new restrictions on child avs

Let's turn things around here. If child avatars are stressing that they are truly adults and should be treated as such then shouldn't a person 'hitting' on them be considered a normal person? I mean they're hitting on an adult right? A lot of new people tend to focus on the RL individual behind the avatar and so it shouldn't mean a thing that you are a child avatar. And what if a child avatar 'hits' on your child avatar? Is it considered a child attracted to another child? Or an adult attracted to another adult? Or an adult to a child or child to adult?

This reminds me of a Demitri Martin sketch.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0954327/quotes

It seems to me if there was a problem with real pedophilia, it would be with adults getting on the teen grid and trying to hook up with real children. Not adults on the main grid hitting on other adults pretending to be children.

The whole subject is just totally Franz Kafka meets Joseph Heller crazy.

Major Sanderson: "Just why do you think that you made those two statements expressing contradictory emotional responses to the cockroach?"
Gregor Samsa: "I think I have an ambivalent attitude towards it."

What? The tinies can't have sex in SL? How will we survive?



/me runs off to check into this new possible high dollar business opportunity.

Yes, I agree. As I get older, so the world seems to become madder. I blame the pollution.

Yeah - I have a really hard time even getting close to imagining the mindset of a true pedophile, but it would *seem* that it would be better to be molesting true children on the teen grid rather than a kid avi that is probably an adult and having to force my mind to not remember that part and only concentrate on the kid image.

But, what the hell do I really know about how the sicko mind works?

Exactly right. If they actually gave a damn, they'd get kid avatars, act like innocent kids, wait to get propositioned, let slip that they're "underage", and if the advances continue at that point, go to LL and RL law enforcement with actual evidence of real pedophilia.

Anything less is just lazy, self-righteous claptrap.

Here here Qie and Har

I'm just speculating here, but I think LL is less worried whether any RL pedophiles are getting their thrills on the adult grid than they are about keeping SL from being banned in the various European countries where it's considered a criminal act to view - even unintentionally - any sort of depiction of children engaged in adult activities.

But we have slipped from the point of the OP's post which is a very important one. What exactly is going through LL's mind now? What has changed? Why were child avs shunned and discouraged at first in a couple of events? Why were vendors pulled with no warning? If the rules have changed, which evidently they have, then why have the new rules not been posted? On a more personal note, why is it that after more then 3 years here and after helping hundred of people in Scripting Tips and never ever having a warning or any other problems in the forums, was my post pulled and I was issued a warning when I recently simply answered a question posted by another resident in a Linden thread? Someone asked what the skin flap was and I simply stated G-Team pulled vendors that showed a child skin in panties. I didn't make any judgements or state anything else. So why a warning? Plus there was no clarification what the results would be if I violated the warning.

I have no problems with rules. Rules are necessary for a society even if that society is a virtual world, with an extremely diverse group of residents. Rules do have a habit of being modified over time which is also normal. But a community or even a government that has "secret" rules is so far from what should be considered a healthy norm that it is distressing. If any Lindens do just happen to be reading this thread(which they will not) then you really need to ponder that last sentence.

One could speculate: something about discussing specific disciplinary actions (the skin flap) in the Forums, perhaps. (I suppose that would make this post a violation, too, in that it's about another disciplinary action: the warning about that post).

But it's a big deal, for just the reasons mentioned: nobody can figure out what the damned rules are now, inasmuch as G-Team is clearly not following the stated policies about child avatars. And although it's my impression that G-Team's incompetence knows no bounds, there certainly seems to be a pattern emerging in the customary chaos.

Yes, it's bad that they're apparently constraining child AVs even further than before. And yes, it would be worse if they finally just constrained them out of existence. But much worse still would be the lost contribution of those whose spirit is borne by free imagination and crushed by secret prohibitions.

If only you knew why this line is making me laugh right now. Helping a friend who is working on ice cream trucks in SL.



as I might say inworld, "Du-uhh"



Which is the easier, more obvious target? It's like people blasting at furs.



"I'm not a kid avvie! I'm fun-sized!"



Word.

I'm sort of confused at why people would be more offended about say a skin for kid av's with "built-in" underwear than they would be about a kid wearing an adult skin with its shaven bits. Is that not sort of cautious thinking that should be encouraged to re-assure people?

