The degree of detail in virtual environments is already so high that social dynamics like those that happen in the real world begin to take place in them, gradually blurring the dividing line between online and offline . It does not matter that these places do not exist physically , except in the form of long strings of bits, so that their impact in the real world is measurable.
Thus, for example, in the Second Life virtual community, where the user can choose an avatar to present himself to others in a computer-generated environment, weddings have been celebrated, as in the 2003 case of Amy Taylor and Dave Pollard (although more Later, Taylor caught her husband’s avatar having extramarital affairs with the avatar of another woman who played a prostitute).
A virtual world is already so similar to a real world that we can even say that we pollute when we are living in it: the vicissitudes of Second Life , for example, consume as much real electricity as the average Brazilian citizen.
This degree of verismo, then, has also led to crimes very similar to those that occur in the real world .
What happens to our avatar, to our online alter ego, can be as traumatic for us as if it happened to us in the real world . When we are in a virtual world we can experience physiological changes, such as having sweaty palms or suffering from tachycardia, if our virtual representation is attacked in any way. For this reason, cases of cyberbullying and even identity theft have already been registered.
One of the most extreme cases of assault on an avatar was a 2007 rape investigated by the Belgian Federal Police in the Second Life environment. Apparently, the avatar of a woman was infected by a malicious virus or malware by the avatar of a man she had met in this virtual environment, as explained by the advisor on cyber terrorism, cybercrime and online security Marc Goodman in his book The Crimes of the Future : “The computer virus allowed the attacker to take control of the woman’s avatar and sexually assault her in a violent and graphic way. Ultimately, the case was investigated as an incident of ‘unauthorized access to a system computer science ‘and, although there will be those who dismiss it as a rampant’ virtual rape ‘, in the future it will be more difficult to adopt this position, given the increasing immersiveness of the virtual space and the real traumas that these incidents are very likely to cause. “
The most gruesome case of online crime is surely that of a South Korean couple who spent so much time caring for their virtual daughter that they forgot to return home to feed their three-month-old real son , who eventually passed away.
Virtual money is also traded in virtual worlds. For example, the largest online video game in the world, World of Warcraft (commonly known as WoW ), allows you to win virtual gold coins to acquire objects and character improvements, also virtual. That is, that money made of pixels on our screen has value, even if it is limited to WoW , and therefore it is liable to be coveted, or stolen by a criminal. Therefore, it should not be surprising that people have been arrested for a series of avatar robberies and other associated crimes.
This phenomenon has also produced a new form of slavery : Chinese mafias force children to work marathon hours to grow gold in WoW, which will later be sold for real money to potential users. This burgeoning business is called gold farming. It employs hundreds of thousands of people around the world to generate profits of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Chinese gold growers have also fueled waves of racism against their practices. In many forums it is common to read messages such as “Chinese farmers must die”, which refer to philonazi slogans. Even organized groups of players are dedicated to going to the areas frequented by these cultivators of virtual money to organize hunts. Undoubtedly, the first case of virtual eugenics made only of pixels, and one more sample of everything to come: the complete integration between online and offline .
