Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Answers to Questions

And "photorealistic nudity" is also now "Adult" when I sure understood otherwise from earlier responses about skins.

I suppose the reason is that they desperately wanted to believe, themselves, that only 2-4% of land had to move to Ursula, so they could auction off lots of the Mole's expensive handiwork there as a revenue source.

So now the line is that they'll only *consider* support tickets for self-reported Adult content for the Ursula move--"no guarantees"--which gives every means of moving only 2-4% of the land during the 2-week transition, and then wait for the ARs to come in to motivate everybody else to buy at auction (or from speculators who bought at auction, which is the same revenue to LL).

...in today's Sydney Morning Herald - lot of blah about SL doing OK in spite of the recession and some promo for Telstra, and also this:

There are no transcribed notes on the meeting unless another customer has done them the meeting i was at had very little text chat it was discussed farther back in this thread, the pro's and cons on a voice only meeting

For gods' sake.

For five weeks now we have been trying to pound some sense into LL's head, and the latest blog post shows them moving in EXACTLY the opposite direction. This is "we've listened to you"?!

The definition of "adult" has shifted radically. At the start, it was "the most extreme" content. Now, a photo or statue of RL nudity is considered "adult". My "Collider Death" animation is a depiction of "severe bodily harm" and is "adult". In fact, about 85% of Second Life content can be considered "adult" under the new and improved definitions.

"Mature" has become almost meaningless. Sexy clothing and burlesque (notice that word. Not "strip club". I only know of ONE burlesque club in SL, and it is far, far tamer than a "strip club". I guess BustyDusty will have to move after all). Everything else...ooh, that's nasty Adult stuff.

Da5id warned us, about 3 weeks ago, about the tendency of the "line" to creep to the left, becoming more and more restrictive as it's tested against actual cases. I didn't expect it to happen EVEN BEFORE the plan is in place!

The distinction between "business" adult and "private" adult has been thrown out the window. In a way, that's good, because it was never enforceable anyway. But it VASTLY increases the amount of land and the number of residents affected.

Enforcement is going to depend on ARs. Here comes the finger pointing, the AR griefing, neighbor against neighbor.

"Maximizing use cases". "No immediate plans for Teen Grid". This cat is now out of the bag. The kids are coming to SL. Field trips of third graders. Pre-teens. Teenagers. Corporations, who don't need this "cleanup" because they will actually want to stay safe behind their firewalls anyway.

Blondin, you guys REALLY need to make Ursula the PG/Mature continent, and just change the rating on everything else to Adult. Nothing else makes ANY sense in the light of the latest blog post, definitions, and FAQ. Because there is absolutely NO WAY that everything that falls under the new, Disney-approved definitions can fit into 200-some regions.

Ursula is what my drill sergeant used to call a "blivet". Three pounds of crap in a one-pound can.

just so everyone knows where we're up to:


draft definitions here: https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=4417&task=knowledge&questionID=6010

new faq: https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=4417&task=knowledge&questionID=6032

blog post with provisional dates: https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/community/blog/2009/04/21/update--upcoming-changes-for-adult-content
_________________

I have started transferring Blondin Linden's "8 answers" posts to the Wiki for archival purposes. I keep getting "session timeouts". I would appreciate it if someone could take on the task.

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Adult_Content

in two minds about this. On one hand, I'm sick of people in leather helmets dragging naked people in chains through my store. On the other hand, I hope you have employed another team to handle all the ARs and confusion as people seek to define what adult is. For example:

I own an art gallery. The nude is a popular artistic expression. I'm sure some nudes would be acceptable, but where do you draw the line? And isn't that censorship of the arts?

My store sells products that aren't sexually explicit but can be used in clubs and brothels that would definitely be adult. So we use adult keywords in search. Can we still sell these complete with keywords in a normal sim, or must we remove all adult words in our classifieds, either diminishing our market or forcing us to double our advertising bill?

How will landlords who designate their sims adult get on with their non verified tenants? One of the benefits of private sims is that you don't need a premium account to rent or 'buy' land there. A basic account, non verified, could run a successful brothel (for example) on a private sim, which the owner would have to mark as adult because of the brothel, meaning that the brothel owner could no longer stay there as they would no longer have access (to there OR the new adult mainland). This i think would affect and upset alot of sim landlords.

And if I have a premium account connected to paypal, is that a verified payment method? does that gain me access to adultworld, or is there another step?

So they'll drag people in pasties and silks through your store instead.

Thats an improvement at least

So, anyway, here we are at the end of a month or more and there has been no change to the definitions in KB6010. Mature is now "PG" and PG is now "G". Most of the "PG" regions I have been in have "references to social drug or alcohol usage", for example, and that has never been forbidden in "PG" regions before.

Blondin: I'm sorry, but you guys at Linden Labs are stark raving bonkers if you think that the majority of land is PG, let alone 96-98%.

We would have appreciated your actually paying attention to them, in return.

According to the blog, Yes.

I really didnt believe it could go this bad this far this fast.

