SL closing down??

This is my first post, im very worried, i been here 6 months, i just bought land and and a mansion where me and a friend are making aclub.

But again in the uk SL is all over the news again, because a child got abused, its caused so much disturbence again, that im reliably told that goverments are seriously asing for SL to be closed down

Should inot spend ny more of my hard earnt cash at the momment or what!!
the ITV news in england carries screen shots of cihild avatars, i thouth this was sorted lsat year when Sky news did the same story, will linden labs close SL.

anybody with information please reply asap before i lose all my lindens and real cash invested.

thanks

but gutted!!

Links, please

Without seeing the news story you're referring to, I'd say: We've been down this road before, and the hype is usually overrated. I wouldn't fret just yet

Edited to add: I did a search on bbc.co.uk, looking for any Second-Life related news stories. The only one I see that seems related to what you're talking about dates to a year ago. Is it possible you're reading an old story?

Shut down? Don't plan on it.

LL is a US based country. As far as I know there is no law in the US against depictions of child sex if it's an animation. You may see US officials go after LL for some of the RL pictures of child pornography within SL, but I wouldn't bet on it. They'd really want to go after the creators.

I doubt very much that LL would close down Second Life even if such things were true; they'd probably just make it credit-card-verified only.

There has to be some restriction, lesser than closing down, that they could adhere to to satisfy the police - otherwise every single BBS on the internet would have to close down because a paedophile might post pictures or meet someone there..

(And re above: here we go again.. PROTECT Act 2003. Bans artworks portraying minors in obscene sexual situations. The word "obscene" is important because the US constitution excludes obscene material from the Right to Free Speech, which was used to defeat an earlier version of the same law which lacked that word.)

GOt a link? I've not heard anything about this, I'm in the UK too, and Googling isn't bringing up any recent news stories on SL.

Don't feed the troll.

I'm in the UK as well. Not a single mention anywhere about this.

I'm still at work so have no intention of Googling any words that might find it!

by the way

child avatars are allowed

it is when child avatars are used in lewd sexual acts and other things harmful to children, that it becomes an issue

Is it April 1st yet? HAHAHhahhah

I see a 50 to 80 reply posting thread coming soon here.

Depictions of child sex in animation, cartoons, or any other sort of depictions, even if no actual children were involved are illegal - big time. They will get you several years in the pen. I was in a courtroom on one of my many paperwork pushing projects (ie stalking judges, commissioners, clerks, etc and wheedling them into signing largely meaningless bits of paper) and had to sit through the sentencing of a guy who got caught with a bunch of drawings of child sex. He had no actual photos or anything depicting real children. He got 5 years.

I think the news article from last year is what you have picked up on - I too am unable to trace any new news on this so don't fret!

Wow. That surprises me. I knew it was illegal in other countries but not the US. As revolting as I find any depictions of child sex, I wouldn't expect that, nor necessarily agree with it.

Anyway, that's an entirely subject all together. I wouldn't expect SL to be closing down anytime soon.

I wouldn't worry about it. The best way to help curb a public panic is simply not to become a part of it yourself.

As Travis said, links would helpful so we can know what the heck you're talking about. I gather from what you're saying that there was a problem involving a child, who shouldn't have been using the service in the first place. As much as we'd all prefer that no child ever wander into any dangerous situation he or she shouldn't, the reality is it happens all the time.

In the 1950's when some kid dressed up as Superman and jumped off his roof, some people cried loudly that Superman should be taken off the air, and that television would be the downfall of their generation. But reason prevailed. 50 some years later, both Superman and television are doing just fine.

In the 80's, when some kid killed himself, and his parents found an Ozzy Osbourne record in his room that just happened to have a song with the word "suicide" in the title, that just had to have been the reason. (Nevermind that the kid also listened to everything from The Beatles to Beethoven, and that the song in question was actually about the dangers of alcohol poisoning, not about suicide; it had to be the fault of the song, not of the parents or of the kid himself.) Uptight parent groups made a stink, some bizarrely retarded prosecutor (unsuccessfully) tried to hold Ozzy responsible for the kid's death, and a big stink was made about whether or not the government should spend time and money looking for evil subliminal messages in heavy metal music. But again reason prevailed. Ozzy survived, the record industry survived, and now 20+ years later, the whole notion of subliminal messages having been present, let alone having the power to make people do things they ordinarily wouldn't, is universally accepted as laughable.

In the 90's when this newfangled thing called "Internet" came along, and news spread of a child having been abused after meeting up in RL with someone he'd met in a chat room, the same kinds of misguided creeps came out of the woodwork yet again. Shut down this "Internet" thing, they said. It allows molesters to find kids. Sure, don't blame the parents who should have been keeping a better eye on their own child, or the actual doer of the deed; blame some "thing". But reason prevailed then, too, and the Internet survived.

Nowadays, they try to blame these things on video games, or virtual worlds, or social networking sites, or whatever the buzz topic of the day happens to be. I'm sure the same stuff probably happened back when the telephone was invented, and when the first postal system was put in place, and when the first books were published. Etc., etc., etc.


Trout, if that was a US courtroom, there had to have been more to the story than that. Anyone can draw a picture of anything, and it's ALWAYS legal. We have a little thing called freedom of speech in this country.

However, if the guy was using actual children to model for his drawing sessions, that could certainly be illegal, and could warrant jail time. But drawings in and of themselves mean nothing.

If it is a true story, I say shut the parents down.

oh god the sky is falling... *again*

befor you make anymore avi`s payment on file to post this, just send me $5USD and i`ll post it for you, twice!

