Ageplay Banned?

If Linden Labs are doing this as official policy then I broadly approve.

But before the wrath of Paris descends on my head I would also point out I do not see anything wrong in other types of role play that occurs in Second Life within broad reason.

If for example I wanted to be a Hobbit, a Walking Tree, a Dragon, a Gorean, or adult transsexual, these are all perfectly legal in real life. After all I can buy the books at Waterstones (major book shop in UK) that depict such activity.

But there is a line to be drawn somewhere and I hope as reasonable ADULTS we can see that fuzzy line. Child sex is just plain wrong even if it is only virtual

I'm just curious about this, so I'd appreciate if I didn't get flamed, I'm asking the question rather than stating an opinion...

Do the people who equate sexual ageplay with paedophilia also associate sex with furries with bestiality?

Reposting from discussion in http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2007/03/ll_ageplay_shoc.html#comment-62601638:

In Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition 535 U.S. 234 (2001), the U.S. Supreme Court determined that provisions in the Child Pornography Prevention Act prohibiting, "any visual depiction, including photograph,film, video, picture, or computer or computer-generated image or picture” that “is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct,” §2256((B), and any sexually explicit image that is “advertised, promoted, presented, described, or distributed in such a manner that conveys the impression” it depicts “a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct,” i.e. 'virtual child pornography, was overly broad, in violation of the First Amendment, because it includes matters that are not 'obscene' within the legal defintion of the term, nor, produced by the exploitation of real children.

You can view the decision online at http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-795.ZS.html.

No subsequent decisions have overruled this decision.

It appears that, with respect to virtual sex acts between child avatars, LL & 'the second life community as a whole' is more restrictive of Free Speech rights than the United States is.

Arguments can be made that suspending or banning a resident -- thereby depriving them of personal property -- as a result of engaging in ageplay could be legally actionable. Certainly, LL could restrict advertising ageplay (of a sexual nature) in PG areas and impose other reasonable time, place and manner restrictions, but, the legality of banning or suspending a resident for advertising ageplay (of a sexual nature) in mature areas, or engaging in ageplay on their own property, is questionable.

I am deeply troubled by the fact that the decision to provide this notecard to certain businesses has been based, at least in part, upon the conclusion that, "the
Second Life community as a whole has made it clear that it views such
behavior to be broadly offensive." I highly doubt even a small fraction of the community as a whole is aware of the specific facts which prompt LL to provide this notice to a business. Even if LL didn't arbitrarily decide to percieve a community standard to persue it's own business agenda, i.e. creating a favorable climate for RL commercial enterprises, pandering to the mob mentality doesn't encourage free speech either. Sometimes it is necessary to tolerate the expression of unpopular ideas in order to protect free speech.

Little Gray
SL ACLU

Very interesting, Little - thank you. I suppose maybe part of the argument is that they aren't just considering the laws within the US though - this all comes close on the heels of murmurings from the Netherlands.

However, this flies in the face of what LL said about gambling, ie that it was up to the individual to ensure that his activities were legal in his country of residence.

You guys are missing the point.

Would a relatively liberal group of people running a business based in San Francisco make an unnecessary rule regarding legislation of morality if there wasn't something legally compelling them to do so?

As a business, LL needs to have an official stance on certain things for the purpose of legality, and as they have an official stance, they need to respond to complaints that are filed. Because of this stance, it is now impossible for NBC or the BBC to make the claim "Linden harbors child pornography", because they have an official stance against it.

This doesn't necessarily mean that theres going to be a crack team of Linden FBI swarming across the grid armed with ban-cannons and firing them at everyone that looks like their avatar may be under the age of 18. If anything, I'd be willing to bet that this has been a heated discussion at LL and not everyone that works there is happy about it.

I want to clarify that I don't personally support ageplay in any way. However...

