SL closing down??

You know.. I'm starting to get desensitized to "startling news exposés".. I guess that's why I read the news each day, to desensitize myself to all the political insanity, threats of war, and cheap and tawdry celebrity gossip.... So I can eventually work up to going out and running for office while threatening war with some country over rising gas prices and whatever Microsoft is doing to Paris Hilton.

Actually, I'm totally burned out on "OMFG"... really.

I'm gonna optimize my HD and go to bed.. you all have this flamefest and righteous indignation without me.. I'll be back in time for the "terrorists using Second Life as a training center" debate. (or are we doing "evil corporations in SL" next? Or was it.. something about Voice?) anyways I'll be back later.

/me tosses Mari a coupon for a free ice cream at Dairy Queen, and walks.. no.. FLIES out the door.

My wife has said it was CHANNEL 5 NEWS not ITV that was running the story in the uk
Teribly sorry for picking wrong one ........woops (((

Apologies!

Michaela

Nurse.. I'd rather not have the same medication that person is having... seems to have given them a bad reaction.

Way too much is made of this issue.

Michaela, yes, you do seem to be confused!

SL is like RL in that, taken as a whole, the variety of activities people engage in is huge. You seem to be saying that no child AVs should be allowed, because obscene acts take place (virtually) in Mature areas of the grid. Consider these points:

> The main grid is 18+, which means only that the person behind the keyboard must be over 18. They can play any character they wish ... fox, cyborg, child, etc..

> Thus, there are no RL children legally on the main grid, they should all be on the teen grid (and if they are not yet teenagers, they have no place in SL at all).

> There are RL adults who roleplay as child avatars on the main grid whose avatars DO NOT have sex of any form. They stay mostly in PG areas, and are very often members of families ... that is, a usually unrelated set of over 18 humans who roleplay various members of a virtual family. They engage in innocent activities like camp, parties that involve cutely interactive food, fireworks and stories around a campfire. If this offends someone, then presumably they find RL children offensive as well.

I would hate to see the genuine family roleplays in SL, which have a very sweet and healing quality to them, destroyed. If you claim that because some people roleplay pornographically in one area of the grid, that others cannot be genuinely free of pornography, then perhaps you should tour some of the less sexually-oriented portions of the grid. They're a lot of fun.

Keep in mind: the reporter who set up that story was HIMSELF violating the rules SL has set for conduct on the grid. I will look up the story you cited, and if the name of his AV is revealed, I will AR him myself.

Uh, no it's not. Cite me a US law that says otherwise. Until then, I'll stick with the Constitution.

If you're talking about another country, like the UK, then maybe it's different over there. I don't know. But over here, just because something might be considered indecent by many, doesn't mean it's illegal. You have the right to draw a picture of anything you want, always. You might not have the right to broadcast it, but you certainly have the right to create it.


There is no "children's section". Everyone in SL is supposed to be an adult. If some adults choose to dress as children, that's up to them.

Also, if some actual children happen to sneak in under the radar, well, as I said, kids do all kinds of things they're not allowed to do. That doesn't change the fact that they don't belong. Parents should be responsible to keep their kids out.



LL isn't "doing" anything. They simply provide the blank canvas. What people choose paint onto that canvas is not LL's doing.

If and when an illegal use of the service is brought to their attention, then it could be argued that they have a responsibility to remove the offending content and/or users from the system. But to imply that the actions of individual users are somehow actions of LL is simply ludicrous.

That would be like saying if you drive your Buick onto the sidewalk and kill 20 people, it's somehow GM's fault, since they made the car. No, it's your fault. You were the one driving, not GM. They made the car drivable, but you chose to drive it was completely your own doing.


Wow, and I thought the US government was uptight. That's nuts.

I'm not saying I do or don't like the idea of people buying adult products, or acting out any fantasies with other adults, by the way. I'm only saying that they SHOULD be allowed to. While many governments do obviously intervene in these things, no government should. What grown adults choose to do in the privacy of their own homes should be up to them. No one else's standards should apply.


And how exactly do you expect LL to do that?

All in-world content is user-created. With very few exceptions, nothing was created directly by LL.

SL is simply a hosting service for user-created content, just like the Internet itself. You can't expect LL to "tone it down" any more than you could expect your ISP to "tone down" the Internet. It just doesn't work like that.

Even if they wanted to, they can't go around policing every last corner of the grid. One of the few correct things that reporter said was "there are lots of places to hide". When you talk about "the SL world", you're talking about a database with literally billions of assets in it, virtually all of which were put there by individual users just like you and me. How do you expect LL to sort through all that and decide what's "decent" and what's not? It simply can't be done.


Not sure what this part means, sorry. Could you perhaps rephrase it with complete sentences?

I'm guessing you mean someone had an online romance, which upset her RL partner. That's nothing new. That kind of thing has been happening since long before SL. Back in the day it was romantic pen pals; in modern times, it's phone sex and online romance. Whatever the medium of communication, in the eyes of many, and affair is an affair, whether the people involved connected physically or not.