Anyway, yeah its those that sexualise kids that are the problem, not adults who are role playing and probably having more wholesome fun than a whole lot of other residents.

I have come to believe that the real reason for the persecution is due to the fact that every no-talent reporter who fancies himself an "investigative journalist" and gets tasked with doing a story on Second Life always shoots for the sex angle due to the ratings it'll get. And if you think a salacious story about SL sex gets high ratings, the holy grail is exposing all the "child sex" that goes on.

Every used car dealer in town will pay extra to have their commercial placed right after the newscaster says "Coming up: Child prostitution on the internet? When we come back, we have a shocking story about typical activities in an popular online game. Right after these messages."

And honestly, in that regard, I do kinda feel for LL. With everything that SL can offer, is, or could be, very few reporters are interested in much more than the pixelseks angle. And one is hesitant to even blame the reporters, since the above lead-in ensures that viewers will still be there when you return from commercials. People don't care about the things they think are ok, but they'll actively seek out things that offend them.

I also feel sorry for LL having to deal with this mess but I also blame them in part. We do have sliders that can make us shorter then the 8 foot norm and as many of us normal sized non-child avs in the 5 foot range can tell you we do get attacked for being ageplayers basd on our size. Now that I think of it I blame the perverted AR crazy "protect the children" people more than I blame LL.

Man some people are REALLY dumb... hey sounds like those people would be great targets for a con-artist if they are dumb enough to belive a child av is a kid they are just suckers waiting to be suckered lol

This argument has been done to death, on the one hand the morally outraged, on the other those who believe consenting adults should be able to do what they want with each other. There's little more to be said, and it appears the two camps will never come to a mutual understanding, sadly typical of so much human behaviour.

You're all missing the point, which is that Linden Lab acts pragmatically in the best interests of their company. As a morally ambiguous (to many) subject, the adverse publicity, sensationalist reporting and costly intervention of the authorities who are obliged to follow up reports can be the death of a mainstream business, which, like it or not, is their bottom line.

Meaning... the morally outraged should not believe LL is in any way endorsing their crusade or lending their support when they act, for it is entirely ulterior motive. The consenting adults should probably use their discretion and act in a way that allows them their freedom while not potentially threatening the future of the platform that has given them this freedom in the first place.

And finally, if anyone feels genuinely motivated in taking up a cause... there are plenty, much more serious issues out there in the world worthy of your time than pixels of any age.

while the media hubub was all about pedophilia, and such, the real issue for LL is the depiction of children in a sexual context. that's really all they have to worry about. unfortunately it's enshrined in US law now thanks to the FCC, and has such a broad definition, that it includes actors portaying characters under the age of majority, even if sexual context isn't actually shown, but only suggested. there was more than a bit of a row when the law came out, I remember, because under it's guidelines, the movie "Titanic" (boat sinks, almost everybody dies) qualified as
"child pornography"...

it's not entirely LL's fault, law says they aren't allowed to use common sense, so if you want to fix it...

"the first things we do, let's kill all the lawyers"

No, sorry, but that's not the point. The point is that they are *not* acting in their best interest now. They set a pragmatic policy in response to the business threats you rightly list--and now they're doing something altogether else, without any kind of public notice (other than doing something to offend a very public in-world figure).No sale. That's a fine argument for doing nothing about anything, inasmuch as any "cause" may not be the most important. Heaven forfend anyone should drop some loose change in a RL donation bucket during the holidays; it might not solve global hunger, reverse climate change, and cure cancer.

sl kids, well...theyre adults, the real world kids who join sl play adults, as my sl son says, what kid is gonna join sl to play a kid???

so you might be having sex with an adult avatar who is a child in rl, but the child avatar youre worried about talking to because he/she is a child is really an adult.

Pretty much. Still LL doesnt have to be idiots about it. They could have clear rules and explain them to the anti-Child Avatar lynch mobs.


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To whom it may concern,

There are no Child Avatars in Second Life.

Its in everyone's best interest to realize this.

There are just adult avatars who resemble kids if you kinda squint.




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There, that should have been clear enough for even the clueless and the Lindens to understand it.

Maybe the best solution is for LL to round up everyone under 6 feet tall and put them in cages with "save the children" signs on their heads.

...and yet I've got enough examples of it all

Most of the time, I think my reactions surprise them!