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April 19th, 2007
I’m on trial in Second Life…
Posted by
Josh in
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After going through the reality of this ordeal this past year; I will be on trial again in a virtual world: Second Life. From Duranske
Harvard Law Professor Charles Nesson and HLS Graduate/Computer Science Ph.D. Candidate Rebecca Nesson are preparing to run a moot court trial of the Josh Wolf case on Berkman Island in Second Life this weekend. The lawyers in this trial will be HLS students, and Professor Nesson will be the judge. Second Life citizens will act as mock jurors. The trial will be held Sunday, April 22nd from 1:00-3:00 pm SLT (Pacific) on Harvard’s Berkman Island in Second Life (here’s a SURL ), and the event is open to the public.
This should be interesting to witness, if not a bit traumatic…
Josh – if you’re not involved in Second Life yet (which would, I suppose, make some sense) and need a hand getting set up so you can see this thing unfold, I’d be happy to help. I imagine it would put some added pressure on the HLS students playing prosecutors and on the jury to have you there, but I think it would add a lot to the proceedings, and really, if people are doing a mock trial about *you* you’ve pretty much got a right to be there whether they want you or not, as far as I’m concerned. If you’ve got better things to do on Sunday than watch a virtual you on trial, however, I’ll make sure you get a transcript.
Also, updated the piece on Virtually Blind (which I’d based on an HLS press release) to reflect recent events. Linked here.
a co worker is going through school to get her mls degree to become a ‘real’ librarian…she’s been wanting me to help her around in secondlife since her school bought an island on (or is it ‘in’) secondlife….so…now there are two reasons to join…see you in court, as they say…
Hmmm…
Yes, interesting indeed.
perfect, this whole story is now relegated to a virtual world where it belongs, wolf is not only a journalist in his own mind but now also in a virtual one
really what did you achieve other than your 15 minutes of fame, hope it was worth it.
Cass, I’m rather curious. What are you achieving in flaming his site? I mean, besides making yourself look immature?
I am not sure that counts as flaming. you should probably read through other comments here. it was simply a question, I am curious to now what wolf et al thought they achieved in this process and to think about what they sacrificed, what their parents and friends sacrificed for what seems to be a blatant call for attention.
Cass, as Josh’s mom, it was a really a horrible year, but when all this was coming down and Josh asked me, “Mom, do you think I should name names?” I had to honestly say, “No.” I lived through the McCarthy era. I understand that Josh was trying to protect the Constitutional rights of the American people to a free press and the rights of protestors, whatever their political beliefs. Josh didn’t need to do this for attention. He had just graduated from college, already had a job in his field at Peralta Community College TV, had done a great job of networking and had recently been on a panel about blogging and politics at VloggerCon.
Liz, thanks for your comment. I do respect that decision. media is very different today because it gives the independent thinker a voice and I encourage this whole heartedly. but with it comes a responsibility, not only to traditional journalism but also to untraditional journalism whom Josh says he is representing. Josh has been covering protests like this for a long time, at some point he had to know that this issue would arise and, at 24 years of age with the education he has, I expected him to represent himself in a way that would defend his actions responsibly.
Because otherwise it just looks like an anarchist group member on the street who just so happens to have a camera and, in desperation, is using whatever the hot button issue of the time is, whether it be first amendment rights or shield laws to get out of trouble. the story, the commentary, the interviews, just all sound like something that happened at a high school paper and at this point I don’t see the impact of this beyond that.
Cass, I dont know how old you are, but at 24, I wasn’t all that wise or ecxperienced either and I was just starting out on my own career.
Josh had been covering protests, but as he has explained, usually the SFOD riot police act in fairly predictable ways and are well trained. These two cops drove a police car into a crowd and from there, everything went crazy. Josh should have perhaps known to destroy his out takes after the FBI came by, but he didn’t.
Hopefully, the impact will be to broaden the discussion of protection for journalists who report news for all of us. Josh’s case has certainly increased awareness of a need for a federal shield law and increased awareness of the contribution to news coverage that can be made by people like Josh, who regularly record events for their own blog readers.
I am pretty out of the loop when it comes to anarchism as a belief system, (Josh has never even been involved in a fist fight, so I know he doesn’t support violence),but I don’t think a Republican should be barred from covering the Republican Convention or a Democrat barred from covering an Anti-War protest nor should an Anarchist be disregarded when covering an anarchist protest.
Like all of us, I’m sure Josh will continue to learn how to present his ideas with more clarity and sophistication as he matures. Josh studied film and psychology in school and comes to journalism from that viewpoint. But I have learned through talking with many journalists throughout this ordeal that many have educational backgrounds that are not in journalism.
[...] The trial was scheduled before Wolf was released, presumably to help generate support for his cause. But after he was released, Wolf saw a post about the mock trial on Virtually Blind and decided to log in and watch his trial unfold (notably, he logged in as ‘Jwolf Writer’ — seven and a half months in prison doesn’t get you a custom avatar name in Second Life, though apparently singing ‘Tom’s Diner’ a capella on the grid does.) One assumes the presence of the real-life defendant, who had recently gotten out of federal prison after his lawyers lost on the very arguments the HLS students were making, added a bit of tension to the proceedings. Lots of documentation and analysis from the mock trial is now available, linked here: [...]
Revolution? What revolution?
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Hi all!IS there trial of Second life?If there is,how can I make it??PLzzz answer me!!
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Completely agree with your comments on this – thanks for taking the time to post.