I don't really see what that has to do with the topic at hand, though, so maybe I missed your meaning. Again, complete sentences would be nice.

Sorry beezle u can only have half my stuff. ahahahhaha the other belongs to my co- owner manager..........now I would be in the dog house if i gave away his disco stuff and
other items! lol!

Ill just play it by ear, but no more £ of mine are going into SL until i get a report back from linden labs about the situation..

BUT I KEEP U IN MIND..........??!! yeah right!!! lolol


Mich

Sorry Michaela, but most of that is sensationalist tabloid bollocks. And you appear to be confusing the UK with Myanmar or North Korea.

I suggest staying out of it. You know as well as I do that it can only go downhill from here.

* backs away from thread and goes onto other things.

...but not only is it a quiet for 5 news its a quiet night for me.

The cynical in me sees this as someone trying to get some cheap advertising for someone’s



Michaela, for it to scare you so much that 5 news is so intent on closing SL it may come as a surprise that that ace reporter Jason Farrell “will also be holding an online debate in the virtual Sky News studio in Second Life at 9am (GMT) on Wednesday”.

Chosen, as one who can make a very good argument for SL and its benefits it would be interesting to see wait an insightful reporter as Jason would make of a few pointed questions regarding his conduct.

It hasn't gone to court yet (that I know), but the last internet "safety" law Congress passed did outlaw drawings and animations of children. Even the style of Japanese art was mentioned as being illegal. No, it probably won't stand up, but be prepared for a fight.

I have a few questions....

If that reporter would have dressed as a little girl in RL and went out and found that man who wanted to take him(her) into his bedroom, would that have been illegal?

SL just allows adults to dress more convincingly, but they ARE STILL adults.

I don't condone sexual age play (where the avi appears under age), but it is still two adults - and both adults know this when it starts since the main grid is supposed to be adults only.

Channel 5?!! - do people really watch that channel? (Many can't even get a decent picture on that channel)

Chris, if that's true, it's very troubling. No one should ever be able to get in trouble simply for drawing a picture, no matter what it depicts. That's not what this country is supposed to be about.

Im overwhelmed by the response, and so many thanks for your patience, as Im sure a lot of you have been in Second life far longer than I have. i also think the family unit thing is fascinating, But i never heard of grids! I just know second life, like i do now, but had no idea there was a grid for teens.!!

But for what its worth! There re lot of pressure groups out there, religeous or otherwise!! A lot of these have quite of bit of clout too!!

I well remember some years ago , i belonged to 30 or so adult clubs in yahoo groups, u remember them??.....I pressure group managed to wipe about 1200 adult clubs off there site litterally overnight, it was an apalling decision for demorcracy in the usa, who I thought was more tolerant society. Us in the uk still cant understand why, say in one part of the usa u can go to a bookstore and have glory hole sex or whatever, but if u go a few hundred of 1000 mile to some other area, its illegal! In the uk its all or nothing so u know where u stand, how can u be UNITED STATES if you ban one thing in one part of your country, and another state lets u do it.....im not knocking usa, i have loads of US friends, and my co-owner is in texas......just making a point!!)

Im only a 6 month newbie (sob) hahahaahaha

Any way I keep quite for a while lol just put signing on to a website for the streaming vids to be seen in our cinema on hold for a while, but as an after word, according to channel 5 there was a RL kid abused, how that happened i have no idea....

kind regards

michaelatv

Too many people are fixated on their own "We are right" point of view for this to ever get seriously resolved.

Linden Labs banned sexual age play as a private decision to keep their user base.

I would say more, but in my short time here, I've seen this revisited too many times to bother bringing back up again.

A little search can go a long way. (^_^)y

Sure is. But all us kids are much older IRL. Some of us prefer to be (non-sexual!) kids in SL. Jes like some choose to be robots, or anthropomorphic wolfs, or neko, or whatever else.

Maybe this can help you.

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Marianne_McCann/Child_Avatars



See above. I'm well above the age of consent IRL, even if I am five anna half years old inworld.

The SL grid has several thousand regions. Some have bondage stuff and other mature things, many do not. And yes, in some, there are people playing kids. The lions' share of those are playing them in a non-sexual fashion. Yes, there are some bad ones out there -- just like the real world, no one group is wholly spotless -- and those actions are disallowed under the current TOS. But you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.



You must have missed the whole "Your World, Your Imagination" thing on the front door. Likewise, if SL were to follow your lead and ban the torture stuff, then who is to say your particularity for trannies doesn't offend other people here? Certainly ben lots of threads about requiring people to play their real gender in SL.

Oh yes, and you saw kids shopping. You know what else you can see in SL? vampires! Therefore, they must really be vampires IRL too, huh?



