The Real Reason Behind LL's Adult Content Changes

He's a disgrace to the name Kirk.

I would bet your SUV that your SUV is safe.
Right now, I'd say that there are zero "kids on Second Life, playing with a kid avatar" - talking about the Main Grid of course.

Post-verification, there would be no drop in the number of "kids on Second Life, playing with a kid avatar". However, it is possible that the number would increase (from zero) as the kids would be verified as adults and be less open to question as to their age.

Currently or post-verification, SL sucks bigtime for a paedophile.

Family Guy has one episode showing the erudite infant Stewie being turned on by getting spanked. Another shows him parading naked around his room, trying to entice Brian's teenage son into a close encounter.

Moral Orel has an episode where he gets a Prince Albert (at age 11). Another has him learning how to masturbate, and then impregnating all the women on his street because it's a sin to waste sperm. (He uses a pastry bag, perhaps to get past the censors. This episode was delayed several months before the network's censors agreed to let it air.)

Granted, none of these show the explicit visual depictions of genitalia that are possible within SL. But few people think this sort of satire encourages the sort of harmful RL behaviors we all hold in contempt. My point is just that blanket generalizations about these things are also wrong.

have you seen the trailer for the new star trek movie yet?
they are all younger and getting chosen for the federation..
it looks good

Way ahead of ya. Saw the film last week. It is very good. very entertaining, and very controversial.

LOL, that's exactly what it felt like this was turning into earlier! No. I'm not, and never have been, an ageplayer. I'm also not, and never have been, a communist. Or even a Democrat. (Not even a Republican.) I'm just a poor punk that thinks adults should be free to be adults with /other/ adults, even if it means they end up doing weird, freaky things I find offensive. (BTW, to perhaps put an end to this whole he/she thing going on in this thread, I'm male. Not that it matters either way but being referred to as "he or she" gets tiring after a while.)

You didn't say you were male in previous posts. I find this unclear, and am deeply offended.

It's all a setup anymore, no one is really voting for anyone anymore. We just pick which one of their guys is going to appear to be in charge.

Relativity: A grook with no reference whatever to the two-party system

To wear a shirt that's relatively clean,
You needn't ever launder off the dirt
If you possess two shirts to choose between
and always change into the cleaner shirt.
-- Piet Hein

Aw, Piet Hein. My first ever boyfriend introduced me to him, so sweet. And my LAST boyfriend, was named after him (well, actually, the other one, the Dutch pirate), and wasn't sweet at all...

that bill has the life expectancy of the old Copa bill... and the various game laws that mr jack thompson helped get passed.

LL needs to move their servers to another country, with mORE freedom.
They can still run stuff from san fransisco though

Well that excludes all of the EU and Australia...

and China, and South Korea. and...........

This anti sex/censorship thing is happening all over, not just SL and online but there's vague a sweep of it all through society too. Australia's proposed filters, for one.

I didn't know the EU were on it too.

Ironically, some people who are crowing about this being a case of American Puritanism gone wild live in countries whose internet porn laws are even tougher than ours.

I've only really started thinking about it here in SL, but overall I kind of think it's Christian and Muslim lobbying and maybe something to do with censorship now China is open to the world. It's not just going on in the USA.

I may well be wrong, but yeh, here in Australia it's in the air and a fairly new phenomenon.

Some of the blame for this has got to lie with those businesses that made it nearly impossible, while using Search, to avoid having XXX content thrown in our faces. They overstepped their bounds by clogging up the search mechanism; now the other side is stepping in from the other direction and we are getting caught in the middle.

The best solution if they are going to split it as they say is to make enough of Ursula for all Adult parcels, currently not everyone who applies to Ursula can go and are being encouraged to re word their Adult rated parcels and sim ads to stay in a Mainland rating.

This won't solve what your talking about Osprey, for the sake of both needs we need to push for a full swap. LL need to buy some more servers!