This is the end of SL without a doubt now. What will be left will be just a shell, a husk.
It truly is adapt or die time.

the one wild card will be the dudley do-rights of SL and their self appointed self righteous Ar 'god is with me' powers.

And then I'll be banned. because I will go off on someone. So, I'll buy new computers. Set up more new accounts.

Meanwhile the lindens lose thousands of dollars of my income and its game over for everyone.

I've planned ahead, lands are all paid up to end of May...
perfect timing then to play 'let see what happens next'.

let the bloodshed begin.

I'm royally pissed.

So, I read the draft definitions for Mature and it describes what I would have thought of as PG and effectively what is PG now. It looks like Mature will be the new PG. The problem with this is 85% of mainland is Mature now. The buyers of that land chose Mature of their own free will, they may even have payed a slight premium for it.

It is impossible to sell this change as increasing choice when 85% of land owners will be down rated to a land rating they specifically avoided.

If people adapt maybe it won't be the end as ever SL seems to survive each and every debacle, although this is the worst to date i doubt the sky is going to fall in for SL in the long term



Trouble is tho as always you will never know who AR'd you but i read there would be a 2 way conversation with them but we will see



I am sure they do not care that much as this shows they are prepared to lose some money and as this hasn't happened yet i suppose they are sure it won't hurt them to much or they wouldn't be doing it imho



Its going to be an interesting few months for sure, but bloodshed lol maybe a loss of accounts, but as always a lot will return as Alts etc. after a few months and its summer so figures will drop anyways as the sensible ones will be enjoying RL and hopefully the sunshine. What will be interesting is to revisit this in 12 months time and see who was right and who was wrong in their predictions

Apologies if this has already been covered but I can't see that it has.

I'd like to know what Estate Owner responsibilities are. I can see some very clear guidance on Mainland, and technical information on how to set estate, region and parcel maturity ratings; what I can't see is what estate owners are required to do and enforce.

Could this be answered in an FAQ?

In my example, I have a small number of regions which are currently listed as mature, on which I rent out parcels for commercial & residential use.

Going forward, I'd like to leave my estate at Mature, regions at Mature and ensure that any parcels which contain adult content (as defined by LL, and there wouldn't be very many of them) are flagged as age-verified. I would include in my covenant that residents are required to do this, and I would expect myself (as the estate owner) to enforce the new covenant. Is this acceptable under the new policy? (I think it is, but I can't see a direct answer to this)

In this situation, can estate owners rely on LL to provide a decision on whether something is adult or not, in the case of dispute? I know that generally LL tend to keep out of resident-estate owner disputes, but as this is enforcement of a LL policy, I would expect your input if required.

Thanks

Here are my thoughts-

First, the definitions as they stand now represent what the current SL leadership thinks of as "normal". For some reason, the powers that be have decided that things that one can see and hear in a g-rated movie or afternoon television are now "mature". As in "something to protect people from".

Second The PG rated land will either become a corporate hive (unlikely, since the corps will buy private islands). or a less interesting version of Eurodisney- lots of pink plastic, singing animated flowers, and the occasional butterfly- but no people. Worthless.

The "mature" land will become what PG is now. Less worthless than the PG land, but with the added danger of an AR because someone thinks that you're getting too "racy", what with that beer in your hand and all.

The "Adult" land will, if LL sticks to it's promise to expand it as demand warrants, will simply be the largest land mass they've ever had.

However, if you think it stops here, you're mistaken. The standards will *continue* to be harder to meet. Then there will be outright bans of various things. The most extreme at first, but then anything that isn't acceptable in Mature(Pg) land.
The disnification of SecondLife will be complete.

And it's all because some person (or people) high up in Linden Labs have decided that "Decent, Normal people don't need entertainment like that". Also because some paranoid attorney, sensing some billable hours, has advised LL that if the have the same adult content policy as Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, Nobody will sue them.

So, what to do? Well the best thing would be a boycott, but let's be realistic- that's not really an option for a lot of us. We have businesses, friends, and long-standing projects that we don't want to leave behind.

That leaves Either laying down and being doormats, or Activism.

I vote for activism. Announce the Link to the definitions in every group you belong to. Post it in every store you own or rent. Put a new note card in your delivery boxes and greeters.

*spam* that URL all over Second life. They are doing this because they assume that anyone who doesn't think like them and have their set of preferences *Isn't normal*.
They believe that the vast majority of people that they haven't talked to, agree with them.

Let's prove them wrong. we should hand out info to every store we visit, hand it to every avatar we meet- I'm talking spam it like Blood Skeeters spam bite requests!

There's an idea- offer a prize to the person who hands out the most notecards- you scripters, write up a card giver that keeps track and reports to a website, and tallies the rankings- Bloodllines annoys us so much because it is freaking *everywhere*. Let's copy their business model to get the word about these changes out. Nothing fancy- just a tally contest with a website, rankings and some donated prizes.

