Minors Minors Everywhere...

This is kind of a weird discussion. So the Teen Grid was to keep underage players away from Mature areas? Well, that makes sense to me now, but you know what? When I first heard of it I thought the whole idea was to stop pedophiles from grooming minors in the main grid as they would all be in a separate area.

Anyway, I guess it wouldn't work anyway - a minor in the main grid isn't going to confess to being underage (so perverts won't know anyway), and what with adult players adopting child avatars for a whole variety of reasons, it all suddenly seems like a pointless exercise.

Its not like RL, where a shopkeeper (or whoever) can refuse to serve someone who LOOKS underage unless they provide ID.

I suppose until we get to the era of iris scans or thumbprints and identity cards, its going to remain a potential problem. But one small crumb of comfort is that SL sex is comic book standard, its not even comparable with porn movies. (Though I have to confess I have no experience (RL or SL) or BDSM or any of that stuff.) If there IS a foolproof way to keep minors out of the main grid, I guess it would have been thought of by now.

I only brought it up because I found it disturbing. It is really crappy that I have to be a snitch and turn people in that have confided in me because they thought they could trust me to only have them come back in another account and tell everyone that IS okay with them being underage that I can't be trusted. Really nice.

I will! My credit is so messed up at the moment I'd welcome somebody to steal my identity! Perhaps they could clean it up a bit for me! XD

Seriously, people write their ss# on job applications every day. The turn over in Human Resource departments is one of the fastest out there. I think their are better odds of having a a disgruntled Personel Manager run off with a list of ss#'s than a bonded identity verification company.

There was a poll taken some years back and the results were pretty interesting. Contrary to all the media-induced paranoia regarding Internet based Identity Theft. The #1 cause of stolen credit card #'s was the food service (waiters, waitresses & bartenders) & Retail Sales.

Anyways.. a credit card is not a valid source of age identification. Look at the WoW population with a huge Teen and Pre-Teen player base. With the exception of the handful of kids who buy gametime cards at Walmart with their allowance; how do you think they pay their subscriptions? Mom and Dad's credit card. And, I sure hope their parents are over 18.

Just my $.02 Lindens regarding age verification.

As for the OT.. I work and play in the SL Mature Industry. I see obvious teens walk through the doors of what ever club I'm haunting at the time, every day. I advise all my fellow staff members to follow one simple guideline. Ask the AV in question flat out.. "Are you over 18 years old in RL?".

If they answer "Yes".. as a club or land owner, your ass is covered as far as liability in the chat logs. If they answer "No" or don't answer at all; Eject and Ban.

Reporting an underage AV is sort of futile. If their intent all along was to visit Mature content while creating the account, I somehow doubt they indicated they stated they were 15 years old on the New Account Creation screen. And, really.. that's all a Linden is going to have to check when they receive the Report.

While I don't see sharing the "Hump Me" poseball set with another resident as a particularly high level of emotional involvement, I would like to think that, if I do, the real person operating the avatar sharing "Hump Me" with me is an adult. Not because I ever plan to know the person in real life, not that I'm afraid of any criminal action. Not that I think I would be contributing to the minor's delinquency since, for better or worse (mostly worse), children in contemporary society have a great deal of sexual awareness. And heck, if I could do a virtual "Hump Me" when I was a teen, I might not have done the real life, live action "Hump Me." It's just that, for whatever reason, the though that the person operating the avatar sharing the "Hump Me" poseball set with me might not be an adult makes me feel icky. For that reason alone, I'd like to see that minors are kept off the main grid, or at least out of "mature" areas.

I think that someone who offers adult content has a certain level of responsibility to shield it from minors. However, someone who offers adult content does not have responsibility for the moral and emotional development of others' children. The parents of the children have that ultimate responsibility. I think that the responsibility of the one who offers adult content is to at least not circumvent anything that a parent might do to restrict their children's access to adult content, and to do anything possible to make it easier for parents to make decisions for their children in that regard.

A credit card, for example, may not be proof of age. However, it's reasonable to expect parents to regulate their children's use of credit cards. (And in my own personal opinion, the best way to regulate their children's use of credit cards is to "just say no." Sure, children may take and use parents' cards without permission. But Linden Labs can't be responsible for what parents do to keep their own credit cards safe. It's also easy enough for children to fill out credit card applications to fraudulently obtain credit cards; but again, it's not Linden Labs's responsibility to monitor how easily and irresponsibily banks pass out credit cards like piňata candy.

So sure I expect Linden Labs to try to keep minors off the main grid. However, I do not expect Linden Labs to work miracles or safeguard the moral and emotional development of children everywhere.

Of course, it's possible that you are not talking to kids, but actually talking to F.B.I. agents or German child-porn investigators. In that case, you may want to protect yourself, tell the person that you are going to file a report, and actually file the report. Otherwise, you might get on a suspect list and find your snail mail and e-mail soon filled with offers for child porn, with an agent somewhere just waiting for you to momentarily giving into curiosity so you can become another number on the convictions list. With internet offenses against minors being the most media-friendly endeavor of the F.B.I. at the moment, the act of being a nice guy can quickly lead to a lot of criminal trouble for you. Whether you have committed a crime or you are pure as the driven snow, enduring a criminal investigation is one of those things in life that qualifies as miserable. It's up to you to decide, but being the trusted confidante of minors on the main grid may not be worth the criminal investigation risks.

