Disappointment with Teen Town Hall Answers

It is not often that I walk away from a town hall meeting angry, but I have to admit that today's town hall with Robin Linden left me feeling both dismissed and annoyed. By the tone of the IMs I received from other people who saw the same town hall, I am not alone in this. I will ask this question very succinctly, since I was blown off and told I was overstating the problem and answered with a softball answer like "I am sure we will find a virtual Playboy at some point" (paraphrased). Anyway, my question:

HAVE YOU SPENT ANY TIME WITH TEENAGE BOYS?

From age 13-17, boys' entire existence is ruled by one thing - their hormones (to put it less crudely that the actual answer). If you think that given the ability to upload and create content that the worst thing you are going to get is a Playboy, you are woefully underestimating the combination of hormones and online freedom. Hell, The Sims Online had no adult content and yet teen prostitution and sex is rampant. Do you honestly think that by not taking a strict approach to policing of content, you can just expect everyone to play nice and not upload hardcore porn?

Philip repeatedly spoke of Whyville the other night in an impromptu meeting at my store with some other members as an example of how a teen online service can be done right. He also repeatedly emphasized it was 1 million teenage girls. Teenage girls are much more mature than their male counterparts - it is a fact of biological development.

Ultimately, if the teen grid flops, that is something that Linden Lab will have to deal with - it doesn't affect us as long as strict separation is there. However, to disregard legitimate questions about how you are going to proactively handle preventing an onslaught of mature content was both insulting and shockingly short sighted. If I had a teenager, especially a daughter, I would not want them subjected to a service that did not take proactive steps to protect them from adult content.

I think that there might be a way to intergrate ages 13 and on in Second Life on the same grid. Like, if the Lindens somehow had a way of disallowing uploading certain textures and the like... not sure where I'm going now... hope you see my point...

Well I skimmed the transcript, and there's no doubt that the liasons for the teen grid will have their hands full. It will be interesting to hear how it works out. I seriously doubt you need to tell LL how teen boys are though. I imagine there are quite a few people working at LL who were one once!

Transcript? I always miss the meetings.... where is the transcript?

So then why the big blow off on the question of how they were going to handle it?

I didn't consider it a blowoff quite honestly. In a sense you were asking Robin to be a psychic. I'm sure they'll modify their policies as they go as they see how it's working out. I share your concerns about division of resources, but I have a wait and see attitude about discipline and content management. I'm surprised they aren't going to have an approval process like There does. Definitely might be problematic, but it's all just speculation at this point.

I am sorry, I don't think asking the question of "how are you going to restrict the uploading of mature content" in a teen grid is an unrealistic one, or asking for them to be psychic. Good lord, if you don't have an idea of how to handle this, beyond just smacking their hands when they do it, then what is the point? If it becomes a problem, then damage has already been done, which could have been avoided by having a solid plan in place to not only handle it after the fact, but to keep it from occuring in the first place.

Oh, don't get me wrong... it wasn't much of a solid answer, but I got the impression that they're still working out the details. You just seem to be taking it rather personally for reasons I'm not sure I understand. *shrug*

It's not personal at all - as I said ultimately if the whole thing turns into porn city, it is not our problem directly. I guess I am just annoyed at having a forum to ask questions, since they have provided such limited information about this, and then to not respond to not only my questions but many legit questions that were asked about it seemed more like a PR event than an actual town hall.

Ok, I thoroughly read the transcript, and I thought that it was sad that some teens were kicked off the main grid, I mean, what if they were really good builders, and were mature, and really contributed to SL before the Lindens find out, and come kick their ass?

After reading the transcript I too am very cautious about allowing my future teen to play...Fortunately, I have two years to see how this all turns out and then I will decide if I will allow her to play. I can guarantee that if there is any sexual content in Teen SL, there is no way in hell I will allow her to play. Also, I feel there is a big difference between the ages of 13 and 17 and after thinking about this...I am not comfortable with my 13 year old having a possible online relationship with a 17 year old. I'm not naive to the fact that this is a possiblity in RL, however, I know that information is alot more accessable via internet than in RL.


This is yet another subject that is just too controversial. I would like to think that with parental guidance that I can monitor all online activity in Teen SL, yet where do I let go and give some trust. Geez, its so damn hard being a parent! Maybe, I'll just wait til she is 16 then just let her go for it! ugh...I dunno...I just won't think about it until the time comes.

