Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Main Forum Thread

I am about 95% certain that the private island that I call my home will voluntarily flag itself as "Adult" as soon as it is possible to do so.

The sim is 100% residential - no commercial activity at all, beyond the fact that I have a very small business office in one room of my castle where I occasionally talk with sim building clients about their confidential project plans. But it isn't a "store", and there is no advertising of the location. In fact, it is impossible for anyone to come to the sim without a personal invitation. The sim is not public, and you have to be explicitly invited to join one of the land groups for the sim to teleport to the sim at all.

Yet the sim owner and I both agree that our sim should seriously consider flagging as "Adult". Why? Because our residents came there and chose that sim for their home specifically to have the freedom to do as they pleased, with their invited guests ONLY, and with as few restrictions on personal activities as possible. Several of us have included as part of our land, or part of our personal homes, spaces that are most certainly "sex themed", and which are open for use by any of our personally invited guests. Quite honestly, the only thing that distinguishes the sex themed parts of our sim from a "sex club" is the fact that the sexual activity is only an infrequent and occasional thing, usually involving only 2 to 4 individuals at a time, and we don't advertise, charge for use, or make it available to the general public.

We are evaluating now the impact on our residents and guests if we choose to flag as Adult. Since we can't see age verification status, we are starting by checking payment info status, and then asking individuals who are NPOF if they are age verified with Aristotle, or if they can readily get payment info on file.

For just my own roughly 1/4 of the sim, I have 78 people on my access list, including full time residents and their alts, and several guests who may have only been invited over to see our home once, but who remain welcome to visit again if invited by a resident to come to our home. 58 of those people have payment info on file or used. Of the 20 who were NPOF, 5 were verified as being alts of individuals who had payment info on other accounts, and one has been verified to have passed Aristotle's "Adult Verification" check. The remaining 14 appear to have been infrequent or one-time visitors.

The sim owner controls half the sim personally, but his household is fairly small, and I don't think they have as many alts or occasional visitors as my area does. They are still checking their lists. The remaining three parcels are small households with much smaller parcels, but are being directed to check their access lists for possible impact.

So far, it looks like the negative effects of flagging as Adult will be minimal. And since we don't want any guests who are not verified as being over 18, flagging should not be an issue for us.

Yet if we do flag, my sim building business, Fox and Ground Construction Company, may need to find another private meeting room. What if some Corporate or University client in the future wants to discuss a new full-sim or multi-sim project, but their only SL account so far is a newbie account that is still NPOF and not age verified? I would have to tell this potential Corporate or University client that they can't come to my office unless they have payment info on file or unless they verify age with Aristotle? To discuss my company terraforming and building a sim for them? Most of my clients lately are Universities. and it is typical that their staff are NPOF and not age verified, as they are not here for sex-related stuff, or even to shop for things, but rather to set up their school presence, stay on their sim, and teach. So I do foresee some negative impact there, for my business as a Solutions Provider, in a completely NON-ADULT business.

Personally, all my accounts are both age verified and payment info on file, precisely to ensure that they can all go wherever they please, without hindrance. If I suffer identity theft because of a security breach or intentional misuse of my confidential data by either Aristotle or Linden Lab, I will sue their asses off, as companies and as individuals.

OH come on now lord, the 10 or 15 other annoucements by SL over the years that never happened, didn't leave you to question them a little??

As the grid get more santisied, less people will want to invest into it. What is the point?....it's not "your world, your imagination" anymore.....and it is most definitely a break from the original "Linden Tao"

I agree wholeheartedly!! For NEW accounts this would work well, and by leaving SL as it is, would be superb and would suit most people! Why not leave Alts and current avatars and sims as they are now? These 2-4% Hard Core sex sims have to be searched for and cannot accidentally tp'd to. Why "Crack this small nut with such a huge lump hammer?"

Credit card age verification for NEW accounts would solve much of the Adult content concerns as regards to kids getting onto SL and accessing Adult material. I just cannot see any problems with adults trying access Adult material or perusing "adult activities"... you just don't see it much out in the open (unless clearly advertised).

