Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Answers to Questions

Could you please stop spelling "acknowledging" as a-p-p-l-a-u-d-i-n-g.


I'm not a libertarian, nor a socialist. Nor do I believe that a reasoned position that doesn't fit within a standard deviation of the extreme end of the bell curve is "mixing and matching based on whim and self-interest".

Uhh.. they are just as subject to them as any other citizen, natural or artificial (corporate). The laws don't specify "only applicable to public municipalities".



Wrong. In the case of advertising, banking, and land division/pricing, people were hurting others. Sometimes through fraud, sometimes through coercion, sometimes through harassment. The adult situation is completely voluntary, and intends no offense towards anyone. Only those who TAKE offense claim it. In the case where people are offering offense towards others with adult content, the CURRENT ToS/CS cover it all well, when properly enforced.

SL is a private property, and they have a responsibility to govern it to some degree. They also CAN allow for some level of resident governance, but within a certain framework to protect themselves, not only from a legal standpoint, but from a standpoint of their ability to maintain the service and keep it working and accessible to all of their residents.



There's no way any privately-run virtual world service can operate with such a philosophy, at least, in totality. They can't allow residents to govern themselves in violation of the law of the land that the company operates in. Otherwise, there wouldn't be a virtual world anymore. They also cannot allow residents to govern themselves into a situation where the level of service required exceeds the level of service they can provide.

Yes, I can cheer a ban on banks AND bemoan a forced move to Ursula. One is a resolution to a serious and growing problem. The other is a solution looking for a problem.



Being commendably correct and eloquent in previous messages doesn't excuse being wantonly incorrect in subsequent ones.

amen. i can sometimes hear SL voice if it's only one speaker and they're speaking very clearly, but add another voice or two and it's all white noise for me great, SL has curbs now.

you'd think they'd also want it in text for legal reasons, to have a text transcript of every little thing. duhhh.

Consider these excerpts from the Knowledge Base, regarding age-restricted access (the IDV thing):

Note the explicit reference to "legally responsible." One could plausibly take that to mean that the owner of the content itself is responsible, not the landowner, *however* that ambiguity is removed in another article:

Now, it's a fair question whether this could really stand up in court, but I read it to mean that LL would drag a landowner along with them if they get sued. And I am quite certain LL would discipline a landlord for a tenant's content, inasmuch as LL gives the landlord the ability and duty (see above) to appropriately restrict access to that content.

You don't fight fair. Argent is at least willing to make an effort.

Nope, I meant 'applauding'.

/327/8c/316622/1.html

It's not about whining about LL and their policies, it's about issues with the logistics of moving to the new continent.

if any of you have space in your signature blocks, it might be nice to put it there so the link doesn't get lost in the noise.

You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never get into a flame war with Talarus Luan!

No, that is just typical corporate-speak for what actually happened. If the government had just delivered a court order to shut down SL because of child pornography violations, they'd have a "board meeting to discuss what to do", even though the result would be the same if they didn't have said meeting. It is their attempt to say "we're still in control of the situation".



It's all in the wording. Using more correct wording:

a) "Good thing those bastards running Ponzi schemes were kicked out. Hey! You idiots shouldn't be forcing us to move to Ursula because I am not hurting anyone!"

There's nothing wrong with cheering for the banishment of parasites, then be incensed over being treated like a criminal when you aren't doing anything to be one.

The two situations bear no resemblance to each other.



I understand your weariness. Hypocrisy is a common vice, especially of the masses, and very often of the intelligentsia as well. However, this isn't one of those situations, at least in terms of your portrayal.

Absolution in "group think" drives me crazy. I call myself a libertarian, but I also hold some frighteningly non-libertarian views. That's because I don't buy into all the precepts of libertarianism; I am not a group-thinker. I also don't buy into any other political philosophy wholesale. I think for myself.

If I can't pick and choose what can be banned, i.e., if it is an all-or-nothing situation, then that leaves me with two choices: 1) anarchy, which is a very destructive phenomenon to ANY kind of order; or 2) throwing the baby out with the bathwater and, indeed, everything else. The world isn't black/white. If it is considered hypocrisy to ban the bad and keep the good (in a rational and demonstrable fashion), then everyone would be a hypocrite for doing anything, right or wrong.

Grins. Agrees. Won't engage.

I'm making plenty of effort. I just don't beat around the bush and play patty-cake.

Hey! The difference between me and Vizzini was that Vizzini really was an idiot!

I don't even drink wine. :-/

Since it hasn't been asked in a while and I've never seen an answer to it: Once LL finalizes on what exactly adult content is, will the "2-4% will have to move" statement made by LL when this all started be reevaluated?

