How Teen and Main Grids will NOT be separate - and our objections are ignored

Just what I suspected. Latest Linden post:

"we've taken very seriously the feedback that you've given us over the last several months regarding Teens in Second Life, their safety, and the need for a special, separate place inaccessible to the adults in the main grid."

This is nonsense. Just a pretence of taking our views into account. In actual fact, the predominate feedback has been that we disapprove of a teen grid, and don't want it to happen. There was even a forum vote which overwhelmingly reached that conclusion.

Here is a link to just one of the many threads voicing opposition.
/120/2f/23935/1.html
Anybody care to post the full list of objecting threads ? Careful examination of all these posts will show that, in the main, they express many sane, considered, and genuine concerns. They are not just knee-jerk "we object to anything new".

Most of our objections are in no way diminished by the total separateness of the two grids. They involve the sharing of the name, and the inevitable increase in teenage awareness of the main grid, vastly increasing its seductive power. The dubiousness of sucking teens into a cleaned version of a "hard porn" site, with automatic promotion to the real thing at 18. What if an ordinary hard-porn image-and-movie site did that? Recruiting a junior filth-brigade? Uproar. Many other clear and logical objections have been put forward. All ignored, it seems.

It is naive to say the grids are not connected. Here are just three ways they are:

1) One SL asset is totally transferable via simple cut-and-paste. A script. People with teens in the grid will almost immediately start routeing scripts via them for use and sale in the teen grid. Huge new commercial opportunity for adult scripters with teens. People without teens may even start selling them on ebay ( though lack of copy protection would make this commercially not too rewarding, so it might be mostly for malicious fun).

This capability raises a new problem - So LL are going to vet every script's behaviour are they ? Any idea how difficult it is to work out from a script exactly what it is doing? Any idea how much effort that would take with a steady flow of new scripts, even if you design a mechanism for catching and monitoring every single script anyone writes ? If you merely examine a script by running it, you may first have to own it (no problem in god-mode I suppose). But it may have hidden actions activated only by secret triggers, the only way to spot them would be to analyse the code itself in detail (a highly skilled job). every single script appearing in any teens inventory would have to be checked in detail, even every fumbling first attempt. Kids love things like that, and would buy such a "naughty" script secretly from each other in droves.

The answer is, of course, no such checking will take place. Every single outside script will get a free ride straight in. Even if someone reports it, it will quickly spawn multiple versions under other names.

2) If teen L$ can move between there and the real world, some teen entrepreneur (in concert with his/her parent) will quickly set up an L$ exchange route. The parent can even give them the scripts for an in-world terminal. The main grid economy could well be disturbed once the teen grid got big enough. The teen grid economy could certainly get very messed about.

Teen land may sooner or later represent a very attractive investment proposition, and we may find parents injecting considerable amounts of cash to build up the first teen land-baron. It is not clear whether such a "graduate" would be allocated commensurate land in the main grid. He/she might have to pass it on to a chain of younger brothers/sisters before the family finally cashes out. This will effect the main grid, because only a main-grid parent would have the knowledge to understand the opportunity, and therefore the funds could well be diverted from his main grid investments, rather than stright from a bank account.

3) Leavers. When you graduate you will be forced to leave all your slightly younger friends behind. Who can guess what favours will be done in both directions. Friends who totally trust each other lending passwords? How could this possibly be detected or prevented ?

Oh - one more thing. So the Teen Grid is for American kids only is it ?. Unless the others log on when they should be asleep. That is appalling discrimination. Also, the flow of 18yr old main grid graduates will be biassed against internationals? This had better not be for long, or it'll start skewing the main grid inappropriately. How on earth will the first "invitees" be chosen, with their huge effect on subsequent recruitment via their "friends". This really hasn't been thought out.

And another. How on earth can you keep adults out ? Not by credit card. Many genuine teens will have adult resident parents. Using the same credit card for both a teen and adult account will be widespread and inevitable. How to distinguish that from an adult interloper? This whole concept is riddled with holes.

