Adult protest - Store Closings - Huh?

So I have seen calls in several places (including the JIRA) for a period of protest about the new Adult Content changes during which all stores and vendors are shut down and disabled.

This is supposed to send a loud and clear message to LL that this is wrong.

My question for the Residents: How does this, exactly, inconvenience LL is any way, shape or form?

I mean it sounds like a strike, but striking usually means that the company suffers in some way (product not getting made that they can sell, etc), but everyone is going to keep paying tier to LL, right? People are going to still log in and be sociable with each other - stores closing might put off the shopping-addicts, but I'm just not seeing how LL (who don't spend enough time in LL to know what an AO is, or how photo-realistic skins are made and how they work well enough to understand rendering order changes) are going to even notice.

What am I missing, here? Could someone please enlighten me as to how this is going to be effective?

Publicity would seem to be the only aim, you're right, the only people being inconvenienced are customers who will simply go elsewhere, seems a rather silly tactic.

If they sell on SLX, people could buy there, and LL gets their cut, so the strategy kinda backfires, doesn't it?

I don't think they've thought this through

What's wrong with just protesting at the Linden Village, those are usually good for a giggle.

When the Lindens go in-world (ha ha, I crack me up) to buy their sex toys, and find all the stores closed, they'll get the message.

Whatever protest it is...it will be relatively minor. its impossible to send a message out to all shops and all residents.....many would ignore it anyway even when informed. One can never unite the Grid....there are too many self interests.

it's the same with any of the threads in RA....for all the ranting and raving in some of the threads....it has very little impact or influence on what really goes on in SL.

The Lindens won't care about such "Protests" in the slightest. People tried something similar when CopyBot appeared, and the only result was that the merchants who participated lost business and market share.

Its kind of silly to protest against LL for this when it wasnt their fault to begin with.

"The Committee is concerned about reports of explicit content that can be easily accessed by minors on increasingly[sic] popular virtual reality web programs. The Committee directs the FTC to issue a consumer alert to educate parents on the content that is available to children on virtual reality web programs. In addition, no later than 9 months after enactment of this Act, the Commission shall submit a report to the Appropriations Committee discussing the types of content on virtual reality sites and what steps, if any, these sites take to prevent minors from accessing content." [HR110-920]

The prudish American government has stepped its ugly head into SL and forced LL to do this, because of all the soccer moms out there. I dont sell sex items, but this is ridiculous to ban a virtual naked body or a virtual sex act. Next, they will put us in jail for smoking a virtual joint.

I think you'd have to ask the actual businesses themselves why they are doing it for a more accurate answer.

This same thing happened over the CopyBot issue years ago. A bunch of people closed down their stores in protest to get LL to address the problem. In that instance, one of the reasons was paranoia that someone was going to show up and copybot their entire inventory, but the rest of the reasons were probably the same as now. Examples:

1) I'm a content creator, and I am important for SL (while true, it would need to be a large segment of content creators for LL to notice).
2) Closing my store means no revenue for me, and no revenue for LL (questionable, since people can still go elsewhere to spend L$ that they still will buy, and those vendors can still cash out).
3) Showing solidarity to "the cause". If nothing else, I'm sending a message to SL with others that we're fed up and not going to take this crap lying down.

On the flip side, I suggested that people organize something more general, like a SL "logged out day", where people just avoid logging in for one specific day. If well organized, and enough people join it, the hit to the daily traffic will show up on LL's radar, and they *might* rethink what they are doing. It has the benefit of being something easy and broadly palatable to the masses. That is, if the masses really even care about this issue. That's been a major stumbling block; most people don't even know this is coming.

That bill doesn't appear to have actually gone anywhere. The last action on it was in December 2008, is it still even alive?

Even if they are forced to create Ursula to comply with the government, there is still a fair amount to protest about in the way they are organizing it. Especially in the claim I've seen posted on the Big Thread that, if the Linden reviewing your parcel thinks that your business can just "change a few keywords" and not be Adult, you'll be denied a free move to Ursula (and thus forced to pay for land there or drop the keywords), even if those keywords bring 80% of your traffic.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO

/me goes off to offer many many virgins to all possible gods in order to keep my ability to shop

I think if people feel the need to protest then they absolutely should. I just think that a protest needs to be effective otherwise it's just a waste of time, and I am struggling to understand how this could send any sort of clear message to LL.

This suggestion has been posted on the JIRA, which is full enough of RA type discussion and I didn't want to add to it by challenging it there.

Where are you gonna find them?