Anyways, Cris...I admire your concerns and I'm glad to see that there are others that care.

Huggerz,
MJ

I acutaly agree with Robin and company.

Cristiano, I believe you're mistaken on several counts and having been a teen myself not so long ago, I still know what its like.

...And yes, there are a heck of a lot of teenage boys out there who let their hormones do the talking for them. Their existance more or less suceeded in driving me crazy throughout high school. But there are plenty of teenage girls who have the same problem. I can easily name a few off the top of my head, although I won't.

Conversely: for the better part of my online career in games, chatrooms and the like as a teenager among teenagers, I've associated with plenty of people my age, both male and female who were intelligant, creative, responsable and more or less mature. If they had a sex life (and most had none that I was aware of), they kept it out of the game. Speaking as if all teens are exactly the same is your first mistake.

Secondly, on the game I was on: yes, occasonaly, someone would try to create obscene material or engage in adult activities. Someone reports them, they were rounded up by the staff and tossed out of the game. End of the problem, at least untill the next person tries to start something...and the process repeats itself as needed. (We were rated G by the way.) Serious offendors (think pedophiles, etc.) were reported to the police/FBI by the game admin. My understanding of the Linden's proposed policy is that it will be handled in a similar way.

Will people try to bring mature content into the teen grid? Yes.
Will it stay in the grid? No, as long as someone files an abuse report about it. Teenagers are quite capable of doing that.

You brought up TSO: I assume you were either there once or that you read the Second Life Herald. Consider this: EA practicaly *allows* the scam houses, the cyber brothels, etc, to go on as far as I can tell...they aren't even *reactive* much less proactive.

This also begs the question, is it even *possible* to be proactive and do a good job at it? I chalange you to propose a proactive methood of content enforcement that does not infringe on the freedoms we have come to associate with Second Life while still maintaing the community standards/TOS required for the teen grid.

For more, I point to this essay written by a friend of mine and the game admin.

Take your pick:

1. they don't like you
   
2. they don't owe you an explanation
   
3. they don't yet know
   

I have a little brother who lives a long distance from me. I haven't seen him for three years due to my being enlisted in the Air Force. I got a phone call from him a few months ago. He asked if I was coming home for the Fourth of July. We have the same mom, but he lives with his dad, and he was visiting mom over Independence Day. I wasn't available to answer his phone call, but I got his message in my voice mail. He said, "I haven't seen you in three years!" His voice was deeper than I remembered it. I became upset at the realization that I have been missing out on spending fun time with my brother while he is young, and I cried as I listened to his message.

One of the great things about Second Life is that you can spend time with a friend or family member of a large distance and actually experience activities together. It's far more involved than just chatting over the internet or talking on the phone. Unfortunately, due to the age limit imposed on the main SL grid, I haven't been able to invite my brother in to spend some time with me. When the Lindens began talking about the possibility of a teen grid, I became quite excited at the thought of joining my brother in Second Life.

No forum post can express my disappointment in the decision to not allow adults to interact with the teens. I ask you Lindens to give more thought to the benefits of having us on the teen grid to expose them to the true culture that has developed over the years in Second Life.

It would also be nice if I could just spend a little more time with my family.

I do see your point. I guess I still hold LL in such high regard that such things don't really push my buttons. I have no doubt that they care about the quality of the teen grid, the experience it will provide, and the safety of the environment, so I'm sure they're aware of the potential problems and abuses and don't really need us to point out what they are. I just don't see how it's different than any place else in a teen's world outside their parent's front door. Kids can bring porn to school, and surely do. They also tend to get caught more often than not. If there's one thing unruly horny teens don't have in large quantity, it's discretion, hehe.

I'm from the school of thought that says don't try to force kids into a sanitary bubble and hide the real world from them. You'll only miss out on opportunities to discuss the way the real world is with them and stunt their ability to deal with it when they're not under your supervision. I think kids on the teen grid will likely amaze us all with their creativity and skill. I hope at some point after TSL has been around for a while LL will have some kind of showcase exhibit on the adult grid to show us some of their accomplishments.

