Nonprofit Commons in Second Life Survives Griefing Attack

Photo by Peacemaker

According to Wikipedia, a griefer is

"a slang term used to describe a player in an multiplayer video game who plays the game simply to cause grief to other players through harassment. Griefing could be considered a malignant form of emergent gameplay."

Griefing can be a problem in Second Life, although it does not happen at every location all the time.  For example, at the BlogHer in Second Life panels and social events no problems were report as indicated by this report by VintFalken and the Information Literacy Weblog. Even the high profile plenary session by Elizabeth Edwards was not griefed.

Griefing can turn a virtual event into an unpleasant experience.  According to the Second Life Insider blog:

Depending on the environment, there may be a wide variety of specific behaviours (kill-stealing, blocking, training, player-killing, team-killing etc).  They don't enjoy Second Life the way you or I enjoy Second Life. They enjoy it when they make you sad, or unhappy, or frustrated. Especially when you show it. Face it – it's easier to destroy than to create – and it requires comparatively little effort or talent.

I first heard the term over a year ago when I first started exploring Second Life and we implemented the first TechSoup Nonprofits in Second Life Mixed Reality Event.    "What about griefers?"  someone asked at the planning meeting.   While everyone was a little nervous about the potential for deviants to show up at the event and to be destructive, no one did.  At the Nonprofit Commons recent launch party last month, there were concerns about griefers, particularly because of the experience of the honored guest. 

But yesterday, the griefers arrived.  My initial thought was that the nonprofit presence is getting large and influential enough to attract griefers.    The Nonprofit Commons was one of several dozen sims attacked with mutant ninja turtle posters.  Susan Tenby, on the Second Life and Nonprofits Blog, reports what it is like to be in the middle of it all:  

The griefing made it dizzying and unpleasant to be in the NPC sim, but I was still able to talk to avatars. I got bumped around a bit, but it was a little like trying to have a conversation in a hailstorm or a typhoon. The rain though, in this case was hundreds of little square teenage mutant ninja turtle posters. There was also a deafening scream,but I just muted my computer.

Susan Tenby wonders whether the attack was from someone trying to get into a group called 'The goons," an elite group of griefers who only accept members after proving themselves for at least three months. The act of griefing becomes a sort of fraternity hazing activity.  Perhaps matching the age profile of griefers, although there is debate whether or not all griefers are 19 year olds.

Griefers are the virtual world equivalent of trolls, cyberbullies, and hackers.  As the Annalee Newitz notes in a post on the She's Such A Geek! blog reaction to the Kathy Sierra incident last winter,

"As somebody who has also been stalked by griefers ... I can understand why Sierra is disturbed. If it were me, I would be angry rather than afraid. But fear and anger are two faces of the same thing. They’re what we feel when we’re helpless to change something huge, like intrenched sexism, in the communities and industries we call home."

Like troll behavior and cyberbullying, griefing attacks can't be entirely prevented.   There are ways to minimize the risk as this Businessweek article recommends, but as Susan Tenby notes in her blog post, "It does also give me pause to think about how vulnerable SL is to hacks, though."