Isn't that why they are doing this Adult Content thing? So that all the virgins out there can come play SL and remain pure?

Right - but if you read the bill - the "recommendations report" comes out no later than 9 months after the December 2008 date of the bill. At which point they will start cobbling together laws and nonsense based upon those recommendations.

What SL is doing here is attempting to set up a system before there are laws. There are plenty of potential benefits...

1) By doing it now - they have time before any laws are in place to put it into effect, find the issues and drawbacks with it, refine it, improve it and make it all go. They have a "gray" deadline of September, but the reality is they probably have more time than that - and time is our friend. If this whole thing rolls out and something goes horribly wrong - they can roll back the adult filtering for a month or two and not be breaking any laws.

2) By doing it now they stand a good chance of creating a model that the government will decide is "the model to follow". So by taking this time to get it right, to generally take the actions wanted by the feds while also making sure that the SL XXX Industry Gravy Flow still runs smoothly, they get to keep that income source flowing and don't have to mess around.

3) Imagine for a moment if SL hadn't done anything this spring and summer. September comes around, Congress whips something up, the Socialists - erm - Democrats crank out some sort of "we know better than you and you are too stupid to live" law and suddenly SL has 14 days to fall into compliance. We've seen how much has gone on and how it's going with months to plan and think about it - imagine them having to try to come up with the rules and create ursula and get everyone moved there in 14 days... Wouldn't happen. So the only choice would be to shut down adult content altogether until something was worked out. Nope. I need my 3D Rendered Porn!

Sure. It's a pain in the ass. And I do think it was a horrible idea by someone in the PR department to hide the real reasoning behind all of it - and sure - there are other benefits to them for moving the adult stuff to a new continent. But regardless - I find it commendable that they have been proactive here and are trying to do something that both ensures that adult content can stay in SL and that we adult content makers can continue to thrive, despite Big Brother closing ranks around the industry here on the web.

So, while it may not be perfect - especially at first rollout. I am grateful to LL for what they are trying to do here.

I think if one of the Lindens were to simply come clean, cite that report that was cited above and say, "Yep. It sucks and is going to be a pain in the ass that you have to move and people will have to take a few extra steps to find your adult stuff. But it's far better than them making us shut you down completely." And that, my friends, is exactly what is happening here.

Looks to me like it said no later than 9 months after it's enacted. Which is hasn't been.

Then why have they squandered that oppourtunity by plowing ahead while ignoring the obvious flaws that even my 13 year old daughter can clearly see?

Oh Great Goddess I hope not! The "model" they have offered so far is so flawed it would be laughed out of any court of law.

And LL rolling out a "new and improved" set of adult content restrictions that obviously won't work stops this how? LL is ALREADY following the current FTC "Best Practices" recommendation for restricting access to Adult Content. Honestly, even with the inane actions typical of most Govrenment employees, I would be hard pressed to imagine a WORSE model that the Government could propose! And any law takes quite some time to take effect, or to get into compliance. All LL would have to do is to show they are in compliance with CURRENT recommendations, and offer a plan to comply with the new regulations. There is no reason to expect that any lawmaker would look at LL's currently proposed swiss-cheese barrier as being in any way superior to what Congress cooks up.

This bill business is a smokescreen, this is like an episode of 24 or The X files, it's a smoke and mirrors trick by secret agents!

Two years ago Linden Lab blogged about adult content, this plan has been in the pipeline for a while.

As for the protest, I agree that a protest needs to be effective, I don't see a store shutdown as being effective personally, but I'm not against protest, Ceera Murakami's pitchfork is one of my favorurite accessories lately.

I'm going to grab them the minute they TP in, before some other noob comes and sticks his prim attachment in them.

Two (actually almost 3) years ago is when this whole thing actually started with the government too. It failed back then. The climate is a lot different now with the socialist regime running things - so it's far more likely to pass now.

Oh behave!

The only things that hurt LL and therby get their attention are 1) reduced income which ultimately hits their bottom line...and 2) Bad PR, negative commentary on SL.

The first option is kind of difficult to assess, unless we've totally underestimated the amount of Land that might be abandoned or the % users leaving SL altogether.

I suggested in "I am Adult Content" Group, the protest organisers should contact external media and see if a journo would run with a story on the all hoohah within SL regarding Adult Content. I'm sure someone in LL is responisble for collating press cuttings and other media coverage surrounding LL or SL (if they're doing their job correctly)

You're a girl??? I always thought you were a guy - huh!

WTF! Deakins go to bed now, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred pounds. I have a man's name! Geesh!