My guess is - this is not Phillip's decision. I think it was a condition of the new investment money. The new investors want access to the lucrative teen market, and no adverse consideration has any power at all.

Agree with everything you say Lindar. It will be so easy for an adult, say the parent of a child who has an SL account, to log into it and who knows what will happen.

LL cannot protect these children from predictors and i can foresee both the teen and adult grids going down when they are taken to court by a parent who's child has been molested by an adult. The 8m investment they received will seem like peanuts.

LL are very good at giving us the impression that we have input into SL, but the bottom line is that the huge majority's views about the teen grid have been completely ignored. So much for resident participation.

So we sit and wait.

Alexa

I've seen this said several times now and I'm still perplexed....Second Life isn't the first game to have a teen contingent....other games like TSO let teens in the same grid as the adults and yet there haven't been any of these kind of lawsuits I keep hearing about. Not to say this couldn't happen but it seems to me it would have happened by now in TSO at the least where noted 13 year olds had wonderous profesions as prostitutes.

Unless you're privy to some information the rest of us are not regarding the Teen Grid, all of your concerns are speculation, at best.

Sounds a bit dramatic to me. Teens are all over on the web, with far less protection than LL is going to provide. Really..seems like just "doomsaying" to me.

As far as scripts go, who cares? Certainly not enough of a reason to not have a teen grid.

Money? Well..don't see the big deal there either. If they sell it, who cares, if they don't, who cares. Don't think it will have much of an impact either way.

My guess is teens are gonna grow bored with SL very quickly once they find out it's not a grief, shoot'em up fest. Those that stick it out will learn alot and create some great things most likely.

Also, for those that are screaming danger, teens have many, many sites now that are far more accessible to pedophiles. A seperate grid, with LL monitoring uploads and activities seems pretty damn secure. Is it foolproof? No. But either is anything else in life.

My son has a little bit of time levft before he is 13, but when he reaches that age, he is more than welcome to jion in the teen version of SL. We are very honest with each other, and he certainly knows to report any predatory behavior, and I think the creativity and skills he could learn within SL would be of real value.

I'm not even sure what your concerns are. That teens will act like teens? That an adult might somehow slip in and enslave the teen grid population without anyone reporting him or the Lindens noticing?

Just a thought -

A teen does have a barrier of sorts from entering the adult grid .. the parents credit card.

An adult has no barrier from entering the teen grid other than honesty.

Another thought tho is -
It does seem LL is making an effort at least to provide for parents concerns. Though I have no plans on letting my children play Second Life.. I will concede that is more than many games/websites that cater to teenagers will do.

the concern might be that an adult might somehow slip in and exploit the teen grid population without the Lindens noticing and/or doing anything.

the actions of the lindens with regard to monitoring behavior in the current hasn't been spotless.

also, i think people are concerned because the evidence of ll taking action isn't readily apparent (c.f. all the threads about soandso did x, and they haven't been punished ala death threats, greifing, scamming, private information, etc.).

I would call them deductions, as a result of reading all the Linden postings on the subject, but you can regard them as speculations, Juro, thats fine. Don't see how it matters what you call them. Surely the point is to apply thought, and consider if they are likely results are not.

Lets consider then, what steps the Lindens may have taken. which of my assumptions might be wrong.

My economic assumptions would collapse if there is absolutely no interchange between teen L$ and the real world, in either direction. They could do this. No money in, no money out. Everyone survives on stipend and product sales alone. Does that seem likely to you ? I don't know, but my guess is no. This is not quite watertight anyway, because commercial asset value, at least, can be brought in from outside, in the form of scripts. Which would be even more valuable in a stipend-only economy, as the main way of starting to build a cash pile quickly.

I might of course be wrong about script-importation. I rack my brains, but I don't see how they can stop it without major changes to the LSL language. Small tweaks could be easily accomodated by the parent, or the teens themselves. Do you see any way to prevent script importation, Juro ?

