Why do people not report underage operating on the grid?

and thusly your willing to endanger one and all residents who may or may not of interacted with him.

You willfully in a way "harbored" a minor and committed a jailable offense. Had this been the real world and this occurred you would not be thought so kindly of. Im sure the people in Tahoe where the teen was held wouldn't think so kindly of it either.

I agree, many kids ARE more mature than adults. The problem is and many of you dont get it is, until such time the LAW, not your opinion, - whenn the LAW says its OK to harbor, boink, or hold a minor to say age 9. Then great. No problem. have at it I could care less legally then. Its the LAW that your encouraging them to break, and aiding and abettting in the act of silence means your just as guilty too.

This has been hashed over and over. All that will come of it is more yelling by those who support abusing kids and those who feel thier playground is being stifled. Whatever.... This is a completely different vein than kiddie avs. you want disturbing? Go see all the tiny tiny little girls at say Sperblankitopia sometime.


I AR'd 2 teens last Friday. It went like this.
I visited SEXY out of boredom and stood around like most everyone else and looked at the few who where playing or dancing. There was one really snotty av who just was driving everyone nuts with her wisecracks. She was having sex with two guys and some others were doing the crowd cheer on. It was basically a walk by thing as it was all pretty boring until she was asked something and she said "yeah but its OK im just 16."

"16? your only 16? " someone asked "wtf are you doing here then?" to which she replied in a sentence which I cant type here. She then repeated that she was smarter than everyone else and being 16 she was so much the hot stuff. to which then a guy standing there goes, "yeah, what's the big deal im 15. I been here for a long time." This being a naked noob with a freenis.

the crowd chat almost stopped and the guy having sex with the 16 year goes "ALRIGHT! I'm blanking daddies little girl!" And he proceeded to emote how he was pleasing her. No less than 2 people in the crowd replied -"HEY donkeybutt!" - "didnt you hear her tell you shes just 16?"

He goes "blankty blankty blank blank I want to, she's old enough to blank..." she Goes "yeah blanky blank you old blanks..."

her 15 year old side stander then jumps in and takes the place of the other guy who poofed the second she said she was 16 and proceeded to pixel hump away.

All outside chat stopped completely and I could almost hear the LL - HELP-ABUSE- ar screens open. I'm sure come Monday a few people logged in to find their SL experience had hit a small roadblock.

SO go ahead. defend the underage Daniel. Just don't complain about the results if your caught.


flames can begin now.....

I pointed out that the age 16 does not make someone a child, and I stated one way in which some governments agree.

...which is why I said what I did in my reply to same post.

Phil you're splitting hairs.

Well the only part of your post I could take issue with is where you said if it were legal to have sex with a 9 yr. old you would be fine with that, if people did.

This part:




How about other than legal? Isn't the law supposed to represent what's right?

no, I wouldnt be fine with it morally, but legally, if it was set at say, 9 yrs old , then there is nothing to argue about.

I chose 9 at random as it seems to be the threshold year for us girls to get pregnant. I think the youngest was 8? eww.......

see the point? if its made legal then its not a issue, but until such time it is. 18 is kind of stupid for legal age today in the 21st century. I mean look around at 18 year old girls now. they arent the 18 year olds in movies from the 50s anymore. nope, not at all. So what or who then decides the legal age then? and what would it be? 16? 14? 12? its a hard debate and one thats basically unchangeable i think.

I probably am, but I think the hairs are worth splitting

Governments (national, LL, etc.) have to come up with a fixed time when a person changes from being a child to being an adult, and LL has chosen 18, whereas other governments have chosen different ages, such as 16. But a person doesn't actually change overnight, of course, and different people change at different times in their lives, so the fixing of an exact time has to do with other things, such as how a person is viewed legally. Here in SL, 18 is the time, but the statement that "16 is still a child" is wrong, not only in many parts of the world, but also for a great many individuals. That statement is the only thing I was addressing. "16 is still considered to be a child as far as SL is concerned" would have been fine, although the word "underage", instead of "child", would be much more accurate

In my country at 16 yes you can legally have sex but does that make one an adult ? You cant drink alcohol at 16 is that a sign your an adult? Your correct you dont wake at 18 and suddenly find you have maturity but you are not allowed into rated ( porn ) movies till your 18, you cant vote at 16. So Ill repeat what i said at 16 your a child.

You can repeat it as much as you like but it won't make it true (except for some legal purposes)

For most in fact Phil. As was stated the TOS of SL is 18+ so dont care if the 16 yr old was a brain surgeon they are underage so should not be in there seems very black and white to me. If you knowingly allow a child into SL or any 18+ program you deserve to have what ever the programs rules set out.

I'm not trying to pick on you Ciera but I'm picking on your logic a bit. Laws represent the people and if they are insane laws that have no good moral reflection, then there certainly is something to argue about - changing the law.

Perhaps badly phrased - I think what you might be trying to say is that you would have no legal standing to argue against the misconduct if such were true.

Thankfully there is nowhere in the world that it IS true.



Laws are *about* fixed points, so of course the law must choose a point at which a person is legally mature and responsible in the eyes of society and the legal system.

