, C., 2008. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organisation Without Organizations, Allen Lane.

Sunstein, C.R., 2009. Republic.com 2.0, Princeton University Press.

Whittle, S., 2010. 2010 Council of Europe Exchange on the religious dimension of intercultural dialogue (Ohrid, 13-14 September 2010) –Report by Stephan Whittle, General Rapporteur, Available at: https://wcd.coe.int/ [Accessed November 14, 2011].

the Virtual Policy Network is supporting the creation of a body of practices and standards for virtual environments through the IEEE sponsored Virtual Environment CoLAB (VECoLab). The VECoLab is a group of individuals and organizations working to further the adoption of virtual environments. Its draft charter states:

“Virtual Environments CoLab is hereby established to achieve standardization within and among virtual environments to enable vast technology/medium to intertwine their respective capabilities in a manner which exponentially increases potential and effectiveness of the virtual realm. As proponent, the VE CoLab (purpose and role) intends to act as advocate and mediator through the direct and significant involvement of the IEEE Standards Association, facilitator organizations and key professionals working within the communities of interest of internet technologies, production media and virtual environments, et al.”

For more information see:

• VECoLab Site: http://www.vecolab.org/
• IEEE: http://standards.ieee.org/news/vpearl/index.html

External Links

• http://webwereld.nl/nieuws/53234/virtuele-diefstal-voortaan-strafbaar.html

This is generally is regarded as the first instance of ‘virtual theft’ being recognised by a court.  The case concerns virtual items taken from a player’s account through some form of account hacking. The case was brought by the victim of the theft against the game company (rather than the other player) as the company refused to re-instate the virtual items.

While the details of the case are slightly complex, the final judgment (over turning an appeal) found that the game publisher has a duty of care to its players, and specially that in this case its security systems were insufficient to ensure that virtual items could not be transferred out of players account through hacking and that this act constitutes theft.

Li Hongchen claimed that when he logged into his account “President” on 17 February 2003 he found that all the contents, including such things as: ‘2 poisons’, 1 God of War’ had been sent to account SHUILIU0011. He asked for the details of the account but Arctic Ice refused to provide these as it would breach the personal privacy of the other player, they also stated that the action had nothing to do with them as the security of the account is the player’s responsibility. It seems like some of the items in question were generated through game play and some through ‘pet cards’ individual payment for a given item.

When the matter eventually went to court Arctic Ice made a number of general and very specific claims:

• the security of a player account is their responsibility (as defined in the ToS), hence any thefts form the account are the player’s responsibility;
• players are obliged to maintain standards of security and loss due to failure to meet this contractual obligation is their liability;
• operator obligations under Consumer protection law should be limited;
• virtual items are a ‘pile of data’ and do not constitute a ‘thing’ under Chinese Civil Law;
• there are three possibilities for why the items where no in the account: (1) stolen, (2) hacked at a network level, or (3) given away – and that the player could not prove that it was (1); and
• the account in question was not the players as it did not have the player’s name associated with it.

Li Hongchen made a number of counter claims:

• the account was his, and though he had used pseudonyms, the phone number on the account was his. Moreover he evidenced things such as game CD ROM, game cards and a whiteness; and
• while the ToS were agreed to when he initially registered for the game, the ToS were no displayed during the account re-charge process

The court found for Li Hongchen in respect of the return of the virtual items and costs, including the travel costs of his witness. Li Hongchen’s claim of compensation for ‘mental damages’ was not held.