With regard to the rest of it, it just seems commonsense to me. Please point out anything I am missing, I'd be very grateful.

Yes, Alexa, I guess we wait.

Noted 13 yr old TSO prostitutes? Needs a bit more explanation I think, like how do you know their actual age ? What did they do which was supported by the infrastructure ? But I agree, if you can tell us more, this may have bearing on how seriously we should worry about this aspect.

Well, I dunno guys, maybe you're right, the threat to kids is no more than hundreds of other places on the web.

Its just that a 3-d world with visible working genitalia, intercourse animations, streaming RL ejaculation videos or wall pictures, all acceptable to the responsible managing company, does seem a different animal. If only because its exactly the sort of thing the media would most like to scream about and make an example of. Can't you just see the lurid articles and news items, the in-court evidence ? The lurid screen-snapshots with bits blanked out ?

I know that my description above is of the main grid, but my point is that things will leak. I can write a script to auto-generate working genitalia, no problem. Animations maybe not. But perhaps some bright spark will hack the clients and let everything in. Pretty smart, teens.

What about the legal implications of auto-graduating ppl who joined as children into a hard-core environment their parents may not have known about ?

Maybe I am committing the error of discussing LL's reassurances and protective measures as though they are seriously meant.

Perhaps its all just vapor, public relations. Perhaps they know every bit of it is easily circumvented, but they just have to put up the pretence to deflect criticism. Is that it do you think? Token gestures ?

Hold on. Unless you prevent the teens from making and uploading their own animations, you let all ours straight in too. Via the Poser output. Good grief ! This all needs so much thinking through.

not to pick on you but it gives a good place to insert my opinion.

I can't tell that you should let you kids play, indeed there are valid reasons not to. But in my opinion the PG sims in second life (ignoring anything you might see over the sim boarder if you are next to an immature (M) sim. is no worse than what you will find on the web assuming you are not looking for mature content.

Thus with these new sims I hope your decision of allowing your teens to surf the web is the same as the teen grid.

Also how old are your kids (for separating sl self from rl self I do not recommend actually answering this) Many people mature at different times. If your teen is 17 and wants to be in SL and you think they are not mature enough there is a problem, because they won't be mature enough when they are 18+. If the teen is 13 they may indeed not be ready, but in that case you the parent should think what do you need to think what do you need to teach the teen that will act like a reasonable human being in this world.

Now of course there are other factors, independent of this argument. if the teen would want to play, do you want to pay.. and are you, rightfully worried they will be addicted and spend way too much time playing.

By 15 or 16 if your teen doesn't know the dangers of anonymous people on the net, you have done something wrong, and if you think they know nothing about sex you are fooling yourself (but if you don't think they know the dangers that lurk on and off line you have done something wrong). And if you think teens under 18 won't find porn on or off line.. I'll let you stay in your dream world and we can hope they know how to hide their tracks.. (my little brother has yet to do so in a way it is not painfully obvious)

(now the 22y/o gay boy who hopes one day in the distinct future to raise kids will stop his rant/lecture, but I want to make sure people realize 18 is not a magic number as some of the other similar threads make it seem)

When we discussed this issue last week .. were were basically dismissed.

/120/41/40559/1.html

Of course I heard on the radio today about a poll where some 79% of parents place restirctions on what their child is allowed to view on the internet.

The arguement that the rest of the internet is even more unsafe isnt one that justifies a teen Second Life .. its one that says LL will not be "as bad" as the rest of the places teens go. This is also possibly true.

It isnt an arguement that argues FOR a teen Secondlife .. but rather one that argues against critics of allowing it.

An arguement I can see for Teen Second life would be learning how to work with all the technology that makes the world tick. Since this surely will be of some value to them in the future.

The difficulty is some of these are the same techniques that could bring about the concerns Lindar is explaining.

I assume somehow that all these teens will provide enough income for the much larger group of Lindin employees to monitor what teens are doing in their grid.

