Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Main Forum Thread

What about them, Grady? How does LL police a userbase of such nebulous quantities at all places and all times? It's a dilemma that real life law enforcement wouldn't even attempt to touch. Why? Because issues which can't be consistently enforced cannot be conscientiously enforced. This is an issue based on opinion, and that's a very dangerous slippery slope; Group A considers concept B offensive, which group C does not. What group do you elevate to the role of ultimate word? In this case, even the groups can't define what B really is; The Lindens have not successfully defined "adult", even in their original attempt (Now suspiciously deleted). Concierge doesn't even know what the blog and G-team folk are doing. Trust me, I know. I've called them multiple times to request information, and I've been pointed back to a blog that has even less information than it originally had.

There simply is no way to actually -handle- this issue, only means of stirring it into further uncertainty.

..... So is that a yes or no to transexual demons? (Joking! XD)

I agree completely, but what your suggesting is logic and reason. The time for such things has passed, and now we're just nutting out the details of SL shall become a police state. So Lindens, tranny demons, in or out? (no puns intended).

I do think I'd like to see what Linden's decision would be on tentacles and other gray areas. At that point you're no longer even dealing with adult content or human sexuality, you're dealing with artistic interpretation and art censorship.

Dangerous mindset.

to the Linden Management, to not drink water, because fishes had sex in it! And the other truth is, that all water on the planet went millions of times through billions of bodies of trilliones of animals, people and plants and moved through their genitals and trunks at least.

So: do not drink water. it is so much ADULT to drink water, that you can be banned by the pope and all holy ghosts forever into hell!

Indeed, I don't think there are many of 'Adult content' sims in the mainland, however it doesn't change the fact that it seems pointless to enforce a whole new system that will affect everyone for a 2-4% of the SL player base. Let's face it, if you are a person easily offended by 'Adult' content then do not enter these sims at all! No one forces you to do so.

It's not like you clearly can't tell which sims are what, before teleporting in, you see a mature flag, the pictures on the landmark of the sim most times give it away what kind of sim it is, and so does the description. I fail to see where the big deal is and why does it need to change and have to reflect it on the whole rest of the SL.

Editted to correct spelling mistakes.

And it's EASILY solved by having a G rated new continent, saying "No Tentacles" permitted there (don't want anyone screaming about hentai now do we?), and leaving the rest of mainland and all the rest of us alone to party as we see fit.

Let the people who don't want to see anything remotely strange have their own perfectly sane and homogenized place to enjoy. No sense cramming their lack of tolerance down everybody elses throats.

The funny thing is tentacles became popular from censorship, when a certain government made the depiction of a penis (photos or drawings) against the law. So tentacles were used instead. So in an attempt to remove what was considered wrong, they created something considered wrong by even more people, even more popular! XD

Which really I think is what's going to happen in SL. People will be told they can't show certain things, so people will find loopholes around it. I can't wait to see what people will come up with to be honest. I bet it will be probably something actually worse than what exists in SL today. Looking forward to it! Thankyou LL for helping us invent new smut!


EDIT:
... OH GOD.

.. I just worked out what will come of this.

OK, simple question, what do kids do when you block their access to a website they want to see?
What do internet users do when you introduce new forms of protecting copyrighted music and movies?
What do people do when you try to stop them from doing something they want to do?

.. They find a way around the system!
Kids use proxies, pirates use bittorrent and decryption tools, people find ways around the system!

What will come of this is something much much worse than what LL can imagine. People will figure out a way of having sex anywhere without it being seen by the public. People will figure out ways of doing things they aren't allowed to do in places they shouldn't do it. Then what? People will apply that same principle to other things too! Gambling, Ageplay, etc etc, All of that will suddenly just be common place to perform insecret while no one is looking.

This is teaching people to hide what they do en masse and learn how to do it without getting caught. You teach that to every person in SL, and they'll apply those lessons to everything else LL doesn't want them to do.

Yea sure, people do that now, I know. Lets face it, ageplay and gambling still exist in SL. But what will happen when these new rules teach everyone that they can do what they want in SL in private and get away with it? Not just the minority that wanted to do ageplay and gambling.

I'm also seeing about 60% anonymous visitors. Also, it looks like payment info on file is a fairly rare thing for both of us.

It'd be great if LL could comment on how this fares vs the average online non-bot population.

Well so far the policy has fallen at the first hurdle.

