Teen grid observations...

Economics are OK, but it should be against TOS to sell the "KidGridBucks" as Merwan said.

All you are doing is providing incentive for dishonest adults to want to log into the teen grid.

If you really want the kids to be able to make real l$, maybe have stuff they build sold on the "Adult" grid who can buy the goods their kids make or something.

That way there will be no incentive at all for Adults to be on the teen grid.

Robin, I have a great deal of respect for SL. Enough to pay more per month than I've ever paid for any kind of entertainment that doesn't involve an airplane.

That said, I'd like to point out that the "limitations" of the chat medium have resulted in a community in which people from all walks of life have developed relationships on the tenor of marriage, which have extended into their real lives. Hundreds of dollars are made in that medium. Sexual pleasure is given and received through that medium. Lives and livelihoods have been made and ruined using chat.

It is grossy unacceptable for you to come here and say that the reason you couldn't answer the questions put to you is because chat is hard, limited, or that you weren't prepared. You had nothing but time to prepare for these questions! You weren't asked anything that hasn't been fleshed out at length on the forums.



Yes, well, it doesn't help that not only is this a trivializing comment - especially for those of us who have children - but moreover, you did not answer the questions about teen sexual behavior with more conviction and clarity. Ha, ha, silly customers. What do we know about teenagers and life.

I'll remind you that it is your customers who have made SL what it is because we bring to it the wealth of our experiences, dammit. Collectively, we know more and do more than any specialist you could bring in, which is what makes SL so unique. Have you lost sight of that already?

If we tell you that in our experiences as parents, teachers, police, counselors, friends and humans who remember being that age, that teenagers will make mature content and the honor system is a laughably bad way to monitor it considering that parents have no direct way to monitor it... then how DARE you laugh that off.

Teenage years is the time when they are just coming to their sexual awareness, but there is a vast difference between 13 and 17. Yet, they will all be thrown into the same trough and trusted on the honor system?!

Additionally, there are different FIRST LIFE social consequences for the sexual behavior of boys and girls. If they are going to be learning about sex here - and oh, they will - bear in mind that a 13 year old girl may well take what she learns from a 17 year old boy and employ it prematurely in her real life, which, without putting too fine a point on it, could prove disasterous for her... and impact her for the rest of her life, which will not be lived in SL in its entirety.

THIS IS NOT FUNNY. In real life, a father or mother could intervene in this kind of interaction. If parents aren't allowed to even log on to check, then how do you propose to mitigate this kind of subtle social moire. Hmm?

At least monitor what is being uploaded. Have a Linden physically check to see what is being uploaded. Make the kids wait. This isn't like "chat". What goes on in the mature (and PG zones) of SL is more like interactive pornography. I think it is your obligation to examine the animations, textures and sounds that are being uploaded. That would be a reasonable precaution. You might also provide a chat logging function for parents that is password protected so that we can at least look at what is being said.

I don't care if you think it is wrong or excessive to monitor your child's behavior. Parents have the right and the option of doing that, ESPECIALLY in an environment that specifically bans parents from viewing the goings-on of their children upon pain of account termination.



I don't care if the Townhalls are PR events so long as you answer the questions. If you can't do it, then it isn't PR; it's a waste of time.

I am less concerned for the economy, which is only money and can be remade if necessary, than I am for children who cannot be remade. The effects are permanent.

Address the following concern, please, because I thought of it immediately when I heard that children were being considered for a second grid, and so I know it will take no more than twice that long for kids to figure this out:

If a teen has their parent's credit card number in order to begin an SL-Teen account, what then is to stop them from using that credit card number to open a regular SL account? Even a savvy parent may not understand the two charges means two separate accounts. Will it say on my credit card statement "SECOND LIFE - LINDEN LABS - TEEN ONLY" and "SECOND LIFE - LINDEN LABS - ADULT ONLY"? What if it is the same credit card that their parent uses for SL Adult?

Since you aren't going to let me check on my kids' accounts, then how do you plan to do it if you want my money? How, beyond the honor system, will you address these accessibility issues?

Nevermind the floating expo island. We arne't there yet. I want to know specifically how you're going to keep kids where they go and adults where they go, and keep kids behaving as they ought to, with adult supervision, without adults.

Please understand that I say this not as a criticism of SL, or its staff, as a general concept. I say this as a parent who is deeply concerned for my child. Concerned enough that I would not, at this point, allow my child to use SL Teen, and I would strongly recommend against it to everyone else who I know.

Yours,

M.