It seems tho .. the Teen Second Life is going to happen .. is not really a debate as far as the people that run the game's plans .. so .. the best I can say is that parents read what other peopel think and decide for themselves whats right for their kids.

Since, although some non parents on other threads have argued that we have no right , It is Ultimately the parent that gets to decide whether their child will be participating.

I hope they don't let ANY streaming media into the teen grid.. sans perhaps on linden land, and approved media for special events, preferably uploaded and hosted by LL to make sure the content at the approved URL dose not change..

And bans of creators of any genitalia in the teen grid.. but I must say I believe teens DO have genitalia (at least I remember having some), and I must say it seemed to be "fully functional" (to quote data from star-trek) at about age 13.. So while I think it need not be in the teen grid (like it need not be in PG sims).. on some level I don't think it is the end of the world for the player if they see it.

Colette Meiji: I'm not sure there should be a teen SL... besides the laws here in the US makes it hard to say: "parents if you want you can let your teen into SL proper." In reality I don't see anything wrong with a mature teen (with the parents knowledge) to be allowed into SL proper, but society says 18, not maturity is the magic number.. And I agree I can only hope parents read, and make the right decisions. but I must say in todays society well rounded information is lacking, and people willing to look it up is lacking, glad you don't seem to be in that category.

Lindar,

As for any exchange between the Teen Grid and the Adult Grid, Robin was pretty clear in the Announcment forum:




I highlighted text that deserves special attention. Objects (including scripts) will not be allowed to migrate from the regular grid to Teen grid. No chat, either.

We cannot say for sure whether or not LL will maintain a separate asset server, but since anyone could post the UUID of an M rated object to an external site, thus allowing a teen the possibility of obtaining an item, LL should consider a separate asset server for the Teen grid. They may have already included that, we simply don't know.

I'm sorry, Juro, I just dont see how it is possible to prevent someone doing a simple cut and paste of a script from a text file. Thats all it takes, and it cannot be distinguished from typing it in word by word (though they could do that if necessary).

Adult on main grid cuts and pastes script to text file. Gives, sends or sells it to teen. Teen cuts and pastes it to empty new script, exactly like writing their own. (I do cut and paste to text files all the time - its how I retrieve scripts developed on the preview grid ).

Sure, you can examine and analyse any script anyone creates (but surely at huge cost).
Furthermore, in order to stop a wicked new script propagating in-world into multiple objects with multiple names, wouldn't you need to delay its being saved to inventory by hours or days until it had been checked by a skilled person? Like a post to a moderated forum ? Wouldn't you need to recheck every time a script was changed? Impossibly impractical in every way.

Putting that aside - you CAN'T stop them being typed into teens inventories.

Unless you don't allow the kids to write scripts of their own, its technically impossible to prevent, surely ? Can you suggest how ?

Will not anyone else please respond to these serious technical issues? Is there something here I am missing ?

And this is a new revelation? Almost every change they have MADE this year has been against the wishes of the majority, and against the best interests of their customer base. There have always been threats of people walking, but now it is happening, and I am one of them.

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I can see the concern with animations, but what exactly is an "adult script"? A display of 4-letter words?

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Sure they could... as the teen could go out onto the web, google 'porn' and grab an image and *try* to upload it.

As for scripts, well, I don't see the harm in that. Scripts are not by nature M or PG.. they need poses, pictures, animations, etc. to make them so.

Can you elaborate a bit more on what your concern is about scripts migrating over to the teen grid - which would have to be done outside of any LL channel, as we know.

Where exactly are they copying these scripts from...they won't have access to these forums either we have been told.

I was just trying to show, Juro, that your confident acceptance of LL's statement that they will not "allow" things is ill founded, if they have no technical way of preventing them. Note they did say "objects". Maybe the omission of "scripts" was deliberate.

My concerns are several. I feel the technical difficulties of censoring teen content are being overlooked. Thus :

Unless teens are forbidden to write scripts, all our scripts can enter, and remain unless/until monitored/checked.

