Age verification - They tell people to start flagging land but wont say....

Age verification - They tell people to start flagging land but wont say how to verify a user. I see this question popping up all over SL especially in major help groups.

you can tick your land as mature content blocking non age verified people, there is a support base telling you how to do so, even a blog post telling you to do it or face abuse report. You can abuse report them under 'parcel' as well in the Abuse Report system

YET NO ONE HAS SAID HOW YOU VERIFY YOUR ACCOUNT.

*breathes* 3 hours of extensive searching, filing every bit of information into a note card on the new system.

Whats worse is no one knows how, apparently you can't but you can abuse report? Am I missing something here? *takes a breath*

Wait a sec, I know lets try submitting a report ticket
(JUST LIKE THE NICE FAQ SAYS YOU SHOULD DO WHEN YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THE STUPID SYSTEM)

Oh wait a second, no you can't there no category to put the question into.

*breaths* what on earth has LL done with this stupid support. Theres never a linden online these days, you can't submit questions on special topics, the knowledge base doesn't cover the right information, you can't even report a bug without logging into a website?

What on earth made them make everything so darn complicated, why are they threatening people in blog post with 'SET YOUR LAND AS MATURE CONTENT OR ELSE'

without telling people how to age verify.

Personally I am never going to age verify, but the fact no one knows how is really annoying me.

They better get there act together soon.

-breathes a sigh of venting- Ok I am done thanks all for letting me get all the anger out ;o

Currently the only ones who are able to do age verification are concierge users. They are being allowed to "test it" to iron out any issues. Later age verification will be opened to the entire population.

If you are a concierge user you should have received a notice and you should have an age verification link on your My Account Page in the list on the right.

So, they do have their act together and notices have been posted in the blogs.

In reflection I *imagine* that LL are puting the mechanism for flagging into play in preparation to all-round verification. Not the order I would have done things and as I say, I'm just taking a guess on this ...

.. otherwise this really sucks .. bigtime!

Typical, Let's make a half assed announcement before it's time to do it.......the Tao Strikes Again.

Ok I understand that, but what I do not understand is this sudden really quic push on everyone to mature content mark there land when if they did so, people would not be able to visit the parcels.

Why is LL pushing on users now and going over and over consequences of what will happen on people before giving users the chance to verify themselves.

This is confusing me.

Read my post again. That's why. They do everything bass ackwards

I am increasingly of the impression that they like it that way.

In Second Life, the game plays *you*.

I just looked at the knowledge base and I couldn't find any information on how to flag the land as restricted. One thing that did catch my eye while reading about the IDV was this part -

Do I have to pay for verification?

"Verification will initially be free; as we roll out the system we expect there to be a nominal fee for Premium members, and a larger fee for people with Basic memberships."



So basics are going to have to start paying now I guess if they want to be able to roam freely in SL.

So it did me.

As you I searched a long time yesterday how I could verify my age. Not that sure about the fact if I will verify or not (passport number is a issue for me), but I wanted to know more about what and how.
It was very much later that a resident told my about the concierge-matter.

One thing is sure, I will do nothing (nor flagging my land nor verifying) until the system is rolled out.... and even then I am sure what I will do.

Morwen.

From what I heard it will be a very small fee....

But anyway... you don't expect that LL will pay for their trust-thingy when they can let us pay for it?

Morwen.

LiMatty, I don't think anyone has told you to "start flagging land".

They are talking about a FUTURE policy, not one that's in place yet.

Calm down, take a stress pill, and watch the pretty SL sunset.

I'm sorry but the OP really made me laugh.

Bless you sweetheart

An "I am 21 or over" button that you have to click before logging into sl's main grid would just have too easy i guess.

Did you watch Jim Carey in Liar, Liar?

Nobody under 18 should even be in the grid already.

They are not *supposed* to be there, but *we*, the users, are now supposed to protect them from their own wrongdoing in lying to get into the main grid. Way to pass the buck LL.

No - it's LL trying to protect _you_ from a parent suing you because their child encountered adult content on your land.

What i want to know is this.

I use my CC on sl, and have payment info on file. The CC is on the same name as the name i used to register. When I make a payment in, LL are accepting that this is my card, and I'm over 18, as I would have to be, to hold the card.

So, why, when they accept I'm 18 to take my money, will they, suddenly, not accept I'm 18 to view 'adult' material?

No-one has adequatly explained the need for a third-party company to verify age. They have a system already in place. Why is this not enough?

I'm not disputing the avs itself, fine, they want to do it. I want to know why they need to involve another company, when they can do it themselves quite easily.

Something smells very fishy..................

No, the blog post said, "Here is how to flag your land" entirely in present tense. That's where all the confusion comes from.

"How to flag your parcel as having restricted content

The land must be on a region that is marked Mature (PG regions cannot be marked with Restricted content)

From the menu, go to World > About Land > Options. Under ‘Land Options’, check ‘Restricted Content’. The tooltip should read ‘Your parcel information or content is considered inappropriate for a minor’. Unchecking ‘Restricted Content’ will remove the ‘Restricted’ flag from the parcel."