Any other ideas about how to spread the word? I don't think that the moral crusaders driving this effort (And from the definitions, this is definitely some kind of moral crusade- either by some of the LL staff, or by people who have convinced the LL staff of dire consequences if they don't clean up) will be convinced by *anyone* that they are wrong, but maybe we can convince the rest of the LL staff and board, if we get enough customers up in arms.

I mean, they can't *all* be puritans, can they? And they simply *cannot* have the majority opinion- Not with restrictions like *that*. those definitions put all of the most talented skin designers out of business, and that's just the beginning of the dominos falling.

I simply cannot believe that anyone sensible can agree with these definitions. that LL has even put them forward is a sign of deep disconnection from reality, let alone *virtual* reality.


-V-

If there is Adult content on the sim them the sim has to be flagged as adult you cannot just allow individual parcels to flag as adult, the whole sim is either adult or mature HTH

According to everything that's been posted, no, flagging parcels as "age verified" does not allow "adult content" on them under the new rules.

A *slight* premium? *All* of Nautilus was "mature" land and it sold at *staggering* premiums! Imagine how a nautilus landowner will feel to realize that the 2048 he paid $L100K for is now unsuitable and deeply devalued as well. Who will pay for mature land now? the people who want PG, but not "all the way PG"? There's not nearly enough of them to keep the land prices anywhere near what people paid for their mature land.

Mainland will be a *ghost town* except for Ursula- which will be just as heavily regulated in time- just wait and see.

-V-

IMHO mature is even more worthless than PG:

If I want land for the sexxors I buy something on the adult continent. If I don't want that stuff, I buy PG land. Why bother with mature.

I'm guessing LL doesn't care about the people who do leave, in the long run. They are figuring these changes will set SL up so many more people will replace them. "Regular" people. People who won't work and create their own stuff, but buy, buy and buy again. They want more people like me, pure consumers, who put in but never take out.

Not that it will happen, but it may. I imagine they see the new cleaned up mainland ready for the Corps to come, set up their adspam, and plaster their logos all over. Watch them hand out branded stuff at welcome areas, some may even start selling their goods in virtual form. It didn't work the first time with places like American Apparel, because the SL user of the day was too hip to content quality, most could make equal quality themselves. But the new SL resident will buy shit because they are told they are supposed to buy shit, just like RL. So Joe McWhitebread and his wife Frigid will set up their nice lttle house and fill it with the same inane garbge their Rl home is filled with. And will continue th great RL tradition of keeping up with the Jonses.

SL is to be AOL 3D. Phil's Metaverse (tm) dream has been shelved.The investors can't wait.

Now you know why there isn't going to be a new PG continent.

They have eight of them now.

Let me correct a few points here.

1. You DID NOT ANNOUNCE THIS. You posted a forum post, and about 1/8 of the SL residents have seen it. There have been nothing on the log-in screen, no in-world announcements, NOTHING. SO get that fact straight.
2. You have had Blondin, who has done very little to show He is paying attention, gives half assed answers, ignores the most pertinent questions, and give us lip service which amounts to nothing more than smoke up everyone's ass.
3. There were no *required polls*... If you guys REALLY gave 2 shits about your residents... EVERY single AVIE logging into the grid would have been FORCED to take a 3 minute survey about what areas of the grid they prefer, Mature/PG, and given an option to provide further feedback. This would have shown you that the 2-4% is really more like 90%.

LL has again shown a blatant disregard for its residents, its land tier paying members, a sheer lack of customer appreciation, and regard for no one but itself.

You call yourselves cleaning up the grid. What your doing is KILLING it.

So lets shove the Escorts,, BDSM, Fetishes, and everything not PG to the new continent.
Now watch how many people can't access that, so they get pissed and leave.
NOw your numbers are dropping, but its not just us sexual perverts going. Its the commerce we supported. The skin/shape/clothing/hair/gesture/gadget/everything you can think of stores in SL.

I'm not saying this is the end of SL, but i think LL SERIOUSLY needs to get its head out of its ass. So you lose a customer or two. That's not important, obviously.

You have provided a rough time line, give us, the affected residents some consideration now.
~Brie

Exactly. I think that was the plan from the start.

Blondin has said that estate owners have one set of options- What to maturity level to set their region flags.

There is no such thing as an "adult" parcel on a "mature" sim. the flagging as "adult" has to be done at the region level, or the estate level. You can then require Age verification at the parcel level, but that has nothing to do with the content ratings. They're painting with a broader brush than that.

And to some degree, from what I have read and heard, private landowners will be responsible for keeping their residents in compliance, and will be a party to any AR's that are filed.



I wouldn't depend on it. The content definitions practically come right out and say that the whole thing will be adjudicated by "seat of the pant" methods, and they they will depend upon AR's and complaints to see where the problems are. Likely the first opinion that you''ll get about your content is from the g-team member that's coming to investigate you when you have been AR'd. The way that they're saying "case by case basis all the time leads me to believe that they follow the "I-don't-know-what-is-but-I-know-it-when-I-see-it" definition of "adult".

This is going to be a thorough-going "Charlie-Fox", for *everyone*.

-V-