Actually in my eyes and i beleve the eyes of the law , that LINDEN LAB is repsonable for allowing minors ont here teen grid , even though in there TOS which wouldnt hold up in court trys to push this off on the consumer, basically its there servers , sims we rent them for a fee , there responsablity to verify ages since they actually own a teen grid and do not enforce there own policies

You think this is new info?! It's been like that ever since the unverified accounts fiasco started!!

All the cool kids are doing it. Only the squares stay in the teen grid these days!

I personally don't care. It's not like minors have never checked out porn on the internet before. Its up to their parents to deal with that.

They aren't getting in the way of my fun and I can get rid of anyone who does through various means so it's no big deal to me!

Gosh. These Integrity discussions take me back. How long ago was it announced? Four, five, six months? I can't believe how time flies. The UK was about the only country outside the US pretty well covered IIRC, although not well enough. Integrity Services are a registered data controller in the UK and have a data centre here. The speculated verification options available to them wouldn't have worked for everybody though. (Not everybody has a passport, not everybody is on the electoral roll, etc., etc.).

...but NO age verification! We're all against it sometimes!

Really?

I'm not *shrugs*

...and has been.

Mari

just get rid of all the stupid e thugs and a lot of your minor problems would be solved

Stereotypes are a real time saver!

The only way to do it is to make voice a requirement for everyone. The minors will be flushed out instantly!

/me covers his head and runs...

*trips POW*

I know of 2 cases now, where this has occurred. Both of the people are well over 18 in RL. It took them 2 weeks be able to log in again.

Who knows how much more of this kind of griefing has occured?

This is effectively true now, but was questionable until March 2007, when a court struck down the provision of the 1998 Child Online Protection Act (COPA) that required such measures. Prior to the recent decision, enforcement of that provision was blocked pending the outcome of the case. I don't know whether the Justice Department is appealing it, nor whether Congress is revising the law.


That would not have been enough under COPA, which required some sort of external verification other than the user's word for it.

With that provision struck down, and its future uncertain, it's unclear whether LL has a real need for more verification. There may be laws in other countries that require it, and I have no idea whether any state laws restricting access of pornography and/or obscenity to minors could apply.

yeah its a real potential issue.

Want give someone real headaches - report them as underaged. They might not even be able to pay tier, etc.

How about No Payment on File people - you force them to verify their identy - boom.



If verification would mean the end to "guilty until proven innocent" stuff - Id be all for it.

OF course my guess is we will get verification and STILL be guilty until proven innocent on this issue.


Im sure those who play as child Avs - like Mari receive a disproportionate number of these problems.

If you ask for a c.c. as proof of age the kids will just steal their parents, if you ask for somthing else like ssn guess what the kids will do? if a LL or any other platform on the internet offers adult only content, and are lied to by kids, what can they do to keep them off?. The only way to stop this is not to offer adult content. But why should adults forfeit "legal adult entertainment" because a minor lied or stole his/her parents I.D.

It is upto the parents to monitor their own childrens use of the internet.

At the time Integrity was offering that brilliant verification service, in which they confirmed my identity as John Smith born Jan 1st 1950 ssn 123451234, I proposed a better system to LL, but after an initial reply expressing vague awareness of my proposal, I ignored by the powers that be.

If I were a teen, why would I want to play a child Av?. I would venture a guess that very, very few teens that are on the main grid, if any, play a child Av.

It would be an adult Av all the way and not a short adult Av either.

Uh huh.. And which Integrity product was used to do this verification? The same one that LL was (is?) looking at?

Since when does reasonble logic enter into why people fire off ARs ?


I agree I think very few teens will play as teens or children AVs

I think even FEWER teens will tell anyone they are a teen.

But lots of people are Idiots and dont see that.

scary!!!!!!!!!!!! we had one kid porn group found on sl. i seeing another version of this happening again. If this is any signs of how things have been learned from from that issue.

There is always the possibility these are actual adults SAYING they are underage just to cause mayhem.......

I've been lucky on dis, but I also s'pect/hope it's cuz I'm kinda visible, an make it clear here an there dat I'm not a RL kid, jes an SL one. Also, I tink at least some of the LL staff know of me enough (I can be an pesky kid sometimes!) to have a good sense dat I'm not a kid kid. To the best of my knowledge, I have never been ARed over age, though I have been threatened over it (including the one darling person who pulled out a BFG and threated to "blow me to the teen grid" - ick).

Dat said, I know a few kid avvies who have been ARed and hadda go through a way complex (involving sending copies of birth certificates!) method of account reinstatement.



/me nods

The only times I've run across players who've admitted to me they were underage, they've been playing adults. Usually of the bulky male gangster or chesty female variety.

(It does surprise me, though, how many RL underagers so freely admit this.)

Mari