OMG PEDOPHILES ZOMG WONT SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN OMG OMG


christ....

I've thought about why they don't want adults in the teen grid. I doubt it has anything to do with pedophiles. After all what would they care about being banned? If they were caught it would be a lot more serious then a ban. And a pedophile would have no moral trouble pretending to be a teen to get into the grid. Adults in the teen grid wouldn't be odd, after all that's how every other game works.

So, I assume the reason is due to resources. they said there starting off with 12 sims(or so), so they prolly don't want us moving over there using all the resources from them.

First of all, it's quite different to regurgitate a response after thinking about it for at least a couple minutes, and an entirely different beast to come up with rapid-fire responses to a wide range of questions, on-the-fly.

Second of all, to bash Robin for not being an instantaneous Stephen King is ridiculous. Not everyone is comfortable with text as a communication medium, especially when you have 300 people listening in on your every word.




Teens will have sex, online and off. If the lindens catch them, three strikes and they're out. What more do you want, distribution of virtual condoms? Virtual abstinance courses?

Look on the bright side; you can't get pregnant or catch any diseases while experimenting with sex online.



Yes, how dare she try to inject humor into a throng of angry parents... how dare she not answer every silly question with a straight face! Where's Spock when you need him? (Star Trek Spock, not Doctor)



And this is different, exactly, how, from Yahoo, AOl Instant MEssenger, MSN, ICQ, There, IRC, any web-based chat room, or really ANY virtual medium where teens congregate?

Oh, that's right, Linden supervision. How silly of me to forget. This is not anarchy at it's finest, in case you hadn't noticed. There will be Liasons, there will be instant live help for uncomfortable situations, there will be stricter punishments on the teen grid.

If you don't want your childroons to be frolicking in a teenaged virtual environment, you might as well just unlpug your modem from the wall right now, because they'll find out about sex somewhere, somehow, much earlier than you'd probably like them too. Welcome to the Information Age.




I dunno, how about looking over their shoulder when they're playing? Did that ever occur to you?

When I was a kid, my parents put the computer in the dead center of the house, where it was viewable from almost any angle. It kept me out of trouble (mostly) because I knew they were always watching me. Can you do the same? Or would you rather rally against the humor-filled clowns at Linden Lab?



This doesn't scale well. At all. None. Sure, it works if there are only 500 kids on the grid. What happens when it's 5000? 50,000? 500,000? Are you jsut going to keep throwing people at the problem to monitor the naughty bits? Even though some will get through somehow?

You don't need pictures of hardcore pornography to cyber, you know. You don't even need custom animations, as any sex shop prior to 1.4 will tell you.

As for a chat log... hah. First of all, most parents are clueless when it comes to computers, so a password-encoded chatlog will be useful to perhaps 3% of all parents. Furthermore, if you want to also log private messages, that's a serious breach of privacy on your child's part. Perhaps if you weren't so nosey they wouldn't be so inclined to get into trouble, away from you, hmm?

FURTHERMORE, kids are bright, and they would immediately grasp the simple concept of uninstall/reinstall every time if they had even the faintest inkling that their parents were prying in on their intimate conversations. And they will, because kids grok technology better than their parents, in most circumstances.




again, watch over their shoulder? Why is this so difficult? How can LLabs track that? Oh, they can't.

The reasoning is thus: If you allow parents to create their own accounts on the teen grid, then you pretty much open up the floodgates for the pedophiles to run in and pretend that THEY are "parents". And that would be WORSE.

Think of it; instead of them running around acting like your kid's peers, you're instead going to have them running around acting like an authority figure. Which is harder to say no to? Oh, that's right, the "trusted adult". Whoops! There goes any sort of good reason for a parent account.

think of the CHILDREN!!!!!111oneone



Again, not everyone is an instantaneous Stephen King.



Yeah? Chances are your teen has been exposed to worse things online at this point than almost anything a teen grid could throw at them.

Have you ever even BEEN into the Yahoo Chat rooms? Here, lemme log on and show you what's going on, RIGHT NOW, in the "teen" area:
----
BOYS JERKING FOR BOYS (40 PPL, 15 webcams)
GIRL'S JUDGE COCKS (40 ppl, 13 webcams)
incest room (what the HELL IS THIS DOING IN ANY AREA OF YAHOODSIGHSDJHD)
GIrls who love to give head (40 ppl, 4 webcams)
Hot Moms who want young dick (perfect example of letting adults into a teen area)
Kinky Little Girls (fer christ's sake)
Men 4 Boys (another example of adults in the wrong place)
5-9 girls do it with older guys (Yahoo should have been shut down for crap like this)
Daddie's Little Girls (god dammit)
Girls like older men best (errrrggghhh)
Subs and Slaves (are you getting the point yet?)
HORNY TEENS MEET 4 SEX (exhibit J)
PINKS BRA AND GANG BANG ROOM
GIRLS WHO WANT 2B PREG SOON (aaaarrrrggghhhh)
------

If your kid uses Yahoo IM on a regular basis, chances are they've stumbled into at least one of those rooms, which are definitely NOT kid friendly.