Also, if LL has any info on how they came up with the 2-4% number that they'd like to share, a number of us have been waiting for that for a while now.

Actually, you remind me of an evangelical preacher. I know two of them. It is simply impossible to carry forward a debate with them because they are always right - on everything - all the time.

Intransigence and smugness.. They're the two things that get me..

just an aside

I'm not always right - on everything - nor all the time.

Most of the time, maybe, but definitely not all of the time.

PS- In a fight with a Dragon, being "right" usually doesn't leave you coming away with LESS scars.

Physician... oh heck, you know how it goes.

If that system actually worked reliably, and if the vast majority of SL Residents found it both possible and palatable to comply with verification, I would have no problem with such a flagging requirement.

But the fact is that it does NOT work reliably. People who HAVE verified still are kept out of some adult-flagged parcels, even though they can freely enter others. People who have NEVER verified still can get into some adult-flagged parcels, even though they are banned from entering others. And except at the Region level, it only protects the lowest 50M above the terrain. It is a broken lock, that sometimes jams open and sometimes jams shut.

On top of that, the only choice of identity verification provider is one that many residents can NOT use, no matter if they want to or not, and many others refuse to use, citing the company has a history of selling confidential data to third parties without consent.

It is one thing to require everyone who wants to buy liquour or partake of adult entertainments to be required to show a driver's license of other proof of ID, when anyone can readily obtain a driver's license or a state ID card from a trusted and businesslike state office.

It is another thing entirely to require that the only acceptable ID to buy liquour or partake of adult entertainments is the one that Shady Sam on the street corner sells, but Sam isn't there all the time, and Sam has a police record for Identity Theft, and Sam won't sell ID to people from certain nations, and sometimes his ID cards look OK and sometimes they look so bad that no Bouncer in their right mind would accept them...

On top of that, the rules for who must flag seem to be shifting from "extremely violent or explicitly sexual content", to "Any commercially advertized sexual or naughty content or services, or publicly accessible services, or <mumble mumble mumble>". So we don't yet know how broad a brush will be painted red and mandated to use this broken lock.

Naw, won't rise to the bait on this one

Because of the degree by which the Linden is connected to the US Dollar, external laws concerning gambling and banking became highly relevant to SL. Worse yet, LL was in the position of being directly affected by laws requiring US credit card companies to deny charges to credit cards for online gambling, since the gambling in SL was no different than real-world online gambling operations, except in the currency used. With respect to that law, any charges made for Second Life would have been denied. Can you imagine trying to pay your tier without your credit card?

I don't know enough about how banks worked in SL back before they were banned, but I can't see how any such operation, in complete defiance of US banking regulations, would have been allowed to continue, given how the Linden is connected to the US Dollar, without being shut down by the Feds.

At any rate, LL's actions with regard to in-world gambling and banking were not capitulation out of fear, laziness, or moral acquiescence. They were done to keep SL from getting shut down or regulated to the point of irrelevance.

Linden Labs' present actions regarding adult content, however, is completely without external factors. Neither the United States nor the State of California could care less how land in Second Life is zoned, or how much pixel-humping is going on in-world, as long as minors aren't involved. There is no legal precedence or mandate for what LL is trying to do here. This is really nothing more than Michael waking up one morning, looking at himself in the mirror, and asking his reflection, "How can I fuck over the residents of Second Life today?" When you get right down to the heart of the matter, that's all it boils down to. Nobody really cares what sort of sexual deviance is going on in a fictitious electronic world except for attention-starved news media. Nothing that would warrant Linden Labs from going quixotic; but quixotic they have become, and "adult community" - which, although has been quantified, has yet to be defined - are the windmills of SL.

As the posts being deleted continues ...

Yeah, I noticed that, but I think that, this time, the poster him/herself is responsible, as no other posts just as silly and off-topic in the same group were touched.

I think this is a perfect idea. I know I for one have several questions. I mean, there is no doubt in my mind (even without the adult definitions being determined yet) that my little place is going to be required to move. My friend and I just actually finished getting it done when this crap came down... I'm trying to get some stuff prepared before we go - i.e., like the fact that I think we now have to take all the group-owned stuff and "buy" it back to ourselves in order to be able to move it - those are the sorts of things about which I'm sure all you "oldbies" know the answers that we newbies haven't a clue!

It definitely would ease a lot of the anxiety if questions like that can be answered someplace where they won't further muck up these important threads...since they are questions we'll need answers to whether we're forced to move to the porn ghetto or we opt to move to a private ADULT estate somewhere.

Great idea!