Slightly off topic here..
Ok, I know that irresponsible parents/ guardians would help out their kids by letting them use their cards even for adult web sites such as SL.... but irresponsible parents usually have irresponsible kids. You can usually spot under aged residents in SL at 96ms!
Kids don't know where to "draw the line" on their behavior. Soon these kids become silly and start "just having fun" by abusing other residents. Kids resent being told off and usually retort "we're just having fun, get over it!!". Inevitably after being banned, they would sign up again for a new account and start deliberately griefing others in sight!! Some kids are so cleaver, they get hold of those Copy Bots things and Grief whole sims!
So ok, let the irresponsible parents of these kids have to go and get another Credit/debit card with a different name!! Good job too!
I heard a Linden (can't remember which) say, that griefers are USUALLY underaged residents that shouldn't be on SL in the first place!
So I also believe that Age verification is a MUST!

ok, thanks for reading.

But a year ago , credit card was NOT enough to become age verified. Now it is! So the law changes. I am not talking about disobeying TOS. What homestead sims... people were simply ripped off. but at least some of the voices were heard and some of the policy was changed. Look at the forums. So dont tell me that nothing can be done and that we all should shut up, because we won`t. We are following the rules of law, we are here to express our opinions. And my opinion is: NO! Stop restrictions in SL. Want to change something, ask for credit card during sign up process. It`s really not a big deal. But why it wont be implemented, because everyone knows it is not about adult cartoon content. it is about big corporations investing in SL. It`s about merging teen grid. We all know that.

LMAO well until it happens then i have no reason to assume that it wont happen as LL seems resolute this time just as they were with the OS issue and that was big and happened, i think personally we will see a few more of these big changes over the coming months as SL evolves. I can see a lot of changes happening and after the fallout of each thing i hope SL is a better place for all

Personally i stand by the thourght that SL should have had 3 separate areas from the begining PG, Mature and Adult and that everyone that joined had to have a CC or paypal to join. I am genuinely sorry for those that this affects but there are ways to solve it and put PIOF for most.

This doggie is confused about a few things. (The above quote is truncated for the relevant parts.)

The party line seems to be that only 2-4% of mainland parcels will be affected, however, you say several times that you are still working out what the definitions of mature vs. adult will be. How on earth can you guesstimate a percentage of how many people this will affect if you don't even have the definitions in place? Couldn't it end up being much higher than that? Obviously there are many, many people who are worried about how they'll end up being classified when this all shakes out.

And what is this business about furries being "mature" and lumped in with sexy clothing and naked human skins??? Are you saying that LL's stance is that simply being a creature with fur is some sort of non-PG activity???

Agreed, they will say what's the point being here if you can't indulge your passions or zest for life? or, to put it in another way they'd say.... "it's sooo boring!...."

Over the years there have been many changes, the doom sayers predict the doom of SL... they frantically run around creating groups and the furor doesnt die down until the next change announcement. Then it restarts all over again.... I have learned to be calm and wait and see. You have, or should, realize LL isnt going to purposely harm SL. And these changes have been giving a great deal of thought.

/me goes back to readin a comicbook and chewing bubble gum

It could be feasible that it's a low percentage in Land area mass in terms of Adult content, but there is no doubt it has a much higher related visitor (traffic) percentage.
Example : If the total grid is made up of 5% of Adult content in terms of land size, it might be visited by 20% of the logins at any one time.

Which then presents a big problem when planning the Adult continent

The 2-4% figure might also be distorted if you factor in all the Linden owned land, which is significant as LL singularly holds the most land on the Mainland continents. Obviously none of their lands hold Adult Content.
So whose to say its 4% if you add in all Linden land.....but 10% when you exclude them from total land mass figures.

But you know that it is not possible to create a definition about what is mature and adult. This will result in many business go underground. remember that you can have a sex gen bed in private even in PG. With hundreds of users it wont be possible to stop it. thats the problem, do not implement the law you can`t execute because it will result in more harm. By seperating mature and adult you will need to create so many definitions for each individual case that after some point only griefers will be the real winners. the rest of us are going to be stuck in the ghetto.

Then thats a result as PIOF was good enough when i started to verify. But then LL some days ago said that anyways.



I agree i gave sims back with all the fuss and yes i will always feel i was ripped off but this is not thread for OS discussions lol



At no point did i tell anyone to shut up, i think you need to re read stuff!!