And NOWHERE in the post does it say "When the new manditory age verification client is released..." it just says "do it". .. It then went on to warn dire consequences of NOT doing it. Not ONCE did it say... "in the future", "Next week when...", or "When the client is released" or anything like that.

It was just typcially confusing of them becuase there seems to be no one whos job it is to "communicate" (or if there is, they are certainly not TRAINED in communication) and you just get the engineers on there telling half stories and creating confusion. Not even necesarily on purpose, just that they really don't know HOW to properly and completely communicate and idea in a single post.

/me wonders if this will get in before the "Oh no not the 'Why are Credit Cards....' OMG They can't be used because Visa said that.......' thing.

Credit Cards are not acceptable because a child could have one in some countries. It's a very good general indicator of age, but it's not 100% dependable.
See?

So what's needed is a 'much better' indicator of age, not to be used in conjunction with Credit Card status to achieve a score, but to be a complete answer.

They still haven't found one.
In the meantime, they will use something even less reliable than credit card status.
See?

Oh, I know, but a CC is enough for just about everyone else on the net. Plus a button that says 'I'm over 18'.

Besides, don't you have to be 21 in some places? what about those where it's banned altogether?

We'll just ignore all that, because it's not an issue. LL care not one jot about protecting anyone or anything form seeing or being exposed to anything. The sex industry in SL is big buisness, and they needed to work out how to take a cut. Can't do it directly, but, if you need avs to view it, and they use a 3rd party company, with a very dubious history of selling the information, hmmmm, maybe LL get a kickback on each one submitted. Or am i being cynical?

Oh, and they are going to be charging later on?

Protection, yea right, my arse.

Um, it _is_ protection.

Most porn sites on the internet are run by pornography companies or by people outside the US. Either way, they are people who are happy to make a business of distributing porn as their real life occupation.

Most Second Life adult builds are _not_ run by professional pornographers. They're run by private individuals who value the anonymity of SL to express themselves in that fashion. But that also means that if they happen to get sued - note, they don't have to lose the lawsuit, the lawsuit just has to exist - then they're much, much more vulnerable.

If a pornography company gets sued and claims that the "I'm over 18" button is enough, then maybe the judge will agree, and maybe not. But if _you_ get sued and make the same claim, then even if the judge agrees and you win the lawsuit, your real name and identity have been exposed, and maybe people close to you - your wife/husband/SO, your boss, etc - know that you were distributing pornography on the internet. I don't know what the legal rules are for LL to resist a subpoena, but I strongly suspect that they can't defend you on your behalf, because that's what your own trial is for.

LL, therefore, are trying the best they can to make it so that underage users just can't see the content and can't possibly have anything to sue about.

Nope. LL are trying the best they can to make it *appear* that underage users just can't see the content.
There's a less than subtle difference here.
Underage users will be able to see the content just as they do now once they feed data to Integrity. Nothing has changed except that there will be a completely false expectation on the part of some residents that minors will be unable to access their restricted content.
The chances of being sued, and named & shamed are just as high under the new regime.

If a minor can not be held responsible for falsely asserting that they were 18+ on signup, then they can't be held responsible for entering false verification data to Integrity.
Even if they could be, you are quite correct in that if the case is taken up, a subpoena will uncover whatever LL have on you, and whatever Integrity have on you.

Well, then what _can_ LL do to protect people? At least they do seem to be trying to do something.

Another point is that they probably want to prevent adult users who don't want to see adult content, from seeing it. I admit that's more of a PR issue for them, but even that has some merit to it. Just this week, THES (a UK newspaper for academics) ran a brief story which basically directly said not to use public virtual worlds in education because there's too much risk of running into inappropriate content (and Second Life was explicitly named - http://www.thes.co.uk/current_edition/story.aspx?story_id=2038362 , but it's a subscription site, unfortunately).

"Seem" is the correct description.
They are moving to protect themselves only.
That could be said to protect 'us' in that we can't play if SL gets shut down by court cases.

To be fair to LL, if people flag their restricted content then they will have some extra moral defence from a minor as the minor will have lied twice rather than just once to get to the content.




That's what the Mature/PG region divide was all about.
Everyone was 18+ and had an option of staying in PG areas. Educational establishments could insist that staff and students stick to PG regions.

Idiots and griefers will continue to produce restricted content in an inappropriate context no matter what regime is put in place. It is impossible to prevent that unless an EDU restricts the sim to its own members.

It's like one of those things you got to walk through when at the airport.

Cut out a small section of your property, little more than 16sqm (cuz you don't want to look like a spammer).

On that section, turn the validation thingamajig on.

Direct avatars to walk through it.

You know the ones to spot, those are the ones that can't get through. SL Security can help you frisk them at that point. Might be possible to search their inventory, too.