I know the name, as it was mentioned in a long thread last year on this. He never replied to any requests from me to talk. I assume because he knew he would not get what he was digging for.



Oooh! This Wednesday? What time is that in SLT? I *gotta* scare up a few kids to go visit!



Yummy! I could go f'r dat right now!

Mari

When I was very young, I was paging through some old newspapers and I came across some classified ads for boarding houses in an English seaside town.

"Full TV wardrobe" said some of them.

"Why would anyone want to keep their TV in a wardrobe?" I asked myself.

If I fell in love with a TV, I'd be on prozac.

Chris says it and you're disappointed but you believe him; I say it and I get told I don't understand the Constitution? Sigh. It's going to be another one of those weeks for me, isn't it?

Oh, and did the OP call me a "poser" in that long, disjointed post that I didn't understand? Can any of our UK members clarify what "poser" means in the UK, because it's not exactly the most positive thing you can call someone here, especially when you seem to be agreeing with them. For the last time, people! I'm a DEGENERATE, not a poser, pervert, drunk, wannabe, a-hole or any of those other things you people think I am. Degenerate.

a poser, or rather "poseur" is an insincere, affected person. However, in this instance, I think the OPs fake fingernails got caught in the keys, as I believe "poster" was the intended word...

This thread confuses me.

Right! I didn't even think of the typo. That makes more sense, as you wouldn't call someone a poser and in the same sentence agree with them. I'll assume that's what it was unless told differently.

Chris - I think you're right in that it hasn't been fully tested at the US Supreme Court level. I don't think it's going to be anytime soon. You have to have a suitable test case and the expense to take something that far is incredible. Defendants with cartoon child porn aren't likely to have that kind of dough, and the organizations like the ACLU who fund cases like that aren't likely to jump on the child porn bandwagon. They have enough bad press as it is.

Academically, it will be an interesting argument because it tests the limits of free speech. Freedom of speech is obviously not unlimited. I honestly don't know how the Court would come down on this one, although if I were a betting man, I'd guess that they would not overturn the law. I don't think this is protected speech and I think the conservative leanings of the Supreme Court are underrated. But I really can't make a good guess. It's a tough one to handicap. Academics aside, it's such a repugnant issue that I wouldn't want anything to do with it.

It's called States Rights. The individual States have the right to govern themselves relatively free from Federal interference. In essence from the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

States Rights were a contributing cause in the Civil War in 1865. The idea is not always used for the best purposes, Segregation and Antil Civil Rights movements have used States Rights as their banner. But in essence I think it is a good idea, The individual States should decide how they govern themselves in most day to day issues, with little Federal interference. However that along with many of our founding principles are being eroded by the Big Government proponents on both sides of the aisle.

To take your example further, in each State, laws can vary from City to City or County to County. That Adult boolstore or Bar may be OK in one County but be illegal the next county or town over.

I'm gonna go way out on a limb here and say that LL will not be closing anytime soon over this particular matter.

well yes, your quite right, I have had my share of abuse, been kicked out of clubs because of my gender, but thats not "offensive" its just being (intolerant)!! I never go about undressed unless i crash and find myself in half naked! In fact the roof garden of our mansion will be a PG area for all to enjoy....)

To any one i meet in SL who thinks im into TV television! because my avatar is called michaelatv, I explain to them, and also the difference between a trannie and a xdresser, they are completley different.. actually im a hammer horror fan, and have built up a collection over the years..i adore lesbian vampires!!! if i meet 10 people in sl, and i tell them u know im a TV, most already know what it means, just perhaps 3 of them will say bye, or yuk 5 of them, mainly girls, say no probs. the other 2 cant wait to get me in a bed and play with my real cock and then my xcite puss!!!! lol So i learn how to cope and respect other peoples perceptions, it just the sudden shock of hearing it was going be shut down, that I freaked!!

I thought this was a report, not an actaul reporter going into second life, if so and this was a scam senstionalised story, then channel 5 news should say so and apologise for making a misleading story, in fact as im in uk i may even phone them up and give em a piece of my mind!!! grrrrrrrr!!

On a lighter note, just a little story for a chuckle! ((I had just bought this land wowww!
joined slex had a few lindens, just got the mansion, i was in badz, a low prim place.
I walked past this guy who just trying out a blow up doll, giving it a good seeing too!!!! as i walked past he IM me and said "Hey are you a blow up doll"?? quick as a flash i answered "no hun" Im a land and club owner (head getting bigger here!!)....."oh shit" oh i mean Sorry" he blurbed!!
I said no prob, i saw he only been on 3 days lol, he sat at a piano to try, and suddenly got this shout, " i cant get up" ROFL i said "god works in mysterious ways", but I help him get out of animation by stop, he was a gent after that lol....made my day, when i tell my RL friends about the blow up doll story, most had to get there hankies out cos they couldnt stop ROFL!!!!
take care fellow SLers

michaela
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