When I was growing up, a lot of people told me that. I never saw it. In my experience, teenage girls are just as susceptible to "hormones" or naiivete or lack of maturity or whatever you want to call it as boys are.

I remember when I was a teenage boy... I mainly sat in the library and read the works of
Homer, Shakespeare... various texts on physics... The occasional Sci Fi novel.

Good to see that even missing all this valuable world experience of running around with my dork in my hand , I still turned out to be a perfectly functional ASSHAT when I grew up.

Siggy.

Wow, that is sad, Jade. I had the chance to do a little OL gaming with (ok, against) my RL brother, and it was really kind of nice. And that was just a shoot-em-up...what a great time the two of you could have on the Grid.

Possible knee-jerk reaction, but I guess when push comes to shove, we have the pedophiles of the Net to thank?

- yoshi

How do you propose they do it? Implement some sort of advanced "porn detection algorithim" in the file uploading process?

You simply CAN'T prevent 100% of all porn uploads into any virtual space. It doesn't work, it cannot work. There are ALWAYS ways around it in a free environment such as SL.

How do you prevent porn being displayed in PG Sims in SL? You report it to a Liason, they tell the player to delete it. If they do not comply, they get suspended and the offending material is removed.

The terminations will be fast and furious on the teen grid, but it's going to be very streamlined, I'm sure. The "Heavy Hand of Linden" will smack down those kids who think its funny to have a 30 meter tall porn billboard, just like they do in the SL grid, except with more malice and finality in the teen grid.

Have faith. Linden Lab isn't run by dolts.

LF

That's all well and good, LF, except that porn in a PG sim in a grids for adults is a very different thing. Hardcore pornography is not something that should be viewed by teenagers, so your giant porn billboard analogy would cause real hard to children. I asked the question for the very reason of wanting to know if they are going to have any approval process in place for content. It is not an unreasonable thing to expect for an environment with teenagers - the same rules and freedoms cannot possibly apply. I know Linden Lab is not run by dolts, but at the same time, they are creating a service for teenagers and asked for questions about it. If they can't answer that question of another member, how are they going to satisfactorily answer a parent who is entrusting their child to this environment.

On personal level I don't think they should be entrusting their child... they should be spending the time with them.. I hate the idea of the internet in general being the new T.V. as babysitter to a generation...

As for pR0n in Teenyland... It's gonna happen, thats for sure -- I don't think all teenagers should be tarred with the same broad brush though - I imagine the environment won't attract or maintain the interest of many of the hardcore shoot em up players..

So I don't think it's gonna be the scourge of TeenyVille - much as I don't think everyone that lives in a mature sim is a pimp.

Maybe they're gonna have to observe the world an see what emerges before a policy can be implemented. Can't find a cure for a disease that don't exist yet.

Siggy.

But the fact remains that you CANNOT police all the content in SL. Unless you turn it into a moderated content kind of thing (which LLabs obviously isn't equipped for, otherwise they would have done it for the main grid eons ago) prior to upload, you can't guarantee that someone won't see nibbly bits somewhere.

There are some folks living amongst us in SL and RL that simply turn pale when they see pornographic content. That's why we have a PG system at all in the main grid. Some folks simply do not like porn. And yet, it still crops up, even in PG sims. It is dealt with.

Porn will be dealt with in the kiddie sims too. However, you simply cannot expect LLabs to police 100% of the content 100% of the time. Won't happen.

On a more subjective note, why IS it so wrong to see nibbly bits at age 16, but it's perfectly okay to strap up with violent weaponry and nuke your fellow players to God KNows Where?

LF

Yes, you should be worried about porn being uploaded, because god for bid they use SL instead of google!

Point is, they will find a way to get porn inworld, there is nothing LL can do about it unless they watch every uploaded file.

at tell rooms full of adults on a regular basis that it's foolish, at best, and just plain dangerous, at worst, to put an internet connection anywhere that their child can use it without the entire family being able to glance over their shoulder. they're simply not equipped for it.

you all are right to be cautious and investigate a teen grid before you let your children use it. and ll should be allowed to expect parents to be involved and supervisory enough to know what their children are doing on the internet.

call me naive if you must. while you're at it, throw me loads of examples of parents that have perfectly legitimate reasons to let their children run rampant. you just might crack my dead old fashioned heart. ha