Discrimination in the XStreetSL Uncensored Warning

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/XSL-17

Please support this JIRA issue as I feel its a slippery slope that LL are treading with this one.

THIS ISSUE HAS BEEN FIXED AND RESOLVED AND LL HAVE MADE THE CHANGES TO THE XSTREET DISCLAIMER. I HAVE ASKED A MOD TO LOCK IT NOW IT IS DONE.

I'd say they're sliding down the same slope they started in 2007... Snowball, anyone? (=_=)

Not tonight, I'm tired and have eaten too much chocolate...

I've already noticed some disturbing language used by LL when it comes to "adult content" and their policies, so this doesn't surprise me a great deal. Although it is a concern it appears to target a certain group of people.

Wow, that's incredibly offensive. Ya got my vote.

I noticed it has been assigned already, and considering it was just created today, hopefully it gets resolved soon and someone ends up being accountable for the language used.

To be fair the language is probably a guideline from elsewhere, although that elsewhere might not be 100% reliable regarding that wording being the correct way to do things.

Voted and sent notices to several groups in-world. Thanks for the heads up on this, LS.

Wow, that's offensive.

I'm about to vote for my first JIRA . . .

I voted. For the love of little apples, if they are going to list one they might as well list them all and offend everyone in one go. That's at least more fair!

And people wonder why I call that entertaining glitch that sometimes shoves your avatar's head up it's bum as the "Linden Lab's view of the world."

Listen, we know that Linden Lab doesn't get it, and further they don't care about offending a large number of their non-corporate residents.

Let's alert GLAAD and other activist groups who can put real pressure and bad press on Linden Lab.

LL can't POSSIBLY not act on this. As someone has pointed out, it's in violation of their own CS and ToS!

That it is also nonsensical (since when was being transgendered anymore "sexually explicit" than being male or female?) should have some bearing on their decision, but I doubt it.

Personally, I'd let them correct it (quickly, I hope), rather than call in the big guns yet. But if they don't move soon, yeah, I agree.

Not really, the CS and TOS only rely to users who create accounts and to the residents. LL the entity is saying these things but none of these individual accounts are. There's also the matter of the only people who have more than a moral outrage (well founded in this case) leg to stand on also happen to be LL.

I'm sure they'll change it because this is bad publicity but not immediately since I know from experience getting LL legal to change even the tiniest language takes forever, the logical contradictions that still are prevalent in the licensing policy for the wiki, despite that being an acknowledged issue, are a testament to that.

I notice that one of the comments to the JIRA states that the language dates back to SLex days, before Linden Lab took over.

Therefore the speculation as to What On Earth Were They Thinking When They Wrote That might not properly apply to LL. However, this doesn't absolve LL of blame for having failed to notice it, or for having noticed and okayed it.

(So what WERE the SLex people thinking!?!? Were they thinking 'well, we want to take SPECIAL care of the sensibilities of those folks who are 'okay' with every variety of explicit and even violent usage of every body orifice-------yet who are likely to go 'oooooh!' when faced with the possibility that some humans deal with gender identity questions'.................???)

I'm guessing they weren't thinking at least in a legal sense. I can't speak definitively but many small websites, which included SLX back in the day, either steal legal language from one or more places or engage in the fine art of.... not to put too fine a point on it.... bullshit.

I have no inside information so I could be entirely wrong on this count.

Reading the above automatically waives your right to sue me for any reason in any venue throughout the universe for 666 years.

Technically, I suppose you are right. Still, ethics aside, it certainly does undercut the CS if they are not seen to be abiding by its principles themselves.


I should have thought this was a no brainer, even for their legal dept. Is discrimination against the transgendered legal in California? I'd have thought there was a far greater risk of them getting sued by someone for discrimination, than getting taken to court by someone of "delicate sensibilities."

Ponsonby makes a good point too: there IS stuff for sale on Xstreet that is vastly more likely to offend than a few items for the transgendered.

I agree, ethically and morally they have to change it as fast as they can type up a change. Too bad that they're probably scared of getting sued if they take out the 9 words they'd ahve to remove to fix it.



I'm not a lawyer admittedly but I don't think it's legal but considering how much it costs to sue a corporation I doubt anyone short of an advocacy group trying to prove a point would do it.

The Xstreet forums thread is kinda interesting on this topic as it addresses how this specific language is used with respect to how some banks, online payment processors use the same wording for adult type internet sites ... so the issue may be bigger than just LL.

For those that don't know: https://xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=126451&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

In reading the XStreet thread some more ... I'm not sure I'm buying the implication this is some form of standard adult content disclaimer commonly *required* by adult payment processors in order to use their financial services. If it is, I wanna know who they are. A quick google search only turned up 2 trans porn type sites that used that specific language.

Also of note, this specific clause has been in use since as far back as Nov 5, 2006:

http://web.archive.org/web/20061105012632/http://uncensored.slexchange.com/UncensoredDisclaimer.php

Since years and years we donate mountains of school fees to them, camouflaged as "tier fee" because the poor Lab had none and they still decline to invest in and to do some training in further education, or to develope some corporate sensibility for customer relations.

Literally all and everything we have to teach them with an effort, day for day, even the simplest essentials of life, biz, courteousness, etc. Often enough it seems, they were grown up in a permanently closed plywood-box and never saw any life and culture.

171 teachers so far (Jira-Votes) - and I hope that the Lab will change the wording immediately! Plus: to send out an exculpation would be a good move by them too and a sign of starting civility in the Laboratory.

Ditto.

I have also fired off some 10 emails this morning to relevant USA organisations and publications with all the information in there. Will it do any good? well possibly not but it made me feel better to know that this issue has now been raised with outside organisations

I'm thinking that has to be a mistake, it's to odd to just single one thing out like that almost.

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I suspect this will be one of the 10 fastest JIRAs fixed, ever.