[Air-L] Adults on Club Penguin/ethics of posing as kids

M. Deanya Lattimore mdlattim at syr.edu
Mon Sep 17 12:34:48 PDT 2007


Thanks for the link Lauren!  At least the article doesn't end up as 
creepy as it starts out.  I'm with you -- I was getting hives from the 
whole first paragraph.

Club Penguin is a pretty safe site; I don't think the reporter could 
have gone too far without getting kicked out.

I spend time in Habbo, a site that used to attract a lot of pre-teens, 
but has now positioned itself for the older teen market.  I never lie 
about my age (but you can use numbers in chat there), and I would never 
go "on a date" with ANYone there.

There are some weird sexuality/bonding builds in these environments; 
Club Penguin lets you hold flippers; Habbo doesn't allow body contact 
between avatars, but they do offer double beds in the catalog in which 
two avatars may, looking very flat, eyes straight ahead, lay side by side.
CP has a more moderator-intensive presence.  I wouldn't worry about my 
kid in CP as much as I would an under-ager in Habbo.

I think there's a lot of in-world research to be done in these sites; 
I'm currently looking at how religion and ceremonies get represented, 
and I'm doing a long-term study on memorials -- kids make rooms and 
decorate them to memorialize their pets, their friends, stars who die, 
events like the holocaust and 9-11, etc.  But I don't see anything to be 
gained by using language that sexualizes the embodied researcher or the 
researcher's experience.

:-D.
Deanya
emmiedee in Habbo



Lois Ann Scheidt wrote:
> Lauren, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if their "date" was also 
> an adult posing as a kid.  It's an issue of like attracting like...most 
> 12 year olds have pretty clear vocabulary and interest limits that 
> don't vib with the average adult.  I always wonder on those DateLine 
> predator installments how many of the guys would have actually found 
> kids...or if they were actually attracted to the "kid" in question 
> because the kid wasn't a kid.  An intellectual question only.
> 
> Lois Ann Scheidt
> 
> Doctoral Student - School of Library and Information Science, Indiana
> University, Bloomington IN USA
> 
> Adjunct Instructor - School of Informatics, IUPUI, Indianapolis IN USA and
> IUPUC, Columbus IN USA
> 
> Webpage:  http://www.loisscheidt.com
> Blog:  http://www.professional-lurker.com
> 
> 
> Quoting "Lauren M. Squires" <lauren.squires at gmail.com>:
> 
>> I haven't been following the recent ethics discussion on the list too
>> closely, but I know that part of that discussion is "academics" v.
>> "journalists" or other kinds of cultural analysts and the
>> responsibilities/standards they hold themselves to.  So it was that
>> this article in Slate kind of threw my jaw open:
>>
>> http://www.slate.com/id/2173910/pagenum/all
>>
>> it starts out...
>> "I'm not sure, but I think I went on date with a 12-year-old last
>> night. We met at Club Penguin, a social networking site for preteens.
>> I was a blue penguin, new to town. She was pink, and carrying a
>> surfboard."
>>
>> A reporter posing as a 12-year-old in an online environment
>> specifically for kids? And then talking about one of the experiences
>> as a "date"? This is really interesting given that so often reporters
>> are telling us that adults are always trolling for kids online and
>> it's SCARY. The reporter even writes:
>>
>> "Creating a penguin is simple, though the entire sign-up process
>> emphasizes safety in such a way that a curious adult can't help
>> feeling like a predator."
>>
>> Great to know about the safety measures, but red flag for me about the
>> process of getting the article. I understand that adults want to
>> understand what kids are doing online, and I appreciate this attempt
>> at getting into the culture rather than assuming things about it based
>> on non-participant experiences, but why not interview some of the
>> 12-year-olds instead?
>>
>> thoughts?,
>> Lauren
>>
>> --
>> lauren m. squires
>>  lx: http://polyglotconspiracy.net
>>  cmc: http://sociocmc.blogspot.com
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> 
> 
> 
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