Furry-Muckity Muck
FROM FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 1996
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE NETLY NEWS
Online furry fandom used to be
a universe where people became
cute little cyber animals
and MUCKed freely and
anonymously in their own
online communities. They had
hot tubs, apartment complexes,
and adult areas where users
could experience the joys of
safe, interspecies cybersex.
Then the Communications
Decency Act became law and
meteors of potential legal
problems crashed into their
happy dens, threatening
extinction. Like the rabbits
in the opening chapters of
Watership Down, the
furries are starting to
look for shelter from the
hunters and trappers of the
Justice Department.
Right after the CDA passed,
FurryMUCK, the
oldest and best-known furry
community, was asked by its
Internet provider to
set up some guidelines so that
adult areas were unavailable
to minors. With help from
legal counsel, the muck
restricted access to adult
areas to users who did not
disclose their ages.
Another site, FurTooniawent one step further in
covering their furry hind
quarters: It now requires
users to enter their real
names, countries and birthdates
into an encrypted program that
locks minors out of adult
areas.
That's the backdrop really,
for today's tale of high-tech
anxiety. It turns out that an
assistant administrator at
FurToonia as well as FurryMuck,
is a young teenager who
masquerades online as a
furryfox named Vulpine.
Vulpine, now a high
school junior, discovered
furrymucking a few years ago
in a magazine article and used
the alternate universe to help
him cope with his parent's
divorce and his own bout with
FibroMyalgia,
a condition similar to chronic
fatigue syndrome. "FurToonia
was his virtual home," his
mother told The Netly News.
Was -- not, is: The new rules
effectively exclude Vulpine
from his favorite haunts. "The
policies are garbage," the
bitter teenager told us. At
first, Vulpine angrily
resigned his administrative
positions and accused the
mucks of selling out to the
CDA. Desperate to remain a
member of the community,
though, Vulpine did what you'd
expect: he lied about his age.
That worked just fine for a
while. Then his mom,
understanding how important
and harmless Muck life was for
her son, urged him to take
a higher road. Mother and son
decided to go public and
hook up with the ACLU,
which is waging a legal
battle against the CDA.
Vulpine's public affidavittells the tale of a bright
young teenager potentially cut
off from his community by the
overbroad and censorious CDA.
Rather than being thrilled at
the free-speech martyr in
their midst, however, the
Mucky sartyrs went ape shit.
First, wizards froze his
account at FurryMUCK. Not to
be outdone, wizards at
FurToonia "toaded" him.
(Toading, for those of you
unfamiliar with MUDspeak,
refers to the act of turning
an online character into a
toad and leaving him in a
public place, cut off from his
user. Think of it as virtual
pillorying.)
Many admins are taking a hard
line, afraid no doubt, that
having kids around could screw
the pooch, so to speak. "We
told players that if they lied
to us that they wouldn't be
allowed to play here," said
FurryMUCK wizard Tugrik
d'Itichi. "So we shut
off his access. We're
trying to figure out if we
want to ban him permanently or
wait until the CDA goes away."
Tugrik says he had no choice
about setting up policies,
since the MUCKs are run as
hobbies and can't afford to
fight legal battles over CDA
infractions. He told us that
the furries want to have piece
and quiet in their virtual
community without being
crushed by the federales.
In the meantime, Vulpine's
lonely, as well as a pariah. He
told us that other furries are
making fun of him at his new
hangout, Socio-Political
Ramifications-- a muck in Sweden that
doesn't have to deal with the
CDA. "`Back-stabbing traitor'
seems to be a favorite," he
said. "Everybody calls me
'kid' and 'boy.' They're
dismissing me because of my
age."
Tugrik says the MUCKs
have no choice. "If anything
legal breaks out, we just shut
down," he said. "We've been
around here for so long that
a culture has developed. We
only want to keep it running."
--Chris "WolfMan" Stamper
--
CHRIS STAMPER
WRITE TO US
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