The Real Reason Behind LL's Adult Content Changes

More likely because of all the dumb@ss people who let themselves get suckered into thinking they can win big dollars by playing online poker against the house and 3 of it's alts or by playing a virtual slot machine programmed to milk them because there's no regulations.

Talon most people draw the line at things aimed against children. I don't understand anyone defending any depiction of sexual acts upon children, whether in painted form, cartoon form, any format at all. It's been shown to encourage and foster interest in such things in RL for one thing. Seems common sense to me.

Your ire at Rene for being 'anti American' is spilling over into that other topic - while he or she may have missed that it was due to a German law originally, I can't fathom your defense of any depiction of sex with children.

Also remember that 'force' roleplays you mention, are acted out in SL as pixel adults, and that BOTH are in fact consenting adults, also in real life. You mention 'rape' but it isn't possible to 'rape' a pixel in Second Life, due to 'approve animation' permissions also due to 'teleport'. It represents something closer to enacting a fantasy on both parts. (Same also goes for 'anything goes' sims, there is a warning message that must be clicked, up front, so past that point is real consent to the pixel possibilities next, and also still teleport exit remains possible.)

I know - you will say the same is true of the 'ageplay' - harmless fantasy - but it simply isn't. It is too difficult to explain here, but it just is. For one thing the goal of adult-adult represented depictions is to stimulate other adults. The goal of child-child or child-adult depiction would be the illusion of - well - a CHILD.

Enough said, I hope!!

For several years now, there has been talk nationally about regulating Internet porn, violence and access to sexually violent material. I live in the US and if you've ever read any of the information the FBI puts out on sex crimes, there's a big link between pedophiles, rapists and serial killers reading, watching and building up fantasies with pornographic material before they actually go out and act on them. I assume that virtual worlds would horrify an FBI profiler who believes that fantasy eventually leads to action in certain types of offenders.

A big part of the reason marijuana has never been legalized throughout the US is because of the belief that it's a gateway drug-it will lead to harder and harder drugs. There are a lot of people involved in law enforcement who believe that pornography and drugs lead decent people down the path to damnation. My cousin was a warden for years at one of the largest prisons in California in the '80s and that was pretty standard thinking at the time.

My guess is that censorship is coming and a lot of Internet-based company's lawyers know that and have advised their clients to do something before it's all mandatory.

Well it looks like your Govt MIGHT be doing a U-turn regarding online gambling
LL could regulate gambling a lot better which they didn't do the first time around. One could apply for a LL styled license to host a casino and provide RL information.....and maybe even a bond too. It's not unfeasible to come up with solutions...it could also be located on something like Ursula for age-verification purposes.

Regardless SL gambling was hugely popular whilst it was here.

That's heresay, another of your presumptions.....just because U.S congress come out with dumb stuff, doesn't mean other Govts would follow suit. I know in Europe generally (maybe not UK so much) have more liberal views towards Adult content, porn ....even prostitition than in the U.S.

The same is true about rapeplay - harmless fantasy - but it simply isn't. Too difficult to explain, but is it just is.
The same is true about bdsm - harmless fantasy - but it simply isn't. Too difficult to explain, but is it just is.

I understand perfectly well where Talon is coming from. For me as long at is 2 consenting adult, they can act out whatever they want. They are adults after all, and no one is hurting anyone.
Today it is ageplay, tomorrow it is animal sex (already forbidden in many countries), then bdsm, homosexuality, and I can think of some more

U.S can't regulate the whole Internet and it's content....they can only regulate what it's citizens can see......in a sense a bit like China does right now.
It will be different regulations for different countries.....I think the U.K proposes to go down a similar route like the U.S, I heard Australia too.

Because their lawyers told them to handle it like this

Talon wasn't defending age play, he was using it to illustrate a point.

I only understood that because I'm a Hillybilly like him, so we speak the same language.

Thank you and Marcel both for getting this! I am not defending ageplay, on the first freaking page I said I was against it, I was using it to make a point. A point that keeps going over some people's heads for whatever reason. If they want to continue to live in their "this sort of political pandering would never happen over /here/" fantasy world, fine, let them but I know enough about what's going on in their media to know better.

Got to remember the last time they did this research, they found all the measures used were more than adequate... to the point that some threw a tantrum about the report being wrong because it completely went against the for the children law posturings.


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/technology/internet/14cyberweb.html?_r=2

That just makes no sense, I mean it's already a community for adults, what more can you really do? Still, I can expect the industry is more of the "adult" content we normally see. I really don't care about the adult content that people do see, it's a way of life.

I'm sorry Warder this reads as defense to me or at the very least, minimising the idea as being anything 'bad'. Which in my book, in this case, regarding something so horrific is the same effect. He may not have meant to, in which case, I hope he does clarify, and without needless nationalist attack on *either* side.