Now, keep in mind, this is because Yahoo is 100% UNSUPERVISED. The Teen Grid that Linden Lab is proposing is SUPERVISED and ONLY OPEN DURING CERTAIN HOURS. That will (hopefully) keep the amount of sexual shenanigans down to a minimum (but like I've said before, it's impossible to eliminate), or at least remove the more deviant forms of it.

but that shouldn't matter, because you're watching over your kid's shoulder... right? Right???




It is a good question, but, regardless of the answer, it's not 100% foolproof. MAny kids can impersonate their parents just fine over a text medium. Many parents also don't give a crap. So, there you have it.



Watch over your kids' shoulders.

Yup, they are or at least most think so judging by the reaction of the moms when I take my daughter to the playground on a weekday and she's not visibly in my vicinity. As soon as they see her come over to me or call to me their hackles lower.

The really creepy thing is that I've viewed unaccompanied men at the playground with circumspection too, yet firmly believe that there is nothing to fear. Go figure. Maybe if I didn't wear a trench coat with nothing under it...

"Teens will have sex, online and off. If the lindens catch them, three strikes and they're out. What more do you want, distribution of virtual condoms? Virtual abstinance courses? "

Transfering pronographic materials to anyone under the age of 16 is against the law. So the three strikes rule is absurd. ll cannot take it upon themselves to allow anyone over the age of 16 to transfer pornographic materals to any child under the age of 16. They would then be allowing their own users to break the law twice; before any action is taken against the sex offender. It takes 10 seconds to drag a texture from inventory and drop to another user.



Unsolicited Obscene Material Sent to a Child
handles leads from individuals reporting the sexual exploitation of children.

Please contact us if you have information that will help in our fight against child sexual exploitation. Your information will be forwarded to law enforcement for investigation and review, and, when appropriate, to the Internet Service Provider. The U.S. Congress has funded these initiatives for reporting child sexual exploitation.


If you know about a child who is in immediate risk or danger, call local law enforcement. If you have any information about a missing child, call 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-567.

Types of Child Sexual Exploitation
possession, manufacture, and distribution of child pornography
online enticement of children for sexual acts
child prostitution
child-sex tourism
child sexual molestation (not in the family)
unsolicited obscene material sent to a child
misleading domain name

NCMEC, in partnership with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, state and local law enforcement , and Internet Crimes Against Children Task Forces, serves as the national CyberTipline and as the national Child Pornography Tipline 1-800-843-5678. Important Links


Other Tiplines
Europe www.inhope.org
Canada www.cybertip.ca
Adult Obscenity
www.obscenitycrimes.org


The Possession, Manufacture, and Distribution of Child Pornography
Child pornography has been defined under federal statute as a visual depiction of a minor (child younger than 1 engaged in sexually explicit conduct ( 18 U.S.C. 2256).



The Online Enticement of Children For Sexual Acts
Use of the Internet to entice, invite, or persuade a child to meet for sexual acts, or to help arrange such a meeting, is a serious offense (18 U.S.C. 2425).

Unsolicited Obscene Material Sent to a Child
It is an unfortunate reality of the Internet that children will encounter obscene material online. Many times this material is attached as an image(s) or hyperlink(s) sent to a child in an unsolicited E-mail or "spam."
To combat this problem NCMEC takes reports of unsolicited obscene material sent to a child. It is a violation of criminal law for any person to knowingly or attempt to send or transfer obscene material to another individual who has not attained the age of 16 years (18 U.S.C.A. 1470).

Please report any incidents where a child may have received visual depictions of persons engaging in sexually explicit conduct that is obscene.

If you are an adult who is concerned about adult obscenity not involving children on the Internet, please make a report to www.obscenitycrimes.org.



Report



Misleading Domain Name
It is a federal offense to use a misleading domain name on the Internet with the intent to deceive a minor into viewing material that is harmful to minors, regardless of whether the material meets the legal definition of obscenity (18 U.S.C. 2252B). Please report the use of a misleading domain name that has directed a child to a web site containing harmful materials to children.

