"What happens if I don’t flag my restricted content?"

not.....


The Comfy Chair!

(dun dun duuuuuuun)

If people don't flag, they are going to make this joke of verification mandatory. It will no longer be a strong suggestion.

Stupid... as if it stopped camera work.

Which is why the "socially" part of "morally, socially, legally responsible" phrase is so very chilling of in-game conduct.

Recall that the Lindens may terminate your account for "any reason or no reason" and that causing them bad PR might be sufficient reason for them. So even if your conduct would be unimpeachable under US law, their is the second tier SL "police" who can deprive you of your account.

I realized that Linden Lab has chosen to forfeit any "common carrier" claim they might have. The common carrier status is what allows an ISP to escape culpability for (e.g.) child pornography tranmitted across their network. The courts have found that if you police any content then you are responsible for all content you carry. Linden Lab wants the benefits but not the responsibility attendant to policing. It appears they want cake *and* death, indeed.

Hm. Or some agency with the power to prosecute has convinced them they couldn't make that claim as a defense. The last time they appeared to be responding to that, with the 'Keeping Second Life Safe, Together' policy, they found through partnering with a civil liberties that they could. I don't see why they couldn't do the same now, given their connection to EFF through a founding member of Linden Labs, they can take that initiative without having their arm twisted by mass organized protest.

Perhaps they can't claim common carrier until most the grid is populated with open source servers hosting the land.

{me digresses}
I seem to recall a story about a RL case in which a burglar broke into a house to rob it, but accidentally locked himself in the garage and had to eat dry dog food for a week to survive as the homeowners were on vacation. The burglar was actually able to make a lawsuit against the homeowners for HIS "pain and suffering".

See the parallel here, anyone?

Wouldn't it seem appropriate to protect the landowners/homeowners from the trespassers, rather than the other way around???

In a perfect world, perhaps.

As a corporation, Linden Lab ought to strive to limit its liability, not expand it. I obviously don't agree with this stance on ethical grounds, but "corporation" and "ethics" are poor bedfellows, particularly in the US.

If a sim owner restricted the area only to those with payment info it might keep out most of the underage .

Elinah

It would keep out more underaged than the verificaiton process will. I'd guess that more minors will be verified than will have payment info.

I see your point. When I was a kid, I did slick my way into adult BBS's and sex talkers. At the time, I always thought the risk was that _I_ would be caught, and that _I_ would have to face the music for it. Never did I think that the risk was all on the operators and owners, because then I'd probably have let myself become careless enough to let 'em fry while I go on merrily looking for other sites to screw over.

Actually, I didn't operate that way even then, I would've felt guilty as hell, but I can imagine plenty of other kids who _would_ think, "I'll have my fun and screw 'em all!"

Realistically a kid isnt going to get into any more tropuble on Second Life then they could get into on Myspace, Yahoo Messenger and using Internet Explorer.

I do not want kids on the grid either - but we need have have some sense of proportion with what we are trying to protect them from.

Porn? They can get it in umpteen thousand other places by just c;icking the I am 18 box, and it loads faster.

Relaying too much information? Too late Myspace has got you already.

Talking to untrustworthy strangers on the net? YIM - oops.

So Verification in Second Life isnt really going to be doing parents any huge favors, we already have to monitor and prevent the scary activities they would use Second Life for.

The only one Verification helps at all are the people in Second Life - so they dont get involved with the underage people. Of course getting to know the person first is a much better indicator of age than the verification system.

The problem basically is that if a minor wanders into your parcel and their parents decide to sue, they will subpoena LL and pierce your anonymity. If they sue LL, they'll pass the blame onto the landowner claiming the indicated TOS clause, and "common carrier". Your real name and SL avatar name then may appear in news or court coverage as someone who offered pornography online. That's worrying

Are there a lot of cases of parents suing porn sites and chat rooms?

No - but it only takes one to ruin your life. LL are just giving people the option to avoid the risk, if they decide to. If you are willing to take the risk, it seems they'll let you.

