Adult Oriented Content Access Controls - What would you do, Constructivly, different

Adult Oriented Content Access Controls - What would you do, constructivly, different? Removing it completely is not an option.

We all know the Internet has no filter for content, and keeping content that is of a "Mature" nature away from those who wish not to see it / those who should not see it is normally up to the individual website operators to maintain and integrate access controls. These methods for the web are normally as simple to bypass as typing in a fake birth date, or simply clicking an "Agree" button to enter sites. These methods are used from everything from wacky smacky websites of a "Adult" nature, to video games containing a "Adult / Mature" nature.

On a design standpoint Linden Lab has previously attempted to put in Adult Oriented Content Access Controls, this was at first Aristotle verification which can be bypassed using wildly available information. Even before that, Linden Lab had added the ability to allow / deny people without certain payment information from going onto parcels / sims.

Now Linden Lab has introduced more Adult Oriented Content Access Controls, which combined with the previous verification system in place and new Adult rated land. From my understanding you can flag a parcel as adult, which only those with proper Verfication / Payment Info can search for and visit. But, there is also the Verified status that you can set on parcel to keep people who have not verified unable to enter / use the parcel.

This creates, for me at least, glut in the whole system. There must be a better way to handle this complicated goop. These controls have been expanded over the years. This actually feels like a long time coming.

The problem has never really been verification, it has been visual separation. This is one of the major differences in 2D & 3D internet.

In my own opinion, if this whole Adult Oriented thing actually holds tilt, and Linden Lab goes completely through with it enforcing policy. The real reason this thing will work is that the content is metaphysically(AHAHAHAHA) separates Adult Content from the Mainland. The controls have more or less been in place a long time. O

So, to not loose focus of the question at hand: Adult Oriented Content Access Controls - What would you do, constructivly, different? I for one would get rid of all verification and move to a standard, one time EULA agreement when an entering adult area or searching for adult content. Keep It Simple Stupid.


P.S. The whole Adult Oriented Controls has had a positive effect for me already, cleaning up search, I get a better ranking, and the results to me are much better. I do not sell, partake or use Adult Content on a regular basis.

A lot would depend on what my lawyers and potential business partners suggested that I do to avoid prosecution and lawsuits and to attract business partners.

SL v2.0

SL v2.0 is probably in the works right now. Actually not a v2.0, but an entirely different grid accessible only through a controlled portal from within Second Life.

Remember the hoopla about a year ago when IBM and Ll sucessfully transport avatars from one grid to another? I doubt that little experiment was a one time adventure just to see if it could be done. The intent was (and I believe still is) to have different grids connected to each other......each serving a different purpose. The adult continent could very well be the beginning of another grid..........easily "disconnected" from the main grid once all the techy stuff is in order. Once that happens you will have to purposely jump through some "worm hole" to reach it..........thus giving LL that extra layer of protection from zealots lurking all over the internet. It makes sense if you think about it.

Will it all be worth it? Who knows I don't particualarly care one way or the other. But you can't seriously say that Linden Lab does not know what they are doing. It's pretty obvious to me that they know exactly what they are doing......you may not like it, but you don't count. Linden Lab has made no bones about wanting to change the way the internet is used......and they are going about trying to make that change. Think about what I think LL's vision is.......Second Life as a portal to a vast array of grids for every interest, need or imagination.

Lofty goals.........but they may just pull it off.

For me..............I've found a better place to spend my time and creative efforts. I'm pretty much done with the drama, pettiness, greed, and children that inhabite SL these days.

Thinking without the numbers they like to throw around, the choices I thought of are:

(I am using the conventional use of adult, teen, mature, etc. Not the Second Life definitions)

Make a PG & Teen grid.

Who: Teens, instructors, business people, so on and so forth, the people who aren't coming to SL for sex, drugs, and rock or roll.

Why: It's PG, there's no reason to have an "Adult" PG section. PG is PG, all the Teens see are PG (with some possible exception to PG-13 I suppose, I've never been on the teen grid so I dunno).

All the things people listed in the "Who" are going to do, could and should be done on a separate grid entirely, what do they get out of being on the adult grid? I'm not offended by them, I don't hate them, but there's no reason to stick them or what they're doing on the adult grid.

Additional: This grid would equate to "E for Everyone" in accordance to the ESRB
"Titles rated E (Everyone) have content that may be suitable for ages 6 and older. Titles in this category may contain minimal cartoon, fantasy or mild violence and/or infrequent use of mild language."

If it's acceptable to the ESRB - Which rates every game for consoles, then why not use it as a standard, or at least the same guidelines for SL?

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As for the rest?

Who: People who want to see, act, join, or enjoy mild-to-extreme adult scenario's. This grid is aimed at adults, by adults, and for adults only, but does not necessarily imply gore, guts, and steamy kinky sex.

Why: Second Life is an adult game, so the main/adult grid should cater to what adults want to do (aside from school/instruction, business, and things found on the Pg/Teen grid).

Can you have a nice, harmless, unoffensive chat in an adult grid? Yes, of course, but as an "adult" grid, it covers EVERYTHING; from unoffensive, to unthinkable - Which the PG/Teen grid limit adult situations to none.

Additional: Additional: This adult grid would equate from "E for Everyone" to "AO for Adults Only" in accordance to the ESRB


"Titles rated M (Mature) have content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older. Titles in this category may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language."


"Titles rated AO (Adults Only) have content that should only be played by persons 18 years and older. Titles in this category may include prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity."