Not all of EU..its a misconception by those that don't understand it ....its a bit like having different legislation in different U.S states. EU is made 27 sovereign countries......what's good for Denmark regarding Adult content might not be applicable to U.K. The U.K has a tendancy to follow U.S lead whereas others don't. (We did have the Victorian era after all! )

I'm sure hosting LL servers in say Sweden and abiding to their Internet rulings, would be more liberal than saying having the same servers operating out of the U.K. Although there are lots of common social policies its by no means all. There are still several countries in Europe that are not part of the EU.....like Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, the former Yugoslavian states etc

Well, if anyone wants to know what's worse. Foreign speakers still don't fully know about this if they can't read and understand English. A couple of my German friends had no clue about it, and some more from Brazil also had no idea. So, Linden Lab is about to really drop a bomb on them.

But SL when I first came on with another avatar I used for a while I had to verify through my phone and also provide a credit card. Then later when I wanted to have my name changed and decided to make a new primary account all I had to do was sign up and say I was 18. Now, maybe the old system was a bit of crud, but if you had to get a call on the phone to verify you... Then that is usually enough to scare children away.

I believe Linden Lab dropped that so that they could usher in more and new users who didn't have to be hassled. More people means more money in their pockets. They didn't care to keep checks and balances in place. So, now they are paying for it. Or rather making all their old members pay for it by forced movings, new non-working RC's (that trigger up your anti-virus software), and not listening to the pleas of their members.

If little timmy wants to see porn he can see it. Just click unfilter results on google images, or go to sites that are like youtube but they are for porn. There's no limit to how much they can see and download. Putting the blocks and breaks on SL is not going to in anyway help keep kids away from the stuff they're after. In fact it's going to make it more enticing to them to try to get at it. The Linden Lab verify system is faulty. They didn't listen when everyone told them it was faulty. They went on to say that Paypal was sufficient. *laughing* Bull! That's no proof of age. My brother was 10 when he got his paypal account. You can get one for nothing, and you can fund it if you have a bank account. Almost everyone has a bank or savings account (even if there's no money in it. *laughs*). But it's in no way a proof of age. A credit card is also not proof of age. Parents give their kids refillable visas and everything else. So, how can that be proof of age? A driver's license certainly isn't since you can get one at 16. A bill isn't proof either. There is no 100% way to verify someone's age online, because there are too many ways around this. You depend on the other person being honest about who they are. I verified myself, and so did my BF. But children can use their parents information to verify themselves, because they feel they are getting away with something, and they pretty much are.

You also can't take grammar as proof of age, because I run websites and I've seen very articulate children on my forums, and near illiterate adults. *laughs* Kids are going to find a way around things. There's no 100% way to protect them from the internet other then
A) Taking the computer, cell phone, Playstation 3, WII, and I don't know if the Xbox 360 can get online and browse or not... But you'd have to take all the things that can access the net away to be sure they weren't looking at things they weren't supposed to.
B) Spend time with children. Make sure they know the difference between right and wrong. Not to talk to strangers, and how to say no.

In America it seems like the government steps in to raise kids because todays parents seem inept. (I am a parent myself, and I don't know how someone can't talk to thier kids or keep their kids from "bad" places.) I understand that parents work late hours nowadays and aren't home, but it only takes a moment to talk to children. Government (especially our government (USA)) Needs to stay out of parental affairs. You can't spank your kids anymore because it's "child abuse". Now, I'm 32 I got my butt spanked on a regular basis and I actually thank my parents for it. If I was let off for some of the crap I did when I was younger I would have turned in to a monster when I grew up. I read an article not too long ago about how you can spank your kids but don't be mad when you do it. What kind of sicko smiles as they spank their kids? You spank them while you're mad so they know you're mad and they did wrong. You don't wait until you're calm, because then there's no real reason for spanking.

America in general has become soft. Kids suing parents in the 90's over spankings. Sadly, the government thinks it needs to get in on everything.

But the blame still lays on Linden Labs. Yes, parents could watch their kids more, but if Linden Labs would have kept old verification methods, or made them more strict before this they wouldn't be scrambling to comply on the deadline. They should have been working on this when the bomb was flying. Not as it's coming down on their heads.