...My concern is this. Depiction of underage nudity is illegal in some areas. But in "some areas", so is homosexuality, having ANY religion at all (i.e. not being an athiest), NOT having the regional religion (some places dont have free religion), not covering your entire face and body with cloth, being in public without a man present, possession or sales of guns, fighting, swearing, spitting in public, and eating an orange while sitting in a bathtub on Sunday.

Do you think the Linden's aren't aware of this? Do you think that this stance on this particular issue doesn't scare them as much as it scares us?

We should have all realised as soon as LL started getting into newspapers that this was inevitable. I'm sure that LL realised it before anyone else. The Lindens are pretty sharp though. I'm confident that they're going to handle these situations without causing any sort of catastropy. Just take the "I like to have sex with children" line out of your profile in the meantime and you should be fine.

At 17:00 on March 8th, 2007, there will be a peaceful civil rights demonstration at the office of Robin Linden in protest of the sudden enforcement of restrictive and discriminatory ageplayer policies spurred on because of Fox News' biased and slanted Video Blog Report.

Many harmless people are needlessly being pushed into the shadows merely for being "offensive". SecondLife's public image should not overshadow the founding principles it was founded on, especially when their blanket actions hurts the lives of many citizens of SecondLife who are causing no harm to other citizens.

Landmark: Robin Linden's place, Ambleside (114, 6, 26)

We need to show them that this is an issue with a real face attached to it and it is affecting the lives and freedoms of good residents who unfortunately happen to have an adoration which is widely unaccepted because of social taboos.

We ask that all supporters of free expression and free speech on SecondLife please show your support by attending the demonstration. Whether you believe that ageplay is a "sick and disgusting act" or a "harmless pass time", the real issue at hand is the equal freedom to coexist peacefully and the right to freely associate and commune with one another without fear or retribution for being different. SecondLife, above all else, is a medium for communication, and by opening this door, this could be the beginning of a very slippery slope into a world which the majority of SecondLifers do not agree with.

We don't ask you to like us. We simply want to be free. Live and let live.

PLEASE, join us for this peaceful act of unity, and pass the word to others! Human, furry, doesn't matter. We're all in this together!

Can Linden please ban weapons too?

Care to explain??? As you mention my country so explicite????

Morwen.

Ah yes, one not very informed person (Jos Buschman van de Van Mesdagkliniek in Groningen) who wanted his name in big on the screens and got some politicians on his side.

Happens everywhere.

Morwen.

An article on The Register is where I first read about it, but it made most of the SL blogs too.

Yes, but it looks as though in this case at least, some not-very-informed people have managed to get LL to ban something.

If I read most Dutch articles about Second Life (I just did), I only can conclude most have no idea what they talk about.... as so often happens with journalists who are after big stories.

But at the same time people as Karin Spaink (a well known Dutch Internet journalist) has a very more "clear" view on things. (Sorry, this article is in Dutch... maybe I will translate it later: http://blogger.xs4all.nl/kspaink/archive/2007/02/27/187699.aspx )).

Sad, it is. I agree with you on that.

Morwen.

I think some posters here are just going off the deep end without actually READING what LL is doing here.

They are NOT telling people they can't play child AVs. They aren't even telling people they can't participate in ageplay. They are simply saying that "Advertisements, promotions, or descriptions of such activities must be removed to avoid account sanctions. "

Y'all can still do whatever you want, no matter how sick anyone else thinks it is. You just can't openly broadcast it everywhere. Kind of like how you're not supposed to have the spinny nasty porn ads with naked people on them.

Maybe we should remember that LL already prohibits other displays of offensive imagery in public.

Examples from the Police Blottter: http://secondlife.com/community/blotter.php

Date: Monday, March 5, 2007
Violation: Community Standards: Disturbing the Peace
Region: Maemilkkot
Description: Littering, offensive fascist avatar.

Date: Monday, March 5, 2007
Violation: Community Standards: Sexual Harassment
Region: Pinemont
Description: Offensive and graphic nudity.

