SL closing down??

No, you are just spinning to be argumentative. "rest of the world" is an expression Stephen used and this thread was specifying Europe Uk and US. Sure we can start argyuing over cultures now, but that is silly.

You know what was meant.

Statistically,

The most dangerous person to a child -

is the men single mothers date.

So far and beyond the danger of chat rooms, etc, its not even comparable.

When is the expose on men who date single mothers?

i know youre right Brenda. it was just my daydream of what would happen in Second Life if i was queen of the world . . but im not . .but maybe if i click my shoes together three times or twitch my nose or make a voodoo doll or . .

I'm a kid av, and I haven't run into any of this nonsense either. I suppose one could chalk that up to having been a member for only a little more than a month so far; although to me Sky News certainly seemed to suggest that this activity is so pervasive that you could happen upon it within a couple of days of signing up. If not, their reporter seemed to know uncannily exactly where to go and what to do in order to achieve the desired outcome.

Is Sky News correct? I really don't know. According to some other kid avatars I've talked with, my particular "subculture" (if one could call it that) is heavily griefed and discriminated against in Second Life, yet I've made numerous adult-av friends and the worst thing anybody's ever done to me is walked past without saying anything. I don't think the folks I've talked to were simply making things up, so perhaps I've been extremely lucky. Could it be true that the many of us who haven't run into the sexual age-play and RL kiddy porn are just "lucky"? Possibly, but that possibility diminishes with the increasing number of "lucky" people, and I feel it's diminished to the point where the folks who actually have experienced those things would really be the "lucky" - or UNlucky, more appropriately - ones.

If there's RL child porn being traded in SL, that needs to be stamped out wherever it can be found. Sexual ageplay and/or "virtual" child pornography is already outlawed by the TOS, and to be perfectly honest I can't bring myself to complain about that. I find Linden Labs' policies toward these issues to be completely satisfactory.

Still and all, I am not happy with Sky News. Well, at least, not happy with their reporter. Creating a kid av and intentionally breaking the rules for the seemingly sole purpose of showing that "it could be done" is a dirty trick, proves nothing, and gives kid avs in general a bad reputation. I do not in any wise feel sorry for those whose accounts have been banned over this instance - neither the reporter's, nor those who actually bought into his sickening solicitations - but I think this reporter fellow crossed a line that shouldn't have been crossed.

Who's spinning what? When someone says "the rest of the world," I assume the mean ALL of it, not "The rest of the world, but just the Western part, because only their opinions matter in this case." If Stephen - or you - meant Europe and the US, you should have said so. Vague terminology never won a debate.

Again, sloppy.

I did find it ironic that in Germany the age of consent is apparently 14, yet they have strict laws about cartoons that look under 18.

So you could have actual sex with a 14 year old in Germany as an adult, but not cyber-sex with a 40 year old using an Av that "looks" 14.

I personally think the age of consent for sex with adults and age of consent for all other sexual matters should be the same - otherwise it is inconsistent.

For example if Germany's age of consent was 18 - I wouldn't find the situation Ironic.

Well, at today's governance meeting, the Lindens present tole me I *could* AR him.

They did't seem to thrilled with the news piece.



Ya. It's not often one stumbles across it, to be honest.



It's actually been fairly quiet lately on the griefing and stuff. Not like it was. Of course, I did hear about someone going around the kid sims and orbiting child avvies -- stories like this do bring out the misguided vigilantes and the griefers looking for easy targets -- but things have quieted down a *lot* over thelast couple months.

Just in time for Sky News to do another piece. :-/

Meanwhile - have you joined Second Life Children yet, Dakota?

Mari

Of course, paedophiles also gravitate around occupations involving child care. That's not to say all child care employees are paedophiles (far from it), but it does make me recall another reason why this story will barely scratch the surface in the UK right now...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/03/njersey303.xml

Ha! The law is an ass. I could quite legally go and have sex with a 16 year old (male or female) in the UK, but throw a video camera set to record into the mix, and they'll haul my ass before the judge for creating child pornography.

Gad, 25 year olds look too young to me thesedays. 16 year olds are totally ick.

Its actually happened around where I live about 10 years ago.

A teenage couple boy 18/ girl 17 has a sexual relationship - In Ohio the age of consent is 16 - Her parents were aware the relationship was taking place.

He got pulled over in Indiana (also age of consent 16) and they found poloroids of his naked GF he had recently taken that he had in the car ..

They busted him for interstate trafficking of child pornography.

I read about that yesterday. Now *that* is chilling. i was especially creeped out by the graffiti mentioned in http://news.scotsman.com/uk/Latest-find-at-exchildren39s-home.3838480.jp -- sent a RL chill down my spine.

Mari

Oh absolutely. The whole thing is just horrifying. Hundreds of former kids who lived there have come forward, and allegations of abuse involve everybody from the people who were supposed to be caring for them right up to a Senator in Jersey's government.

The graffiti though... as you say.. chilling. Like something out of a horror film.

Oh god. You really couldn't make it up.

Nothing surprises me any more. Particularly not since that guy in Scotland was put on the Sex Offender's Register for having sex with a bicycle in the privacy of his own room.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7095134.stm



I guess the authorities have to meet their targets somehow... and if using a bike as a sex toy in private or taking pictures of yourself having perfectly legal sexual intercourse allows them to tick the 'Sex Offender' box, these little loopholes will never be closed.