(Essentially the adult grid is *everything else* that is currently allowed on Second Life, while the PG/Teen grid is nothing-adult-at-all. Business, school, and whatever teens do)

I f I were making SL V2.0, I would probably be starting with a lot of things done completely differently to SL, and probably even name it something different to via a different company, to avoid all the mistakes that LL have done in the past that restrict advancement by having to keep compatibility with stuff from 2003 for residents that haven't logged in in 5 years.
But I certainly would start with zoned areas, G, Mature,and Adult from day 1 and probably content flagging too.

It's not obvious to me how broad the question is here. If it's about verification then, yeah, the provider should do all and only what it must to avoid legal or seriously damaging PR problems. (What they've done *may* be that, although seeing it up close as we do, it seems laughably leaky, and really no better than a checkbox. But doing anything seriously better is a very expensive proposition, probably involving delivery of a piece of hardcopy mail. Nobody is doing that.)

If it's about how to separate content of different maturity, this is where the current solution is disastrously shortsighted. Screening out content should be about what bytes are delivered to the viewer, not about how the user is allowed to navigate in the virtual world. Segregating content by land unit (previously Parcel, now Region) is not even the easy technical approach. It does, however, temporarily sell more land.

It may be too cynical, though, to assume that the whole scheme is a ploy to boost land sales. That's because the proper solution--content-specific screening--violates a weird design obsession that's limited SL since the beginning: the absolute insistence on a continuous geographic metaphor. The idea that some hunks of the grid would contain stuff that only some viewers can see is antithetical to that vision (as are portals, notably). So in that philosophy it would be better for some viewers to just not be able to get to parts of the grid rather than to have a grid with discontinuous content for some viewers.

Oh that is easy. Make "adult SL" 20 bucks a month. Like Redlight Center. Then let's see how many kids will try to use it.

I say stuff it all and let people be people. Kill PG and keep the TOS alive enough to prevent real harm to the real world interests of the residents. Regionalize the regions based on real world geography and set rules accordingly. (^_^)

If they don't do this... We will all eventually be in burqas talking to plywood cubes with a 10 second delay in chat for real-time moderation. (T_T)

1. Make walls work.
2. Let scripts detect age verification status.
3. Ban adult content out in public.

Immy wins the thread.

But why is removing it completely not an option? Cancer should be cut out.

And you normally say such *sensible* things . . .

Pep ( . . . but this is ridiculous Immy! )

There are no "options" -- Linden Lab is doing what Linden Lab is doing, and is not interested in our opinions. SOP.

First, implement SVC-205.

Second, I'd have 5 ratings, "U" (unrated), "B" (business), "F" (family), "P" (party), and "H" (hentai). You could set your own or your parcel's rating at any time. You could have your rating show up in your profile, or you could show up as unrated even if you were rated (the "none of your business" rating).

Unrated couldn't get into any "rated" parcel. Not even "Business". Business could get into "U" and "B", and so on.

But other than "Unrated" you could also not get into any parcel rated more than one level below you. So if you were "Party" rated, you couldn't get into "Business" without dropping your rating.

OBJECTS could also be rated. Once an object was rated, then it couldn't have its rating changed after transfer. Object ratings might apply to attachment as well as parcel entry. If you were business rated, you couldn't attach that hentai-rated tentacle-dong... or it may be that it would detach when you entered a business rated area.

Parcel ratings would either apply within 100 meters of the ground, or within the skybox zone (see SVC-205), landowner's choice. Outside the rated area, the parcel would be unrated... so you could have a parcel open to kid avatars but they couldn't enter or even see your snuff-porn skybox.

Edit: http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-4407

'Ridiculous' is LL changing the rules on U.S. residents due to a German sensationalistic "news" outlet. 'Ridiculous' is banning gambling games on a global platform because of the hosting RL region. 'Ridiculous' is telling people they can't virutalize something because the connotations of realizing it in the physical world is intrinsically harmful. (=_=)

Really... Ban banning things. (^_^)y

Welcome to the as yet unrezzed world of international internet law.

Pep (It'll get worse before it gets . . . worse. )

No it's actually not. In the future, IF the metaverse wants to be viable, there will be no other way than applying certain rules according to the IP of account creation. It is impossible to find a set of rules that will be acceptable for ALL users. It was kind of easy to find a common ground when dealing with "child molesters" because everyone hates those, right, so it is easy to ban ageplayers, since almost no one would object (and those that do are being looked at with suspicion) But: Just imagine Saudi want to use SL and by their rules women aren't even allowed to use a PC (or something similar to that, I don't care about the details, it is just an example). So do we want LL to ban all women from SL just because Saudi have their nice little rules? I think not. Rather ban Saudi accounts (based on account creation) from accessing SL and restrict them to their own Saudi sims.

Ridiculous is ignoring bad press no matter how sensationistic it may be (or appear to be) from anywhere within the realm of your "market".

Ridiculous is allowing your platform to be used to violate the laws that your company is REQUIRED to restrict due to it's base of operations.

Ridiculous is ignorance of the fact that the real person behind the unreal cartoon character will never seek out the real person behind another character that depicts a fantasy.

Ridiculous is removing the option of anyone, or any company, to enforce their rules by forbidding the violators from entering their "premises".

"IP of account creation"? Now *that* is ridiculous. I can create SL accounts from any number of apparent geographical locations, and more important, legal jurisdictions! I can also appear to use SL from any number as well. International law is having a terrible time coming to terms with the 'net and LL (as evidenced by this latest token attempt at assuaging concerns about identity verification) is paying lip service because its market is international. Take away the globality of provision of the service and it would almost certainly become non-viable, the balkanisation of the environment encouraging effective competition.

Pep (By the way, the majority of the world's population lives in jurisdictions where the age of consensual sex is 15 or less, so that shoots your "almost no one would object" out of the water.)