It seems pretty clear that if you are openly a commercial entity selling sex or sex toys, then you are "adult" - however, beyond that there is clearly no consensus even within LL what consitutes adult or not. Ask three different Lindens whether Y is adult and you get three different answers.

It is not looking particularly likely that anyone will come up with a definition of adult which will not either be so narrow as to leave a lot of "offensive" content on mature land, or so wide as to encompass almost everything already labelled as mature.

Matthew

Shockwave;

I doubt even a G-rated continent could work; Suppose I happen to wander in with a perfectly accepted religious symbol, a Hindu lingam? It only has everything to do with male fertility, and is essentially an icon of the penis... and commonly worn by some of the devout.

Censorship simply cannot operate as a half-measure; Either they need to nuke and pave Second Life right to the bare earth, restart it with clear definitions, and enjoy their empty homogenous world, or leave the diversity we've founded in place, lest they then have to attempt to make decisions that world governments have thusfar failed to even make with consistency.

As for alt accounts, well, I mostly role play on SL and when I want to role play a different character and with a different name or simply need a change I create a new alt and role play with it, its not like people hide behind an alt to go have virtual sex just for the sake of disrupting the community because they've got nothing better to do, I believe we're all adults here. Just sucks to think that from now on I might be forced to leave most my characters and stop my writing because I can't upload/or don't feel safe on uploading the same credit card info to every single one of them.

Other people who wish to not buy Lindens because either they don't want to spend their real life money on this game just to prove the humaness of their existance or just can't at all because their finances aren't at the best, or maybe because in some countries they are not allowed to give away such info without prior consent of their governament... anyway I only see we'll lose instead of gain something, even if the intentions are the best from L. Labs, sometimes good intentions can turn out not so well.

As for bots, they'll always exist, they always existed since I created my SL account, they weren't programs running and leeching the money of camping pads, but they were newbies just standing there to earn in game money, doesn't it turn out to be a bot anyway? Those camping pads and fake sim traffic will be there, with actual bots (programs running) or "people like bots" who are actually there but just standing and doing nothing.

I would like to say I find this policy highly offensive, and would like to make a motion to have this policy restricted to the adult only land. What say we?

Question. If it makes sense to require people wanting to do adult things to verify their age, why not verify everyone's age? 100%.

You may think this doesn't matter, but to me it does. I run a highly reputable fantasy suites business. I will comply with the rules. Will some fly-by-night competitors? What will happen when my customers who choose to remain anonymous can no longer find me? Will they not turn to unscrupulous adult content providers willing to ignore the rules?

I think it's pretty obvious that one outcome of the changes proposed will be that reputable businesses will suffer and a gray market will arise to cash in on LL's history of squeaky-wheel enforcement models.

So what would be the risk of LL requiring age verification of all users? Obviously, a massive drop in population. Why? Because many people will simply refuse and leave. And because outside the US, there aren't many ways to verify age. Losing all those SL residents because they can't or won't verify their age would be disastrous, no? OK, so if it would be disastrous for SL, writ large, isn't requiring age verification for adult content going to be disastrous for the adult industry in SL? Who really gains from this move?

Lavanya;

I believe the data-miner-- er, age-verifier, Integrity, stands to gain. After all, they're only the same people who got caught red-handed trying to sell voter-data listings in states it's questionably legal (or overtly illegal) to do so, by... ironically, not verifying who they were selling to.

The rest of us? Well, we're hosed. As a Canadian, I cannot verify by Integrity. I refuse to give them my SIN (For us Canadians, that's tied to our healthcare, our tax and employment records, and prettymuch every scrap of data from age 15 onwards), my provincial registry does not provide public records to private interests for these purposes, and I'm highly reluctant to give my passport (tied to my SIN and other aspects of my identity) to a company that lost their userbase's passwords, then took three days to close the breach.

Needless to say, it does not inspire confidence in me as a business/educator-services provider that their focus is a verification system with holes in the wrong places and barricades in the wrong places as opposed to blatant content theft, content loss, malicious user actions, commercial abuse, a total lack of intellectual property regulation, inconsistent enforcement, and a highly unstable platform.

It's also needless to say that the platform for our future private edu-sims is not Second Life.

Just tell them, that you need your tentacles as tools for eating, drinking and drawing, like I do use my excite thing for artistic reasons for eating, drinking and drawing too. These are no genitals any more, - new description is: fork, spoon, brush!

Problem solved.

Also I use my extra large nose as genital, because a nose is clear PG, lol.

