Bad news of the day: They're thinking of merging the Teen Grid into the main one

"Merging the grids means LL is effectively banning sexual activity of any type in SL."

People keep saying that, but I don't understand why. "Merging the grids" doesn't mean "Teens can go anywhere they want."

Legal issues.

That doesn't address the question.

Oh brother, what does an adult have in common with a TEEN?

Just wait till the first lawsuit is filed by a parent after their teen is either lured somewhere or kidnapped after meeting and chatting it up with a nice stranger who was a pedo looking for a victim.

yes it does, they have been posted in this thread over and over again

Because several of the legal protections LL and the content owners/users in SL enjoy right now go poof the second they allow anyone onto the main grid.

I don't think that's the question that was really being asked, so let me rephrase it: The question is why does "allow anyone onto the main grid" mean "allow anyone anywhere in the main grid", as opposed to, for example, "allowing anyone onto PG areas of the main grid, after fixing things to insulate the PG areas".

Because there is no longer a blanket of protection, you can still have kids accessing areas they shouldn't by lying.

How is that different from how it is now?

Because there is no longer a blanket of protection, you can still have kids accessing areas they shouldn't by lying.

But there is no longer the protection of them not supposed to be on the grid.

In the myspace case you listed, if the minimum age was 12. And the girl lied about her age being 18. The lawsuit could easily still have stuck. Because she was of legal age to use the service.

The same reasoning for the tossing of the myspace lawsuit applies to any lawsuits that are brought up.

The only thing *I* am worried about is LL going the IMVU way and hammering down the mature content in the name of protecting the kiddies.

The only thing *I* am worried about is LL going the IMVU way and hammering down the mature content in the name of protecting the kiddies.

That's exactly what i feel they are gonna do..
How else could they do it really?

That's exactly what i feel they are gonna do..
How else could they do it really?

The core question is still whether LL has any responsibility to keep minors away from adults. They do have a responsibility to keep minors away from so-called harmful materials (i.e., pornography or obscenity) that they create, but I'm not sure what their responsibility is with regard to otherwise legal pornography created by their users. However, if they fix the problem with being able to see into mature sims from PG sims, then I don't know of any case that suggests they have any responsibility to keep underage users and adults from socializing on the PG sims.

Limit X rated content to private islands with adult verification turned on, fix all the software issues that have been raised, and either solve the adult verification problems for non-US residents or write them off as customers until a solution is available.

Limit X rated content to private islands with adult verification turned on, fix all the software issues that have been raised, and either solve the adult verification problems for non-US residents or write them off as customers until a solution is available.

Limit X rated content to private islands with adult verification turned on, fix all the software issues that have been raised, and either solve the adult verification problems for non-US residents or write them off as customers until a solution is available.

"Adult Verification" does not work. Read that again: IT DOES NOT WORK. It can not keep a non-verified person from seeing and interacting with virtually everything and everyone on a parcel. Even when it "works" exactly as intended, it only prevents physical access to the first 50M of altitude above the terrain mesh, and does nothing to stop camming in, clicking, or chatting. A "kid on the grid" has virtually unlimited access to XXX material, and there is NO mechanism in SL today to prevent them from accessing it.

In the entire time SL has been around, one of the most asked-for features has been real privacy - walls that actually function as walls - areas that you can protect so only authorized people can get any data about what is happening inside that protected volume of space. And LL hasn't come close to giving us a solution.

You can NOT "age verify" a private sim, unless you are willing to allow full and unrestricted access to anyone who DOES meet the "age verification" requirement. It can't be used in conjunction with ANY approved access list. Yes, without age verification, you can use a group list to lock down your sim to only a short list of people that you have chosen to trust. But LL will not even ALLOW you to know if any of those people have age-verified or not! There is no profile flag, and no scripted calls, that allow you to test for age verification. The ONLY way you can determine if someone is age-verified is to demand that they walk through a small age-verified parcel, on the ground, and VISUALLY determine if they could do it or not.

It is pathetically easy for anyone to falsely obtain "age verified" status. Residents have proven this repeatedly.

Before LL considers allowing minors on a grid full of adult XXX content, they MUST demonstrate that they can prevent those minors from having ANY access to that XXX content. They must demonstrate that they have provided tools to land owners that actually ensure even as much privacy as a rice paper wall would in real life. And they can NOT demonstrate that now.

Existing Mainland property owners in Mature sims bought their land with the understanding that it was 100% approved for them to be able to use and enjoy XXX content on that land. That are NOT going to be the least bit willing to sell their mainland parcels at a severe financial loss and go live on private sims, just to have the XXX content that is legal today. Most of them own mainland because they have rejected the choice of living on private island sims, and having any other Resident as their landlord. Those people will NOT willingly pack up and move to private islands, any more than most real-world land-owners would willingly turn in their mortgage or the deed to their land, in exchange for apartment-style leases that go through a third party.

Saying "Oh, well we will just limit XXX content to locked down private sims." is as naive and short-sighted as saying you'll just pass a law in Real Life that says guns, or pets, or alcohol, or any other items that are legal today can only be owned and enjoyed in locked rooms on offshore platforms, and that they must be removed from all the cities and rural areas where they are legal today. Who is going to compensate the landowners whose legal rights to use that content which you want to restrict would this be abridged? Who will pay to relocate them? Will you?

Which would mean SL's population would soon look like IMVU's, and become mostly pre-teens and teens. And that would tend to run counter to their strategy of having big herd of sheople with lots of money to spend that they point to as a userbase to get Big Business to finally buy in to SL on a grand scale. Pre-teens and teens spend money, but not nearly as much or as freely as adults.