Thats fine and you as i am entitled to share our opinions here in the forums, in fact i stated that i respect other peoples opinion even if it differs from mine, but please do not put words in my mouth ever!



well LL has never said it won't merge the grids at some point and it will never be a platform for corporations as many will attest to but it may be a marketing move by LL for the future, but who knows for sure certainly not me or you.

I agree wholeheartedly with Ceera's observations in relation to the impact on private islands. It is truly mind blowing that LL appears to have overlooked the impact of many reclassfying as "Adult" in order to preserve freedom of expression.

I own such an island and do not use it for commercial purposes. I have not sought to restrict access to groups or specified individuals as I cannot see the point. I used to allow the island to appear in search. Since removing it from search I have wooden signs on the pathways leading from the teleport location saying "Private Land. Please Leave". Ironicially, since the land has been removed from search the only univited visitor has been a LL crawler bot! I have a relatively small number of sex items there but you would need to explore to find them. The said items are hardly ever used. To the casual observer everything appears tasteful and respectable. Birds and insects fly and sing, ducks swim and quack, and waves roll and roar.

The majority of people in my contact list are age verified or PIOF. I will reclassify "adult" as I have no intention whatever of removing the small number of sex items and succumbing to this moral crusade on the part of LL. It will mean that a friend who has resided in a PG build on my island for the best part of year and who is not age verified and has no PIOF will have to leave. That seems such a shame and needless. It will also mean that some other residents will no longer be able to visit me and attend, typically, non-adult parties on a terrace overlooking the ocean with not an "adult" poseball or "adult" piece of furniture anywhere close by. To my mind this is a completely ridiculous situation.

The Adult sector is singularly the biggest sector (and maybe attraction) out there in SL.
Adult verification effects every single adult SL player as they have to make their own personal decisions moving forward.

All the previous policy changes only effected parts of its population (SIM tier hikes, Banks closing, Gambling ban, VAT, Open Space sims fiasco, Ad farms, Micro parcel extortion etc etc )....none can compare with this policy proposal in terms of sheer numbers of effected participants.

ITA - mainland prices are still way down from last year, have barely recovered from the huge drop when OS's went on sale & IMO they will now fall even further. My thinking is to sell what I have before that loss becomes even larger & consider buying an estate where your land is marketable to everyone & not limited to mature/pg.

There isn't a fair way. Really.

Going by LL's 2-4% numbers, you're talking about moving 100-200 regions worth of stuff. I've yet to see any resident agree with those numbers and I'd guess the minimum is probably closer to 500 regions worth. On my 1/3rd sim, probably only one 3k parcel is considered adult and I'd bet that's all you counted - we've asked, many times, for details on how you got this 2-4% number and you've totally ignored us so why should I think otherwise?

What would be fair is for LL to create a new adult continent and a new PG continent, let people move as they see fit, and come back for another look at this issue in 9-12 months. Having residents be able to reserve a chunk of land on either continent would be a big plus. Have Jack Linden and company stomp (and stomp HARD) on land flippers trying to extort these new areas and keep them from turning into another Bay City full of yellow land would be another big plus.

and this change is effecting only 'adult' areas, and there has only been a few decisions made as to what constitutes 'adult' in SL. M rating is not adult rating. the numbers that will be considered adult in nature is not a large number. M rating is a large number. until its decided what will be considered adult we can not make decisions based on a hypothetical number.

Without wishing to repeat what I said in my post "Sanity, Not Sanitation", I would like to add the following brief points:

1.

Age verification is long overdue. While it will not prevent minors sneaking into SL, it will end open access. Providing credit card or PayPal information is painless and efficient for residents and legally defensible for LL. While I think the ID-based (document-based) age verification system is dubious, it nonetheless works for some people. Thus, the choice of credit card, PayPal and ID-based verification would cover 99% of residents. Moreover, if kids can sneak past the system, so can adults.

2.

Replacing the current classification of adults (PG and Mature) into three classifications of adults (PG, Mature and Adult) is inelegant to say the least. Applying age verification to the Mature half of the adult PG/Mature population is far more efficient. In truth, I am puzzled why LL seeks this new classification system with all the problems and costs associated with it.

3.

Creating a new 'Xtreme' continent accessible only to Mature (age verified) adults makes some sense, but forcing Mature adults to move 'Xtreme' content/RP to the new continent is poking a stick into the hornets' nest. Far better to make the new continent appealing to Xtreme players (see previous post). Offer the 2-4% free tier for a year. Use a carrot instead of a stick.