Adults who are concerned about obscenity that has not been accessed by a child on the Internet may file a report at www.obscenitycrimes.org.

Report

Cant you scirpt the Av so it is always dressed and can never be fully nude ? because i have a feeling that alot of kids will run around nude for the fun of it but if they cant get fully nude there is no trouble

Martin,

Whilst I agree wholeheartedly ... (and isn't it 18 in the US, not 16?)

Laws vary around the world, and what is illegal in country A, might be perfectly ok in country B. And I make no judgement about which is right or wrong. This IS the internet. It's international, and as yet, no two countries have been able to come up with a complimentary set of laws governing it. What if in country Z, it's ok to transfer porn to a 14 year old... (such countries do exist), does the US government have a right to interfere? Or what if in country Y, the laws state you need to be over 21... Do they then have the right to sue LL over adult materials passed to an 18 or 19 year old?

Basically, we need to be very careful here. We should stick to saying that (and I think LL have made a good compromise... some may disagree) that you need to be over 18 for the adult grid, not said, you must be an adult, because those ages vary round the world. It the UK for instance, you can legally have a child at 16 (you'd be pretty stupid to do so, of course), but owning a gun even at 18 is a definite no-no...

Legislation isn't the way, unless EVERY country on the planet can agree. And I think we're a long way from that.

As I said above though... I agree with what you're saying... we do need to be VERY careful here. The teen grid is a bad idea...

The law of the hosting server's country has always prevailed in courts.

So, in this case, sorry, world.

U.S server = U.S. law.

Not so...
US Courts have, in the past, overruled that on European hosts.

Please understand the US concept of obscenity which is always requires a Judicial test. Since 1973 the Miller test has been the de jure test for "obscenity" and most notably has been interpreted often as In practice, pornography showing genitalia and sexual acts is not normally obscene according to the Miller test.

"Obscene" is a technical, legal term and is not mere smut. Finally, should kid-grid open, I expect it not long before someone imports genitalia.tga which would not be - on its face - obscene.

Aaron, I think you may have missed my question from earlier and since you never responded, let me ask again:

*IF* LL were to allow adults access to Teen SL, how would you monitor your kids?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but your argument seems to center more around the lack of adult supervision, so I'm very interested to know how you think things would be *if* adults were allowed?

Siobhan those are US laws. Reguarding players and companies, from the US.

The Miller test was developed in the 1973 case Miller v. California. It has three parts:

Whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,
Whether the work depicts/describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable state law,
Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

The appellant (known only as Miller) in the case had conducted a mass mailing campaign to advertise the sale of illustrated books, euphemistically called "adult" material. He was found guilty by a California state court of having violated California Penal Code 311.2 (a), a misdemeanor, by knowingly distributing obscene matter. The conviction was affirmed by the Superior Court of California upon appeal. As stated in the preface to Chief Justice Warren Burger's majority opinion, the "Appellant's conviction was specifically based on his conduct in causing five unsolicited advertising brochures to be sent through the mail in an envelope addressed to a restaurant in Newport Beach, California. The envelope was opened by the manager of the restaurant and his mother. They had not requested the brochures and complained to the police."

According to the Court's decision, the materials in question "primarily ... consist[ed] of pictures and drawings very explicitly depicting men and women in groups of two or more engaging in a variety of sexual activities, with genitals often prominently displayed."

There were two main precedents used by the Court in its majority opinion. Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957) was used mainly as it applied to the holding that obscene material is not protected by the First Amendment. Memoirs v. Massachusetts, 383 U.S. 413 (1966) was used as precedent for its extended test of what constitutes obscene material. The main point focused on by the opinion was the break Memoirs had with Roth in stating that in order to be categorized as obscene the material must "be utterly without redeeming social value."

Obscenity has several connotations. Obscenity and its parent adjective obscene come from the Latin word obscenus, meaning "foul, repulsive, detestable", and possibly derived from ob caenum, literally "from filth". The term is most often used in a legal context to describe expression (words, images, actions) that offend the prevalent sexual morality of the time.

Despite its long formal and informal use with a sexual connotation, the word still retains the meanings of "inspiring disgust" and even "inauspicious; ill-omened", as in such uses as "obscene profits", "the obscenity of war", and the like. It can simply be used to mean profanity, or it can mean anything that is taboo, indecent, abhorrent, or disgusting.

