Linden and press freedom

03Dec06

There’s an interesting report over at Second Life Herald about the conditions that Linden is placing on both academic use of Second Life and press reports about it. In particular, there’s this condition:

Members of the press can write generally about Second Life without following this process. However, if you plan to interview any Second Life residents please contact our Marketing Department.

If you consider Second Life a country, this is the equivalent of being asked to get a visa before entering the country – which, of course, is exactly what you have to do for most countries (including the United States.

Of course the crunch comes not when conditions like this are made, but when they’re used to restrict reporting from the front line. It also raises the question of who and what is a journalist. Am I? Is Cardie? Is Prok? Will the Linden’s suspend my account if I quote someone here?