Date: Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Violation: Disturbing the Peace: Abuse of Sandbox Resources
Region: Sandbox Wanderton
Description: Extensive littering with offensive images.

Hmm 5 SLT is after there office hrs. So might want to rethink that, Or make it a whole day thing, Show them that freedom of speech is across timezones and contries, with trying to have the mass of us try to be there between 2 SLT and 5 SLT

Well, except they based it on the concept of "the Second Life community as a whole has made it clear that it views such behavior to be broadly offensive", and threatened people with immediate account closure when they've taken absolutely no action on other behaviour that the community has made clear is offensive.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not an ageplayer, I'm just concerned groups are going to be singled out as "offensive" and this is the thin end of the wedge.

Actually, there's a page on Wikipedia (which is now linked to another page complaining about Second Life (!)), which addresses this:



The "Miller test" page gives:



To your own post:



No, SL is a private club, and LL can ask you to leave for any reason. It's well established in just about every country that having civil rights doesn't allow you to exercise them in privately owned spaces against the wishes of the owners.

To quote a passage...
We did nothing when they came for "them".
You did nothing when they came for me.
Who will help you when they come for you?

LL would loose less money if they set all the accounts in Denmark to "PG only" than if they banned everyone that might offend some country.
What happens when China demands that LL remove all political discussions?

I bet that if you eliminate all the Furry, Gor, BDSM, and other non-human groups you would not have very much left in SL.

All the people that are offended should go to other 3D worlds.
The graphics are better (due to not being able to build anything) and everyone has to be a human. (no attachments)

---
FYI: I'm a 100 year old shape changer, who just happens to look like a small young lion cub. I want to BE a child, not do anything with a child.

I run an open gallery and my one rule is no RL images!. But this is due to the intended purposes and should not be a rule imposed by LL.

In the end we will need more types of sims. G,PG,R,X,P(political allowed)

They probably do think that way of us furries. However that only makes THEM look like the REAL pervert. I try to ignore people like that as much as i can, though sometimes i just wana reach through the internets and force choke them for not leaving other peoples lives alone and dealing with their own.

They can moan all they want, yet I will continue to be the slightly sexual furry i am, who only does things with REAL humans role playing as anthropomorphic beings, and hasn't actually done anything sexual in about 8 months. I'm sad now. XD

We can dream.

But seriously dangerous ones should get the boot. However, i kinda like joke weapons like the harmless one i made the other night. The Adam West Cat Launcher. XD

But that's exactly the problem.. they might come for you.

On Live Help, I've had to talk to several resis who've said that someone doing sexual ageplay has moved in next to them, and while they don't want to join in, they're afraid that their presence means that they're recieving child porn from SL and thus in danger of being prosecuted in the real world. And the real reason why child porn is a special case - if you are prosecuted, that's all it takes. You don't need to be found guilty.

I'm sure that protecting the non-ageplaying innocent is a big part of this action.

It's rather late in the day for those of us in Europe who would like to attend, and exercise our right to lend our support to this banning of child sex.

Broccoli

I've been sued and accused of lots of things in RL due to starting a business.
I don't see why a child porn case would be any different.

I'm sure there is unwanted child porn on a lot of peoples computers simply because of the way a lot of programs work.

Do you have "Load images from remote servers" enabled on your email client?
If so you probably have child porn on your PC hard drive someplace as spam has a lot of links to things.

Thank you for calling it sexual ageplay. This is where I want clarification from the Lindens on that little notecard: Are we talking ageplay in general or sexual ageplay? Ageplay is simply the act of being as a child, meaning no sex involved. Sexual ageplay is a whole other kettle of fish. The former doesn't bother me, but the latter creeps me out badly. Making the former bannable for ads will hurt a lot of really good people (children's clothing and furniture designers), whereas making the later bannable is in LL's best interest.

From what I understood of the notecard, it was the sexual ageplay they were cracking down on. So, maybe they need to clarify their definition of ageplay?