You would think that in some way that at least one other person would have to be involved who either denied or was incapable of consent in order for someone to become a "sex offender"

I don't see how these laws protect children though - since most offenders are known to the family.

I happen to know of several admitted child abusers who got slap on the wrist punishments, while the punishments for cartoon porn seem the same as regular child porn.

Well... this is quite a thread... takes me back to the old LL general forum of old. It has everything and then some... you've managed to work in glory holes, Iraq war, TVs of all sorts, personal fighting, name calling. I'm still waiting to understand wtf Michaeltv thinks is going on in US book stores. I think he believes his top shelf magazines... prolly thinks all the pizza delivery girls offer additional services too.

I can't believe you let Rebecca get away with saying Dell would never come into SL as it is, when there is a four sim group of islands with Dell all over it. There are a number of companies successfully negotiating their way in SL, and many of them are extremely enthusiastic about the possibilities. A lot of mistakes have been made by developers in Sl who have misjudged commercial content, and those people have left, but there are many more who have worked hard and achieved much here.

It seems to me that any medium which draws people with things in common together can be used by paedophiles... telephones, webpages, SL and other virtual worlds. Finding and breaking these rings when real children and real abuse is involved is laudable. Spending limited resources pursuing people who like to assume child avatars and indulge in age play seems wasteful unless it is proved that one is linked to the other, something I don't think has been proven yet.

I'm also amazed that nobody reacted when Rebecca said that she had to turn up her draw distance in order to see all the sex going on.... She hasn't been so much unlucky as looking for evidence going on: it's like buying binoculars and spending your time prying into their bedrooms in RL and then being shocked if you see a couple engaged in sexual acts.

One of the refreshing things about SL is that generally, if you don't look for things you don't like, you won't stumble over them. Look for them and you will find them.

The plain fact is that in the UK it is illegal to possess depictions of children of a sexual nature, and it doesn't matter whether they are real pictures, computer generated pictures, drawn pictures or animations. I don't agree with this, but it is the law.

I think the jury is still out on whether engaging in SL-type virtual activity like age play is likely to make you more or less likely to engage in RL abuse. I have been unable to find any good information about this and I have searched for it.

It is possible that it's not possible to say definitively: for one person being able to be involved in a virtual way will be enough so that they don't need to move it into RL and for others it might encourage them to act in RL. I don't know. I think it is important to know, because knowing the answer to that will tell us whether we ought to be encouraging people to relieve any urge in a virtual way, or banning it in the way LL have done. The aim of the laws ought to be to protect children before anything else. Whichever approach offers the greatest protection for real children must surely be the way forward.

Anyway... great thread! Sorry I'm late to the feast, hope there's still pie.
Cali

People who trust in the wisdom and "protection" of governments, which consist of bureaucrats and politicians, tend to get what they deserve. It's the ones who get what they don't deserve that worry me.

Personally I don't get the uproar if it exist one would think it is quite hidden.
I do see there more important things like copyright theft, more con artist and fraud happen for next L$ happening a whole lot more without even looking for then any thing like child porn that few seem to care or want to do anything about.
Why isn't their more uproar over people losing thousand of real dollars over being swindled in the media,etc here?
I bet it happens a whole lot more then cartoon adult child sex pixel humping.
I have never seen anything like this but I am not looking or interested in any pixel humping.
I think though the child/adult inappropriate sex stuff truthfully happens a whole lot more on the internet or real life then here but we only hear about it when it becomes news worthy.
The thing is often when it does happen lot of times nothing is done about it in many, many cases in real life. Truthfully I think there needs to be more outrage that their is still children in rl being forced into sexual slavery and worse, I wish more people who could do something would spend more time investing dealing with those crimes then cartoon sexual images.

Now Har, it was pointed out earlier in the thread that all government employees are as pure as the driven snow with motives of solid gold.

Hhhmm. New-driven snow has recently been discovered to contain bacteria. And you may have an explanation for the recent soaring price of gold - goddam government cost overruns.

And empty most every time I have been there. Last time I went there, it was being griefed and there were naked avis dancing on a bridge complete with giant you know whats...thats why I mentioned it.

Its well known that companies came here all excited, and have left or stopped caring and stopped developing in SL.

Quite a few people put her on ignore after the war comments in that other thread.

But you admitted that none of them has made a lasting impression on SL. So how much developing did they do. The development done in SL hasn't come from the big corporations. It has come from the small business people. From the average person who wants to be here, not the Marketing Department who is looking to justify spending a few grand on a set of sims.

I have visited some of the "Big Business" sims. Pontiac, BMW?, Dell I think all told in my thousands of hours in SL, I have spent maybe 6 hours in these business sims, maybe not even that much. How many others are like me? Should we change the culture here to try and lure in a few marketing drones? or keep it free and open to keep the current population?

I understand and basically agree, but my point has to do with SL's success and credibility and also the potential, which is not going to be realized the way things are.

So sad that I still have to read what she says since other people quote her so often...

Ah, dammit. I WAS in my kid avatar just BECAUSE.