(This is all so stupid!)

This!

Most of the mechanics required are already programmed in. All that would need to be added is an extra property which defines a prim or linkset as "adult" or not - simply check or uncheck; and a property in the viewer preferences which would enable or disable the rendering of adult-flagged objects.

There are two ways this could be done. The first would simply make use of the mute function - that is, if the person has not age-verified OR has "View adult content" unchecked in viewer preferences, the adult-flagged object would simply be muted.

The second approach is a little more technologically advanced, and would require some extra code in the viewer. It involves having the viewer check for the adult flag on each object as it is downloaded and, if the object is flagged and either the account is not age verified or has not enabled "View adult content" in viewer preferences, then the viewer would simply not render the object at all.

Anybody see any problems with this idea?

yep!

That actually reminds me, most chat systems started by not even allowing any sharing of RL information, since they are simply leisure environments. Of course it wouldn't apply here 100%, as LL deals constantly with RL information from people, mainly the ones who chose to buy lindens, but its something to ponder about, enforcing such rules will only make people leave, not the ones who have a business running on this platform and do not mind to share their RL information to public most times, but for people who simply want to role play, go to clubs among other general activities, we can tell before hand that population will drop, and with the drop of that population which represents maybe 70% of SL(?) it'll make it to have no point on running a business in SL anymore, because the customers are no longer around.

Agreed for the most part, but I do feel I should point out that it is not Christianity that is intolerant, but simply some people who call themselves Christians. The word of God and thus the Bible speaks many times of guiding others to the path, not forcing. If I, as a Christian, want to talk to someone about it I do so in a manner that is informative, and not some "omg you'll die if you don't believe, you're all evil doers unless you have Christ" etc. I tell them my beliefs and let them decide for themselves.

Please, and this applies to everyone in the thread, try to refrain from blanket statements that blame entire religions/cultures etc. All of us here cannot deny the power that the noisy few in a group can have (a lot of the 'hate' I see towards Christianity is in retaliation to some noisy minorities view who felt it was there place to tell the world how evil they all were), in all my life and all the friends I've met that are Christian I've not seen more then a handful that try to actively push their faith onto others, and those types are not my friends.

How can I be adult content, collared and owned and be Christian? Easy, by understanding that it is not the church or the pastor or any priest that sets the rules, God does, and I do not believe he said anything against serving another. (If you think about it, is not the Christian life supposed to be in praise and in service of God?) I serve my Master, I make him happy (and this doesn't mean sex Nany, if you got your mind outa the gutter you'd know that happiness can be brought to someone by something as simple as a cup of coffee in the morning and a hug before they go to work), I take care of him in the ways that I can. I certainly hope that God is happy with me too for how I serve him.

(Sorry for the off topic, but I felt I should clarify this before people get into a Christian bashing; which may have already happened and died, there was a few pages in between )

Sorry, there are so many pages and maybe I tell something double, but I also have an opinion and that I want say.

The first message about from LL was sound interesting "bad experience of residents" and so on. But what kind of experience that could be?
I also not like seeing each time & everywhere adult content, maybe it have to be get a little "sorting". But the way, it's planned is BAD.
BEFORE less residents was telling something about "bad experiences" - AFTER will be upset a lot residets about censoring, blocking the freedom and more.


But what can we make, to make it better experience for us all?
There are SOME points:


First, I'm fine with adding a third way of flag content and land. "PG", "mature", Adult" (even the complete main-grind IS an adult-system).
But I don't like censoring. We are adults here and we are not here to teach childrens - the parents should take care about them. And if "little Billy" lie about his age, he will also 'borrow' the identity from his parents or someone else. So the Age Verification is a fake each way.



The Search:
The actual search HAVE the option, to block MATURE stuff.
It would be great, to have the choice between the 3 flags. Maybe I NOT want see the PG-stuff sometimes?
Make 3 check-boxes - PG, Mature, Adult.
The user can check/uncheck them unique and search special that, what he/she looking for (also "PG+mature, but not adult", "mature+adult", "PG,mature,adult" and also ridiculous combinations like "Adult+PG, but not mature".
The way to must see PG-content each time is also not really pleasent. So: Fair for all, make also for PG-content in the search the option to switch off.

Blocking not age verified people is a failure. Let it free and open, let all see all content.
Not age verified people should still have access to adult-content, but maybe the search-window could give a warning or a fat writing on top like "ADULT" or so.