4/5 of the grid is now made up of private estates/islands. Whilst the disruption for adult businesses being forced to relocate from existing mainland to the new adult mainland will be massive, in relation to private estates/islands many non-adult business will be seriously harmed. Let me give an example:

Private island is owned by a well-known and popular supplier of adult merchandise. The majority of visitors do so to visit that supplier. The landing area is a mall containing several small shops selling non-adult accessories which benefit from the footfall generated by the supplier of adult merchandise.

The island has no option but to reclassify adult. The number of visitors is reduced because those without PIOF or non age verified are excluded. Custom to the small non adult shops reduces significantly and they are forced out of business.

There are, I am sure, many variations on this theme. This is a matter which LL refuses to address.

at this point you can see segragation will not work.

The easiest solution I see is a PG viewer. It simple.

A non verified user is locked in PG mode. A verified user has the choice to flip a switch and see naught stuff. Content problem solved.

No ghetto or moral cleansing needed.

how about a real survey at login?

ex.

Do you agree with the current proposal concerning Adult Verification and Classification?
1. Yes
2. No
3. Not enough information

Do you think the problems LL are trying to solve can be accomplished in other ways?
1. Yes
2. No
3. Not enough information

How do you think this proposal as stated will affect your SL experience?
1. Positively
2. Negatively
3. Not enough information


Here's some that I'd like to see but would never happen:

How do you think this proposal will affect your business? (If you have a business)
1. Positively
2. Negatively
3. Not enough information

If you saw something offensive to you in the last month did you AR the offending party?
1. Yes
2. No

Would you reclassify as "Adult" to keep full freedom to do as you wish on your land or to avoid possible issues in the future?
1. Yes
2. No
3. Not enough information

If you bought land, did you think 'Mature' = 'Adult'?
1. Yes
2. No
3. Not enough information

Would you have any issues age verifying or putting payment information on file to access all content in SL?
1. Yes
2. No
3. Not enough information


Unfortunately I sincerely doubt a single one of these would ever be seen on the login survey. It's a shame really, this would be a real way to collect much more accurate information about all the residents opinions than these forums, of which only a small percentage actually visit...let's say about 2-4%

The numbers will depend on the final declaration of what is adult and what is not. If the definition includes anything that has sexual poses or depicts sexual activity and can be seen from any public area - this includes camming - then easily 80% of parcels in Mainland will be affected. So we have to estimate based on a wild hair in LL, and modify our guess by the amount of random over/under enforcement we can expect by over/under zealous Lindens trying to keep things to the TOS that is itself in a state of flux!

The only certainty here is this - we've been given clear notice that the risque materials are no longer welcome where reporters can see them. Why they think no reporter will ever cam into somebody's home is beyond my reasoning.

It is unrealistic to think that all of mainland can be cleaned up. What LL should do is have the new continent be the entry point for new members until they age verify. This same land mass can serve corporations and education as well. Then the reporters who pop in for a day see nothing even remotely risque, the future teens are moderately protected from adult material, and corporations can join without fear. Anything short of this will ultimately fail and LL will be in a legal and financial bind as a result of their backwards and "stay the course" thinking.

as Toy said in post #760



I totally agree as until definitions have been firmed up and laid down we cannot comment as to the overall effect to the grid. As an adult content owner i am happy with the changes as they are panning out and they are in my opinion a long time coming, its just a shame as i stated earlier these werent done years ago when the impact would have been less than it is today and i hope that LL listens to the comments made and uses the rational ones to mould the future of the adult continent for the benefit of all us adult content owners.

Eventually, I think land on the Adult continent would be available for anyone to buy. But to be fair, priority should most likely go to those who will be asked to moved.



I suppose but it'll still be flagged as Adult. Can anyone identify any negatives that I may not be thinking of?



Technically, the businesses surrounding your PG store would not be doing anything wrong (granted they weren't breaking some other TOS or CS) so I would see little recourse on an AR from a customer. Though this would be an issue for you as the owner. Would your customers be upset if you decided to set up shop on adult land?



If a resident does not wish to encounter this type of material then they should have the choice not to. Access to Adult content will be a choice offered to all residents. Its an interesting question and I'm not sure exactly how to answer it. What do you suggest?