Anonymous sources, in a position to know, last night revealed to TheSpoof.com reporter, I. Spoof, explosive information concerning a brewing scandal involving sex, money, and politics, all in the virtual world of Second Life.
According to sources, the Second Idol™ in-world competition, designed to select the hottest and most talented avatars through an on-line vote of Second Life residents, has been seriously compromised. Reports have emerged implicating some voters in the use of "Orgasmatars™" and teledildonic "Telegasm™" equipment in a sordid "votes for orgasms" scheme that is said to violate even the notoriously-loose behavioral standards present in this leading virtual reality "multiverse".
Details were not yet available, nor could our reporter convince his source to release any of the numerous "machinema" videos that reportedly capture electrifyingly-intimate scenes from this scandal, but enough information has been provided, exclusively to TheSpoof.com, to sketch out a rough outline of the story so far.
These leaks implicate a single avatar, Virgil Voom, as the mastermind behind a bizarre operation. Voom's intention was to sabotage the in-world voting system's virtual ballot box, TeleVote™, by releasing a swarm of "Avabots™" to make fake votes.
Avabots are able to appear and operate as normal avatars in Second Life (SL) while in fact, they are nothing more than computer code. Avabots are often used to extort money from SL users, by posing as vitual escorts, or Avawhores™. They lure unwary avatars (and the humans operating them) into sexual interactions, and charge them for the benefits using SL's currency of Linden dollars (currently exchanging at 1USD to 266LD).
Mr. Voom has allegedly joined forces with the leading purveyor of real-world remote sex toys, Telegasm LLC. Voom is hoping to resell their teledildonic equipment and charge monthly subscriptions to a service which allows users to physically connect via the Second Life world. Voom has also combined these Internet-based and remotely-operated tools with the software programs embedded in the Avabots and Avawhores, thereby creating a situation in which unsuspecting humans are relating in an intimate and interactive way with computer hardware and software.
As if all this weren't scandalous enough, Mr. Voom has reportedly been accepting money (in Lindens) to give away (or sell at a reduced rate) these mechanically-induced sexual experiences in exchange for promises from the recipients of these "encounters" to vote for those Second Idol candidates whose supporters (or they themselves) have engaged his services for this purpose, thereby generating not the first, but possibly the first automated, exchange of sexual favors for votes in the history of political corruption.
Is this what the pioneers of computer science and the Internet had in mind when they applied their formidable intellects? Their drive to succeed, and hunger for reward by developing the technologies now being applied in Second Life, was it all just to rig elections for talent show contestants by providing voters with automated sex with plastic machines and lines of code? I think not.
The appropriate authorities, once it's been determined who they are and what kind of jurisdiction they might have, can be expected to fully investigate this scandal in order to expose fully to the disinfecting sunlight of Internet notoriety the shameless perfidy of its alleged perpetrators.
Reported from Los Angeles, California
May 15, 2007