What is "Offensive Material"?

In terms of SL, offensive material is whatever LL's lawyers deem is offensive, not by moral standards but by legal liability. Gambling? Legal liability. Sexual Ageplay? Legal liability. Copulating furries? No legal liability. Gorean slave auctions? No legal liability. etc...

That was the plan for the next Cartel meeting.................

I don't believe that is the case. They are looking to broaden the appeal of the platfrom globally. We've been asked if we really want slavery and extreme violence in Second Life. There's more to this than legal liability.

No doubt followed by the vomiting.....

Am I?

Ooooh! Sign me up! And I just bought new lingerie, too!

Why don't you just host it, Hon?

Ciaran, you can chainsaw and blow people to big bloody pieces in certain xbox games.... xbox games...which almost universally appeal to teenage kids. If they let you do that there... then we will have zero problems with violence here. So far there hasn't been any activity banned purely on moral grounds... the last two... are legal liabilities. Who knows what the future will bring? But without something they can point to like saying, "Hey Germany will close us down if we don't get rid of it!" then they will have very little to stand on when they ban something else.

Well Bree the ban on certain words in classifieds? On TCM last night they were showing Lolita, the name of the film wasn't blanked out in the telly listings.

Broadly offensive doesn't have to equal legal liability.

I'm a giver. What can I say?

As for the comment on back problems, maybe we can install ergonomically designed seating and special seatbelts in the biplanes.

BTW - I was trying to give away the biplane in a thread last week. The thread went the way of the dodo bird and the passenger pigeon, and I'm a little afraid that I will as well if I mention that here, so I'll just say that it and the 3L are still up for grabs to the person who posts the best use for a biplane in SL. Giving it away as compensation for taking part in a bogus survey that involves me examining naked Avs to check for obscenity is going to be a tough one to beat.

That's easy. Firewood.

I don't think it's a wooden biplane. Although in SL, pretty much everything starts off as plywood, doesn't it?

Corduroy

Uhhmm I don't know. I like a pair of corduroys on a crisp fall day. Now polyester, that's a different story.

You could use the biplane to repeatedly ram it into the Ginko building

Now THAT'S effective innuendo!

Wingwalker Ruth storming Linden Village

....in slow motion of course.

This is one of the reasons i assigned alex to Read many of the books she Has done, SHE understands these principles, and the Evil they can lead to.

A few you might want to look into;
"The Prince" by Nochola Machiavelli
"Gullivers Travels" by Johnathan Swift
"1984" by George Orwell (This one is particularly appropriate to this discussion)
"Don Quixote" by Cervantes
"Farenheight 451" by Ray Bradberry

One has to Learn to THINK for Ones self rather than Blindly accepting OTHER peoples judgement on whether something is offensive or Not. If you Want to be lead, at least make sure you KNOW your leaders are worth following. If One wants to Uphold a principle, then One should make sure One understands ALL sides of that principle Pro, and Con.

"What is worse, A Fool, or the people who blindly follow him?"

Angel.

Come on, now! Lime green polyester is a must at any disco party! How about nylon for offensive?

Blue slurpees are highly offensive.

They taste too blue.

You had me until you (mis)quoted Ben Kanobe!

Actually - here's a serious answer to this because I know I took it OT, and I don't want to get AR'ed. If I do, I'll be stuck with this damn ALUMINIUM biplane forever.

We can assume that LL does what its lawyers tell it and words its policies the way its lawyers want it to. It pretty much only bans what it could be legally liable for, although if some activity messed with its business model, it would probably go after that as well. For the most part, it doesn't make sense for LL to ban anything it doesn't legally have to, because it doesn't have the resources to fully enforce the bans it has already, let alone a whole set of new ones.

There is no good legal definition of "obscene". If you look at case law, you see references to community standards, what a reasonable observer of the material would think, and, of course, the First Amendment. In SL, the First Amendment doesn't apply, because it only applies to the US government's ability to control the speech of US citizens. But as between LL and the US government, the First Amendment does apply, so there is a link there. On judge, in trying to define pornography said, "I don't know what it is, but I'll know it when I see it."

There is a conflict between community standards and the First Amendment. Community standards generally refer to the standards of behavior and displays that are widely accepted in the community. However, the First Amendment is not in place to protect the speech of the majority. It is there to allow those with minority or unpopular views to express those views, so, almost by definition, the First Amendment is in conflict with community standards. Also, there is a significant difference in application between commercial speech and private speech, so from the standpoint of someone selling and producing sexually explicit materials, the goalposts are farther away than for a normal person engaged in unpopular speech or activities.

Basically, as long as it is not illegal, examples being child pornography and possibly animal/human sex, it is not considered legally obscene, although that is a very broad generalization. Think about what you are depicting and the community. If it goes beyond prurient into the realm of depravity, you are increasing the risk. If the community at large knew about it, would they shake their heads? Shun you? Protest with signs? Show up at your door with pitchforks and torches? Think of it as a sliding scale. The farther down the scale you go, the greater the risk. If you want to be conservative and minimize the risk, look at what others are doing and don't go much further down that sliding scale than they have. If you can handle a greater risk and think there is a greater reward, push the scale over a little and see if something breaks.

polyesther, and rayon....

Oohh, I know. Remeber in "North by Northwest", the scene where Cary Grant ws being chased by the Biplane? now just just rez out Cary Grant and rez in...Dan Linden!

*I'll take my prize in small bills*

Lolita is a girl's name, it's the name of a controversial film, gothic lolitas are a fashion statement, it's also a slang for a sexualized young girl. I can't read the Linden's minds so I guess they just want to cover all their bases but it is still based on the sexual ageplay liability. I have some faith in LL that they are being quite liberal and trying not to ban everything offensive. They're in San Fran man.