What's the benefit?
- Users can search much better, for what they looking for (also "no PG!".
- No lost of business for people, which have for some reason content in an adult area.



Blocking Content/Access:
"A world, free to explore" and so on - or something like this LindenLab advertises SL.
For new users it would be a much more worse experience, if they cannot "free go everywhere". "Second Life? Boring, better name it 'Censored Life'!"

I hate ban-lines. And here we not talking about a parcel, someone cannot access - this will be a whole continent! Also if people not can see, what there is, why should they come there?

LindenLab is much proud about the business between the users and the transaction rate. What will be, if sellers of content need to think, if they go, where the people with money are (Adult-Land) with the risk, a lot residents will not find or cannot access them ... or a mature area, where maybe someone become upsed because the model have not covered their 'eyes', because it's a very tiny dress?

Let still all people access all areas, as long the parcel owner not have set "Adult Only" by his/hers choice, even it's on Adult-Land.
On the Adult-Continent also the ban-lines could go unlimited high to protect the parcel. We are there for some reasons and not to fly trough the air.

Not age verified people should get a warning, maybe before the teleport or at least after the arrive.
Also the Sim should remind ALL not age verified trough an onscreen-message (without the option to switch off) all 10 or 20 minutes, maybe also with a sound-output like a friendly Torley-voice "Hello, you are in an ADULT area." or so.

What's the benefit?
- People can stay in privacy and protect their personal data and still have the freedom to walk around.
- Users can check out, what is on this 'mysterious Adult-Land'.
- Shop-Ownern not loose their business.
- People are still warned, that they are on a 'bad' place.



Moveing Content:
The way of forceing is definitly wrong. We talking here not about a guy, which have open a NightClub in a PG-Resitental-Sim - here are CUSTOMERS which have PAY for LONG TIMES LindenLab's bills and follow the rules and now they have to go! A very good experience with the customer-care, Linden Lab! I have some words for in my mind for that: Betray, Ingorance, Intollerance, Fraud and breaking contracts (that is in my mind, judgeing about is an other point).
Some of the places are there for years. Your customers have invest shiploads of money to advertise the places, bring the landmarks to resitends, fill the pictures in the profiles, also pay much overdone prices to expand clubs and so ... and now? "We play business-crises also in SL - it is now all worthless!"
Ok, it is a bad experience, if you buy a parcel somewhere and just a week later on the neighbor-parcel open a adult place - Lag, people which not know parcel borders and so on. If in the furture the 'bad' places open new in the Adult-continent, all are fine. But what IS now there, let STAY it there.

A "Adult-Continent" is not bad, but the content can move (or not) in 3 possible ways:

* Complete Sim's could easy relocate, no changes for the landmarks and all needed, fine. Surely is the mainland not complete flat, but then the Moles have again something to do. Maybe also same right for all, like "if 75% of a Sim is adult, it can move - even the other 25% mature/PG-stuff also moves to adult land".

* Parcels on mature land which are now there, could stay as long the owner not changes. Big investments for the places are not lost. Some rules are ok, like "not on the landingpoint as greeting an axe on the head" or "not stepping in a couple of people" and explicit things need to be hidden in a skybox or so and not in 20m-chatrange of neighbors.

* Parcel-Owner which would like to move to the Adult-continent could get a teasing like "1 month for free, if the adult stuff moves".

On private islands should the combination of mature and Adult stuff be possible - there are so many patchwork-islands.

Benefit?
-SL changes fast, the most of the lasting parcels will be gone in a long-term plan.
-Invests for places are not lost.
-Paying customers will not leave SL because they are forced to move and maybe will thrust LindenLab in a future time again.



Age Verification:
Accepting a verified payment methode as verify is a good point.
Let us be honest: Childs will become age verified, maybe also much more easy then realy mature people. "Why to have take care about peronal data? That are not mine."
The way acceppting creditcards (or paypal) are fair enough and same secure like personal data, which Aristole or so maybe can verify for some countrys but most fail for example for europe.



Handle Alt (alternate Accounts):
Why these secrets? Behind the scenes are Alt's binded together - try and make your Alt "visible in Search", but you will not find it in the new Search.
It would be great, to see in the web-page, which alt's are binded together (there are also failures). An option to open new alt-accounts from the page would be an additional benefit.

Benefit?
- Only for LindenLab, because if now all start verifying also their alt's, the 3rd-party companys like creditcard-prozessors and special Aristole will bill each verifying to Linden Lab.