Secondlife has already lost a number of great creators because of this. One of the most noteable is Darian who left her stuff full perm for everyone to get at. Sadly there will be more to follow her as we near the end time. I have already seen a couple sims close up shop due to this. *sighs* So, how many more avatars have to die before Linden Labs wises up.

Don't move the adult content somewhere else! Move a better verification system in to place! Kick out the children as they are found out and AR'd (pay attention to AR's Linden Labs!), because SL is supposed to already be 18 and older. Maybe if they made the teen grid more fun and gave them more freedom then the kids would stay there instead of sneaking out. (I've known a couple who snuck out, but they're over 18 now and didn't come over for the sex they came over for the stuff that's cool. The events and other stuff.) Kids aren't always interested in seeing sex. If they wanted to look at pixel porn they could simply go to a hentai site or whatever. But as always it's more then likely some government individual's kid was probably caught on these places (Myspace (dur?!), and SL) doing something they probably weren't supposed to be doing. And they said... This needs to be stopped! Got high and mighty and then boom! Instead they should have yanked that kid up out of their chair, busted their behind, and sent them to bed, grounded from the computer. (My mom grounded my brothers from the computers. She took the power supply with her to work and left it there for the two weeks.)

But Linden Lab lying that they hadn't heard anyone saying the adult content move was a bad idea, and all is another lie. But they lied on the reason that they're doing it in the first place. Because of the bad press and now the government scrutiny. The gambling... I'm sure had to do something with this:
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/gadgets_and_gaming/virtual_worlds/article2153545.ece
http://news.cnet.com/FBI%20%20checks%20out%20gambling%20in%20Second%20%20Life/2100-1043_3-6173057.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1551423/Second-Life-world-may-be-haven-for-terrorists.html



The FBI came in to investigate SL and their gambling. They made it appear as if it was their choice not the feds.

Second Life and Linden Lab is not a company I would put a lot of trust in to since they never come out and tell people the truth.


Oh, and get ready everyone... What I've told many people before may be coming to pass very soon. You will be TAXED for your Lindens!

A US congressional source said last night: “Just because I can’t tuck a Linden dollar into my wallet, that’s almost irrelevant. There are plenty of intangible assets with real values. If you think of a copyright of a book, or the brand value of Coca-Cola – these are some of the most valuable brads in the world.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1552297/Second-Lifers-may-soon-pay-real-life-taxes.html
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-29827927_ITM


Once the government takes an interest in a "virtual chatroom" that makes sales (that Linden Lab boasts about), then they want a piece of that pie. So, get ready to have to start paying real taxes and possibly even having to have your avatar's screen name changed to your own. (Why?) Because it's easier to keep track of who is who... The end is near!

Imago

It's not just the US that legislates parenting

Try pretty much every nation.

The EU has some bogus features especially related to video games, movies, etc... Some games are not given a rating simply to prevent them from being sold period.

They even got up in arms because the citizens were going online and buying digital downloads or even using ebay to get around this. (Australia wanted to prosecute folks for selling the US version of Fallout 3 through ebay to it's citizens...)

As for taxing lindens, it's already income that has to be reported and taxed when it's cashed out. It's treated like many other intangible assets like stocks, not taxable till converted into legal tender.

I hate to keep harping on this sort of stuff, especially when it's tangential to the thread, but I hate misinformation even more.

Stocks are a bad example, because they're largely used for investment, not payment. But if, for example, your employer gives you company stock as a bonus, that's taxable to you on the day you receive it, regardless of when you cash it out. Likewise, with a non-qualified stock option plan (which employers sometimes use), the options are taxable to you when they're granted and vested, not when they're exercised or cashed out.

If I had to say one thing about this statement, you have got to be kidding me. This is becoming way too serious. I can't take on something I wish to do if this is in the way. Honestly, if you want to fix something, start with the economy before this:

EDIT: I think this "issue" has gone too far.

They already had the ability to enforce the rules they currently have for search. How exactly is it reasonable to create new rules they're still not going to enforce in the long term?