It was Channel 5 news , which happens to have a tie up to Sky news. It was the same "b@llshit" reporter Jason Farrell !! News must be slow in the UK, if SL has to be the lead story on its news. I would not be surprised if it were stage managed for sake of sensationalism.
Jason farrell assumed a 10 yr old girl AV and was eventually invited into this guy's home.
He showed her the bedroom, which contained a SexGen type bed with poses....he asked her to take off her panties" There was also an adult woman present in the room...she appeared out of nowhere. You can see the News footage below

http://news.five.tv/your-news-story.php?news=176

The real issue about paedophiles which seems to be totally ignored...is for an adult to masquerade as a kid and sneak into the Teen grid. I have not seen any hoohah about the possibilites of that occuring. That is far more dangerous imo.....as you have a RL adult interacting with RL kids...as opposed to 2 adults, 1 of which is a dumbass reporter trying to re-enact an adult-kid situation.

Its really a shame to target child AV's as 99.9% of which are kosher and played by law-abiding adults. The family unit is the most natural component of everyday RL ad there so many people here that like to re-create a family unit, which means having kids and teens AV's......if you want wierd....then take a look at furries, Gorean slave sex, BDSM torture sex or Vampire blood sex.

The only UK media to comment on SL today that I have come across was a piece on the BBC PM radio programme about an hour ago that questioned whether jihadist groups may use VR worlds for organising terrorism.

The security "expert" questioned was quite clear that no serious terrorist outfit would go anywhere near something like Second Life, for all the reasons that we are aware of.

*checking C4 News right now...*

EDIT: Thanks Rene; you got there ahead of me.

The 'government' would have to shut the entire internet down to get rid of sickos online, not just SL.

Freedom of speech does not extend to depictions of child pornography. It was the Superior Court in Pierce Co. Washington (Tacoma), and it was a US law that was being enforced, although I do not know if it was a federal or a state law that he was being sentenced under.

I agree with the rest of your post, though. I'm so tired of people blaming other things for their problems. Rock and roll, violent video games, bikini clad women in beer ads, Joe Camel makes kids smoke, etc... For the love of God. People are responsible for what they do. Cartoon camels don't make you smoke and machine-gunning Combine soldiers does not make you go shoot up a school. People let their own prejudices and fear overcome common sense.

LOG OFF NOW!

(and give me your stuff)

/me puts on knee and elbow pads and her bicycle helmet, and braces herself for this thread

many thanks for your replys, but this story is still on ITV news at this time, the poser whos said even a cartoon character or animated child being abused is a criminal offence,
Is quite correct!! IT IS ILLEGAL!

This story broke in uk a few hours ago: but i refered to the SKY NEWS report in december 2007 about the same problem of a childs playground.

But hang on! I was to been invited to a carnival by a little SL girl, and she show me around the dodgems and big wheel, she even has her own rl photo, very cute, shes said she was 9. there were also mothers with kids, so there is a childrens section in second life.!!
Also Im told by one mother i met and her child that she (aquired) the girl from the SL adoption agency...........so what the hell is Linden labs doing by mixing, bondage, pissing lesbian and gay acts, and allowing children to go about freebie sections, (namely the free dove).....it dont make sense more like crazy... dont forget uk is very backward in this dept, even if the whole of SL was not shut, then this goverment may well block the uk from accessing it, rather like Ebay, where uk citizans cant buy mature products.

i have just emailed linden labs just now with an explanation of what i have outlined above, and said they should tone down the aggresive and even to me lol offensive stuff like toilet stuff and torture stuff hanging beams, roasting fires etc, these are offensive to me, and im as sexy and erotic as the next person, which is why me and my friend make super mansion just for bisexual girls TV TS and shemales... im new to land, but isnt the M lan im in mean mature over 18 only.... Im not seeing things am I, i have seen a child outfitters where kids can buy jeans/ tops, i saw them with there sl mothers buying em.....!!!!!

still confused, and whats "redlight" a lady friend who loves TVs namely like me, fell in love with one, and her RL partner nearly divorced her over the relationship, she ended up on prozac!!!!

my questions still pile up sorry!!!

regards michaela destiny
xxxxxxx

OhhhhhhhhhhhhhKaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy........

So let me get this straight. The sequence went like this:

1. Reporter, a grown man, has a seemingly peculiar knack for just happening upon kiddie porn in SL.

2. Said reporter, a grown man, decides it would be a good idea to dress up like a little girl.

3. This grown man, dressed up like a little girl, is then "surprised" when he runs into other people who just so happen to like the notion of grown men dressing as little girls.

4. This grown man/ace reporter then completely ignores the obvious question of whether or not, given that SL operates on the premise that all users are adults, it can be fairly said that these people like actual little girls, not just grown men dressed as little girls.

5. Reporter tries to cover his tracks by asking someone flat out if he likes little girls in RL.

6. The person "suspiciously" kicks the reporter off his property.

7. Reporter once again ignores the obvious question. Why did the person kick him out? There are at least 3 possible reasons that come to mind right away:

a. The person was unhappy that the reporter ruined the game by breaking character, as during the intended course of the roleplay, that question would never have come up.

b. The person simply didn't like being asked about his real life.

c. The person really does like little girls, and was afraid of getting in trouble for saying so.

8. Reporter concludes Option C must be the only possible explanation, and considers it newsworthy.

9. No one asks the obvious question, why the hell does this guy volunteer to go out looking for kiddie porn in the first place? Is there something we should know about this grown man who enjoys dressing as a little girl?

10. An SL resident sees the broadcast, decises the sky is falling, and posts here to ask if SL is gonna be shut down due to the fact that certain grown men like to use it for the purposes of dressing like little girls.



Say it with me kids, HOW TO MAKE ANYTHING LOOK BAD IN TEN EASY STEPS. Ain't "journalsim" grand?