All in all?
- Seperated choose for PG,Mature,Adult-Stuff in the search.
- Let the freedom that all residents can access all content, but not age verified people could reminded on adult-parcels all 10,20 minutes - no loss for shoppeing business.
- Moveing Adult-stuff to an adult-continent only with the residents, not by force. Complete Sim's can relocate, existing places could stay.
- Age Verification like planed, additional with CreditCard.
- Make alt-accounts to handle and see which are binded to the account on the web-page (not inworld). Verify Alt's with the main-account.

hey, Even seeing " watchmen", adult content was forced in our face.. in the form of a big blue.. ***** for the overly sensitive.. ( male anatomy.. if you want to write the producers that you were offended by such a thing!)

I mean, seriously.. walking into a known Adult area, you know what to expect.. so if you can't take the heat.. stay out of the areas.. it really is that simple. Some places are not disney.. and if this game became that, I'd play sims online again..

The thought of me, having to age verify, and give my info to a third party.. frightens me. and there is zero interest in that for me. The ones that are easily offended, should have special accounts called " Prude".. so they can't access any area that is Adult content. Why punish others, because Gosh, Golly.. gee wizz.. Martha, saw a woman in a doggie collar!
Yet these are the same people, that can't wait to get home to watch Jerry Springer, and all of these other talk shows.. to find out what is happening in every one elses back yard..

I have been in sl since 04, then came back in 05.. been here ever since.. and to tell me that I can't go where I want.. as much as I spend on Tier, because somebody's granny walked into a Gor sim and saw a naked pixel.. is insane.. I see something i don't like. i leave and don't go back. I have no desire to sit in a club, talking about what you did on saturday, with your kids.. while we.. wait.. drinking is Adult content.. right? so is Smoking..
So, while we sit in some club, listening to Mel Torme and staring at a wall.. some of those dances.. are mighty suggestive!

We are all adults, or supposed to be.. if you don't like an area, stay away.. simple as that.. But you aren't catching me in some country music club doing the achy breaky.

that was one sexy blue man!

for some reason... the quote from watchmen comes to mind to sum up this whole thing

"i'm not locked in here with you.. YUR LOCKED IN HER WITH ME!!"

*Pictures LL policemen on the corner of every street in SL, next to all our brand new monorails (that will surely be used for transportation by all, teleporting is way too slow). Virtual raids would have to be performed on clubs, busting down the doors of places with "AI PetBot Shop" painted on the front, only to find places inside with swinging 60's music and men and women and tranny demons.. *gasp*.. having S-E-X (only say the letters, saying the word is too adult!)*

.. Ahh yes.. future looks bright for SL. Ofcourse this could open up new markets for businessmen and businesswomen. We could start producing 'text cloaking' devices, that allow people to talk in openchat, but only be heard by those who want to listen in and know the password. Allowing people in adult clubs to have their openchat sex orgies in the mainland, while concerned mums around the world aren't able to listen in.

Maybe a new special opensource viewer will be made, allowing 2 people to get on a sexbed in such a way that only the two people on the bed can see each other on it, and no one else can.

Maybe a new viewer which shows people naked when they are normally dressed! Oh the fun which could be had once people start finding their way around the restrictions.

I'm gonna personally start scripting a "AdultComm" device, which lets people listen and talk on a special channel in sims to talk about 'adult things' that aren't allowed. Only people with the attachment can hear, those without it can't. Then what will the concerned mums complain about? "I bought the AdultComm and I heard adult things! Someone please think of the children!".

I have been watching my business today. checking every profile that drops into my brothel and my store, or simply just drop in and tp back out. Numbers: No payment info on file=83 Payment history used=41...seems to be close to 50 percent. Looking at my staff of those that work in the brothel: no payment info on file=86 ..Payment history used=52

Damn. So I can only think if I was to up and move to Adult land today, Not only would I lose 50 percent of my traffic, but half my staff too. WTF?

So then I go and look at my VIP group, What did the numbers looked like there: No payment Info on file=190 ..and Payment history used=142

UMMmmm Looking at these numbers and seeing if it makes good business since to move hell no it doesn't. Half my staff, Half my VIPs, half my store patrons ...gone! HA..Thanks Lindens, I think you may have forced me after 2 years to close my doors and return to HTML chat. I'll hold out, but I am thinking for most of use we are seeing our last days.

/me rethinks where she places her kids' lunches on their way to school...