Interesting article on Salon about TSO

Early in November, a character came up to Urizenus in Alphaville and, quite suddenly, "became confessional," Ludlow says. The character told Ludlow that he was a teenage boy and that he had been beating up his sister -- that he "sent her to the hospital," in fact. Ludlow didn't know if the account was true, and he had no way of knowing who the character was in real life and where he or she lived, but he found the story alarming enough to report it to Maxis, asking the company to alert local authorities. But the response he got back from the firm did not address his plea, and instead the company told him to ignore any character who offended him. Over the course of a few weeks, Ludlow and Bolter sent the company several follow-up requests to intervene, but they did nothing.

Several other games have fan sites or newspapers that cover them, but experts could recall no other instance of clear-cut censorship. Some worlds have even encouraged journalism. "Second Life" has "embedded" Wagner James Au (a frequent Salon contributor) in its world; Au, who is paid by Linden Lab, "Second Life's" creator, has written some fascinating reports of life in "Second Life" on a blog called Notes from a New World.

Au says he is completely free to write what he wants about Second Life -- he's written several pieces critical of the company. But he acknowledges he's in an awkward position. "I'm like the editor in chief of a small town newspaper in a company town," he says of his status. "I'm going to be immersed in the worldview of that company. But most of my writing is that there's some fascinating stuff happening in that world."