The definition of obscenity differs from culture to culture, between communities within a single culture, and also between individuals within those communities. Many cultures have produced laws to define what is considered to be obscene, and censorship is often used to try to suppress or control materials that are obscene under these definitions, usually including, but not limited to pornographic material. Because the concept of obscenity is often ill-defined, it can be used as a political tool to try to restrict freedom of expression. Thus, the definition of obscenity can be a civil liberties issue.

As a common carrier, it is not Linden Labs's responsibility. They can only guarantee a general modicum of support that such actions do not become commonplace.

If you're so up in arms about folks over the age of 16 (or 1 giving out porn to minors, I suggest you deflect your efforts to the AIM and Yahoo chat rooms. If those services were routinely raided and shut down, your argument may have merit. Sadly, they remain fully open 24/7 without any dent in the amount of obscene material being sent to (and from) minors.

You'll get a bigger catch with a larger net and a bigger school of fish, you know.

And please re-read the rest of my post, which you seemed to deem unimportant to reply to. I think the rest of my post has a lot of merit in it.

LF

It's the end of the world as we know it.

Most assuredly the launching of the Teen grid is going to escalate into global nuclear war and our days are numbered.

Save yourselves while you can! Oh wait, you can't do anything about it because the entire earth is going to be destroyed.

It's the Linden's fault too.

However, I am certain if we talk about inane topics and freak out in terror enough in the forums it might help.

Well, no really it wont.

The teens are going to spell the end of the world and it's the Lindens fault for letting them do it.

On the topic of how LL will control obscene/explicit content from minors; Just how will LL be able to monitor all the various radio stations streaming on the plots of land? There is no real way to prove that a station played a MATURE/EXPLICIT song or stream even if it were to be reported. Will radio streams even be allowed? I'd really appreciate LL to comment on this.

I love how people who have genuine concerns about the grid are just dismissed as making much ado about nothing. The grid is not the end of the world, no one has claimed it is. However, there are some serious questions about the handling of the service that have been asked, and just rudely dismissing them is hardly an answer.

Here's what I'd really like to know:

For those parents who are very concered about expicit images, content, streaming music in Teen SL, what are you doing to prevent your child from having access to that stuff now?

All of those things are readily available on sites around the web, how do you monitor that?

Chris.. it *is* getting a little ridiculous. I understand that parents have valid concerns. I have read them over and over again. What I have *NOT* read are any suggestions on how to fix the 'issue' they seem to have.

I guess I'm just missing the entire issue here. All of the concerns voiced are valid in many ways, and more, IRL or on the web via a million chat clients. Offensive content is the same.

I'm just trying to understand why people are so concerned about.

Actually suggestions have been made on the controlling of content question. The controlling of access by adults is a much harder thing to answer, because they can't even control that on the main grid since they use the honor system when it comes to stating your age.

I agree that the problem is rampant on AOL, Yahoo, etc. Does that mean Linden Lab should just turn a blind eye to it in their own service offering and not worry about it (everyone else is doing it!)? AOL btw has been sued many times for problems related to child pornography and sexual predators on the service. It is one of the reasons they have worked so hard to create parental controls and monitored accounts that do provide additional oversight for parents. It is a difficult problem, that is why there are people opposed to the grid altogether (I am not one of them, I do think it has value).

Concerns about pornography, child predators, and about how money will be handled are what seem to be raised the most often. Yes, a certain amount of hysteria surrounds the topic, which is not surprising when you are talking about protecting children. Linden Lab can ignore all of it and do whatever they want, but I think they do listen to input and that is why people have voiced their concerns and ideas.

Simply because they don't have all the answers yet, doesn't mean they are being rude. It just means they don't have all the answer yet.

I think we all just need to be more patient. As they said, the Teen Grid isn't going up until they do have all the answers.

I wasn't saying Linden Lab was being rude - I was referring to the sky is falling posts.

Juro,

I am not a parent - but one thing I will point out that is unique to SL over any other environment is that we have the ability to force an image onto someone else who is in the vicinity with us, and to offer images to others without any approval dialog - you just instantly see the image. It is not so much about kids uploading porn to view themselves (why would they upload it when they could just look at it locally). It is about it being displayed to others, including those children who do not want to see it. Whatever protections are in place to keep children from seeing hardcore porn become moot if it can be displayed to them by someone else without the child seeking it out.

BTW, I am not even against pornography in the slightest. I don't think a child is harmed by seeing the naked body. I do however think that children are harmed by seeing hardcore pornography - there is certainly a difference between a child seeing the naked human body and seeing a woman engaged in sex with an animal or some such thing, n'est-ce pas?