Unless teens are forbidden to create animations and poses, all our animations and poses can enter, and remain unless/until monitored/checked.

Unless no new item can be used/copied/modified/transferred until it has been checked, there will be a period in which it can spread, hide and mutate across the grid.

Because a script can create a sophisticated scripted object, if scripts get in, clever objects get in, and can remain after the not-yet-checked script deletes itself. So all new objects will need checking/monitoring too.

All this checking/monitoring, if taken seriously, will absorb very substantial manpower, particularly the scripts, which will need a high level of skill, attention and analysis.

If you ask me why it matters if this stuff gets in, then surely you are leaning towards
"Let the Linden's make these necessary token gestures - they know its impossible - they just can't say so"
Is that your position? The vaunted safeguards are largely a pretence, but lets not notice because after all it doesn't much matter?

If you think it matters if this content gets in, then the technical issues of practicality do actually matter, and need discussion. Unless I am wrong, the asset monitoring effort, if not a sham, will be huge, increasing, and costly. Who will pay ? The teens? Us?

The more I think into the technicalities, the more I incline to the view that these vaunted protections are utterly impractical or hugely costly, and therefore largely a public-relations smokescreen, or at least a bit of head-in-the-sand.

They won't be able to keep this stuff out, or afford to thoroughly monitor it on arrival, Juro. They will just rely on people reporting things, and then make token gestures of removing the glaring examples.

Can anyone who examines the technicalities disagree ?

Talen

I bet you one or two of our major content providers are looking round for teen friends or relatives right now.

And a few people are scripting suitable modified new versions too, in case the Lindens threaten reprisals against the creator of any script found to be the same in both grids.

There's potentially (and eventually) big money to be made by collaborating quite legally in a joint business venture with a teen.

If teen entry is highly restricted, the first ones in may well start advertising their services for joint ventures, if only by trawling round older people in their parents circle.

Bit like some countries, where you can only set up business in collaboration with a local partner, who needn't actually do much more than take a cut.

If you're worried about it, don't let your teens play. I get really tired of all the "must protect the children!!" stuff. Sorry, not my job. If you have kids it's your job and yours alone. LL will no doubt provide supervision and handle abuses seriously. If that's not good enough for people then that's fine, but to suggest that the teen grid shouldn't exist because kids might be exposed to bad things applies to everything outside the front door of your house as well.

You misunderstand me totally Chip.

My concern is quite dispassionate, involving weighing the issues for and against this new development.
I see the Lindens saying don't worry "we will prevent this and that" like money and asset interchange.
I examine the technicalities, and conclude they can't, they're misleading us.
I seek to communicate with other technical people to see if I might be wrong.
I seek to open other peoples eyes to the actual true situation.
I have the tiniest smidgen of hope that maybe the Lindens just haven't thought this through, and might reconsider.
Thats it.


I deliberately don't involve my own personal opinion on how much protection teens actually need. Thats another entire issue, and a matter which involves a difficult mix of law and personal moral judgement.

I address only the gap between Linden words and practicality, and how this "false reassurance" is being used to help justify their ignoring all our various objections. As they do in their recent announcement quoted at thread start. Read it and you'll see what I mean.

Come on Chip, you are a highly skilled and experienced resident. What do you think? Do you see how they can prevent asset interchange in the way I have described?

That's what I get for just skimming Apologies Lindar. I agree that there's no way for them to completely prevent crossover of assets like scripts or textures. I think the obvious way to mitigate that is to use a different currency in the teen grid and not allow it to be bought and sold for real money. A kid with a parent on the main grid might gain an advantage, but if there's no monetary benefit to it then what would be the harm really? I'm hoping that the economy of the teen grid will be self contained and tightly controlled with no ties to the real world. If they do that then crossover of assets that aren't violations of the teen grid TOS won't be much of a problem.

Bless you, Chip.
So I'm not getting delusional after all.