For someone who is a minor and has committed murder I am sure they are happy to be declared still a child. So the law can cut both ways. I am still not sure why you chose to argue that 16 is okay for sex in some countries but I will just sidestep that discussion as much as I can.

As for LL it upholds the laws of the country it resides in, the U.S.A. Those are the laws it has to answer to, so that's logical.



Playing Devil's Advocate for Windswept - if, as you state there is no definable point for all, then her statement that 16 is a child is as valid as your statement that 16 is not.

I agree with that. It's the use of the word "child" in your statement that I find fault with. "Underage" would be accurate, but not child". "Child" may be legally accurate, but the statement didn't say that - it said that "16 is still a child", and I disagree with that as it's something that may or may not be true, depending on the individual.

child (chīld)
n. pl. chil·dren (chĭl'drən)



1.

A person between birth and puberty.
2.

A person who has not attained maturity or the age of legal majority.
3.

An unborn infant; a fetus.
4.

An infant; a baby.
un⋅der⋅age
1  /ˌʌndərˈeɪdʒ/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [uhn-der-eyj]

–adjective
lacking the required age, esp. that of legal maturity.
just so we all have an understanding what is what

I've highlighted the only part that backs up your statement that "16 is still a child". I haven't disagreed with that 'legal' aspect.

In SL are we not talking about the Legal definition? I have a 16 yr old CHILD he is very mature was trusted to travel OS alone but he is still a child. He is NOT an adult and till he hits that magic Legal number of 18 he will be a child. The older he gets the more responsibility is given to him but he is not allowed to partake in things set for adults till he is one by the law.

I think it can't be forgotten that not only the law but American society views 18 as legally mature and responsible for themself. Only an 'emancipated minor' can be viewed otherwise.

Not only is this distinction important for legal reasons - such as the parent being held partly responsible, and perhaps LL being sued - but it is also important because children grow up with that age as the demarcation point. So it is part of the national psychology if you will - until then, responsibility is not completely on the shoulders of the minor. (What I am saying in part is that the attitude and actions may reflect this while in SL.)

Also a minor cannot be held liable to a contract so a minor agreeing to the TOS is not upholdable in a court of law I am fairly certain. Another reason to insist upon everyone on the grid being 18 or over.

He will always be your "child", regardless of his advancing age as the years go by From what you've said, he's a young adult already, and not a child.

But we've sidetracked enough on this point. I don't agree that the word "child" is true of all 16 year olds, except that they are their parents' children, and for legal purposes. "Underage" is the right word, imo.

Laws or no laws... The current Linden Lab TOS agreed to when accessing SL requires users on the main grid to be 18 or over. Done. Over. No debate. AR or it didn't happen. (=_=)y

This. What's to debate?

Okay, not reading the thread further, but pointing out something that's probably obvious. If the parent is allowing the child onto the grid (and so help me, I don't wanna know who it is, I'd probably bean them with a clue x 4), then there is nothing stopping said parent from using their own information to "verify" the age of the user... This means, LL couldn't remove them from the grid at all. As far as LL's concerned, it's an adult playing the avatar.

Fortunately, if LL did keep a copy of paperwork sent, their behinds would be covered from a legal standpoint, if something did happen to little precious. And a clever lawyer could spin the "public" blame onto the proper parties for the issue.. like the stupidity of the parents in allowing their child to create an account on an adult grid. After all, LL even went as far as to suspend the account and require the account owner to send in paperwork proving they are adults. It's not LL's fault that the parents deemed it fit to lie and send in their own identifying information for little precious. If the parents hadn't done that, then little precious wouldn't have been on the grid and have something bad happen.

For the record, yes, if something bad happened to the kid, I'd feel horrible. I'd want to help the kid. I'd also want to bean the parents with heavy objects until something stuck in the way of common sense. Actually, that'd probably help the kid.

For most of human history, your 16 year old would be married and supporting a family by now. 16 year olds have commanded armies and warships, ruled nations. Modern society is worse off with this new definition of "child".

i personally dont trust anyone in SL to reveal their true age in conversation. having raised teens...they would normally be too smart to blab their RL age knowing that it would get them banned from sl. unless i see something like rl info that defines someone as a certain age, i dont feel it is my obligation to AR someone who just states... im 16. As for hearing a voice and believing it is a child in SL, there are ALOT of real people who have childish voices or can produce one when wanted...that also is not iron clad proof of anything.

May you never find yourself in a life-or-death situation where you need help, and the people around you simply ignore you because they don't want to be "sticky beaks".

While I can agree with the first part, you would find a lot of the 16 rulers/commanders/whatever were only figure heads, important descisions were usually made or coerced by those around them or were likely to be bad choices resulting in huge losses or thousands of deaths. There are very good reasons why 16yo's don't captain ships, head departments, run countries and major corporations in modern times.

I see a lot of posts about the law of various countries, yet I haven't really seen the bottom line. LL is based in San Francisco, California. It is subject to the laws of the United States. In the US, the legal age is 18, not any other age. For that reason, their ToS states 18, because they, also, have to abide by the laws of this country.

Do we need to be their police? No. But I still do think it is a responsible thing if you know, or are strongly convinced, that a person is under 18, to AR them. I don't agree with arbitrarily ARing, but I do agree with ARing with probable cause.