Oh btw for what it's worth: I'm American myself. *sighs* Can we at least keep xenophobia out of a loaded topic. On all sides.



"Deviant" with dismissive quotes in regard to ageplay is galling to me. Also the first bit about it being only cartoons. Hence my post along the "never okay in any format" lines.

@ Marcel Flatley - your flippant tone about virtual (sexual) ageplay, and equating not being able to simulate *sex with a child* with some sort of loss of sexual freedom makes me want to hurl. It is NOT the same thing as depictions of sex between adults. Sarcasm on your part does not make your argument more clever, either.

Actually, the latest studies have shown a decrease in sex crimes to follow the growth of the internet. http://www.slate.com/id/2152487/

Of course the profiler would be horrified, keeping the masses in terror is job protection for him.

But of course the US is well on it's way to establishing thought crimes, now we can be as enlightened as the EU and Canada.

I am now beginning to look again at Rock's predictions back in March. I must confess that at the time I disagreed with them, along with many others here.

http://rock-vacirca.blogspot.com/2009/03/second-life-adult-continent-adult-grid.html

Truth

My personal opinion is that people who are "galled" (or is that gauled?) by things are usually looking for things to be "galled" by. You can interpret what I said however you like, I've made my views on the matter clear. If not, I'll say it again. I'm not a fan of ageplay, I think it's extremely creepy and I don't get why anyone would find it stimulating. Then again I don't get why people find a lot of other things that go on in SL stimulating either. However, no matter how I feel about any of it, it's 2 (or more) adults doing whatever it is they want and I personally find it more galling for them to have their privacy violated on the off chance they're engaging in fantasies deemed inappropiate by you or anyone else.

If you wish to once again attempt to twist this into me somehow "defending depictions of child sex" because I refuse to buy into your "won't someone please think of the virtual children" emotionalism, I can't stop you. I can only hope other readers will see this argument for what it is.

Can we rewind to how we let the masses know these changes are about to happen?

The blog post has been wiped off the page by fluffy blogs about commerce and education obviously the direction SL wish to go....

(senses a scene akin to the Titanic..and yes there aren't enough lifeboats...but 'let them be seated by perversion..')

P.S. wasn't it the USA that passed a popular bill with a 'hidden' bill attached requiring all adult depictions to have a declaration/certificate that those shown were over 18? at a stroke destroying privacy/anonymity?....MSN certainly put the frighteners on it's then adult groups requiring this assurance....plus also forgetting there are other countries in the globe where routinely grown women have the bodies of 'western 13 yrs olds'

Those damned French.

Far from horrified, an FBI profiler would be positively thrilled if there were some conveniently concentrated source of such fantasies. They're not idiots: they know that correlation doesn't imply causation, and that those criminals who amass fantasy material would do so even if they had to resort to cave-painting.

There is, by the way, much better evidence of a causal link between depictions of violence and actual violent actions (but taken as far as a linkage with violent *crime*: not really; the "evidence" is anecdotal at best).

In other posts here: it's important that we not mistake a revulsion for sexual ageplay to be anything more than revulsion. Banning it from the grid or the internet may be a fine thing to do--it's disgusting stuff--but doing so will have no effect on actual real-world behavior, regardless of how fervently we may wish it. If one is really interested in protecting children, worrying about cartoon sexual ageplay is a time-wasting distraction from taking measures that might actually have an effect.

(To the larger topic: I'm not convinced, yet, that an FTC investigation spurred by Congress is really an important reason behind the new policy. I am quite convinced, however, that others believe this to be the case.)

The UK is already running a cleanfeed.

How does that destroy privacy and anonymity? All the declaration says is that all models are over 18, and who is the custodian of the records.

Incorrect. The law requires all models/actors to have a declaration of age on file with the producer/publisher. This does not destroy privacy/anonymity, at least in the sense that "now everyone who sees my naughty pictures on the web can see who I am". The intent is to be able to prove to The Authorities that yes, "All Models really ARE over 18".

Please, dear. Let's not get in the way of the USA bashing.

Last I heard the jury was out on whether the link is incidental or causal. Is there any new evidence to prove it is causal? That is, is the reality that sex criminals are more likely to enjoy media portraying sex crimes, or is it that media portraying sex crimes encourages people to become sex criminals?



It still is... but that does not mean there is any real science backing up those theories.



And not just to act because it is likely to become manditory, but to act to show good faith and thus try to prevent it becoming outright banned.

One advantage to SL is that no really can mean no with much less risk to the person saying no. Consent is thus stronger and more obvious and that might even discourage at least some from attempting anything non-consentual in RL.

That is one of the big problems with all this... there is a tendancy for people to simply dismiss answers they do not like. News agencies make it all worse, reporting any crime against any child anywhere thus inadvertatly exaggerating the appearant amount of crime.