Probably a few, but not many that I know of in the long run. I'm not a parent, but if I cught my kid looking at porn I'd take away his acess to it as much as possible, explain that he is forbidden by the law too look at it at his age, while not demonizing. If I caught hime looking at pixel sex, I'd smack him and tell him to get out of the basement and go play ball. In anycase I wouldn't go running to Jacoby and Myers....*New York reference, sorry*

It would be a help *if* Verification actually verified - but it doesn't.
Verification is the opposite of helpful for people in SL. It's very dangerous. It misleads people into believing that avatars verified by the completely broken Integrity system are actually adults.

Integrity does not insure us against actions arising from exposure of minors to content that is 'restricted'. It only protects LL. It is very important to bear this in mind. Verification is solely for the protection of LL.
We in the 18+ grid are to be totally responsible for whatever happens on our parcels and presumably for our inadvertent actions with minors even if they are "verified" as adults.


Getting to know the person is not just a 'much better indicator'. It is the *only* indicator that you can rely on - and even that is not perfect. Verification is meaningless for us in terms of protection from minors.


If a minor is exposed to your content and/or your actions and their parents/guardians sue, they will subpoena LL for your personal details. LL will hand the details over.
If their lawyers think they can get something from you, you'll be famous.

Verification is a charter for cheats and liars and LL have endorsed this charade, that's the dangerous part here. Trying to sell something that is distinctly untrustworthy as a system that enriches trust is irresponsible.

and that does exactly what?
ppl go to islands to ditch the membership costs aswell as a whole bunch of other reasons, if i`d do that, i`d be cleaning out half my island at 1 time and every unverified person there is buying and spending L$, just not trough the lindex

if it wasn`t for selling L$, use the forums and other issues, i would have cancled my prem membership aswell as u can own an island without it heh

Well if its like the gambling and the spanish inquisition

They will return all your XXX stuff back to you and remove anything "broadly offensive" or possibly just delete it. I think that I have heard it gets deleted in some cases. I'm sure an abuse report and suspension would be involved in there somewhere if it was repeated and you put more XXX stuff out though..

I would assume that there will be those people who land in there expecting it not to be restricted stuff who will also send in an AR to Linden Lab which would get you in trouble as well..

You'd have payment info on file though. Even if you cancel your premium membership you still have payment info on file don't you?

alicia my cute little dragonet, you do not need to be premium to use the forums, just 'payment on file'.

Yes its actualy payment info used. They aren't documenting whether you were premium realy they are documenting on the profile if you paid them money for anything from 100 lindens to buying private sims so premium is in that pile too hehe.

Payment info onfile means your a basic member who has given information but never used the info to actualy buy anything from Linden Labs.

...

I emphatically agree.

But then again, promoting SL as a world "owned" by its players is also irresponsible - or at best disingenous - although that hadn't stopped them before.

My actual belief is that they want to be able to point to their "policy" should the sensationalistic world media hit them again but in practice it'll be a "wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more, say no more" non-enforcement.

A problem they are going to face is a plummet in land prices because of this. Not just mature areas, either. The fact is, if I read it correctly, you CAN'T declare a PG parcel restricted.



So... it isn't a matter of being torn whether to buy that sexgen bed and have to restrict your land. If the land is PG you just can't put it there are all, or face having it deleted when the neighbor you offended decides to report you to get even. No more girly posters on PG land even if you lock your doors and pull your shades. Heck, nothing R rated on PG land at all, shades drawn or not.

This finishes the job of destroying SL's "virtual property" facade, I think. The Casino debacle went a lot way toward that, and while I think they did it in the worst way possible, I could at least understand that. This, on the other hand, is the worst sort of indemnity they could dream of. They are taking names, so that when little johnny steals his mom's password and goes to your house to look at your Gorean slave images, said mom will know who she can sue for making porn available to her little prince.

They have decided that since they can't secure the grid from kids, it's going to be us, not them, dragged into court when the kids see things they shouldn't. For me, that means I am at a loss at how to publish in SL. I have no way of ensuring that my content can't be seen by kids, no distribution method that I know of can really verify that.

So, I guess my plans for a magazine and all that went with it are basically over. *shrug* IN the end, they'll have their world cleaned up from all the vice, but I'm not sure anyone would want to live in it.

I'd keep your eye on the open source market if I were you. That's where innovation and freedom look to be heading. Identity verification won't be forced upon the open source market. You may need quite a bit of patience however.