Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Answers to Questions

Great response. Try that one next time you are fighting a traffic ticket or otherwise before a judge.

Hopefully soon, when work is not so hectic. We seem to be in agreement though on age restrictions (which is my primary arguement in this thread), so why do you feel my opinion is invalid?

Other than age restrictions, I agree there is plenty of reason to criticize LL.

I stand corrected.. they are often more lax in the multiplexes.

... or a Linden plant? ... aarrrrghhh!!!!

Same here - I've been trying to work out where Alexander's at. If not an alt - which he seems to have denied (I say 'seems' because the response was rather ambiguous) - then he needs to get a better idea of what the SL experience is for more people, as well as a bit of history of the issues at hand. For that very reason, he was asked to at least read some of the postings in previous threads to get a clue, particularly since he said he hadn't even read all of this thread.

Like you, I also thought of Nany, who coincidentally quietened down around the time Alexander arrived. If he's an alt of someone who's been in SL longer than two months and knows SL somewhat better, he's presumably just got a narrow agenda to push.

The other possibility is that he gets off on drawing as many people as possible into his one pet topic, when there are many more issues at hand. At the moment, he's managing rather successfully to make himself the centre of attention. However, as much as I disagree with a lot of what he says and am tempted to respond, I can't be bothered getting sucked into his eternally circular arguments any more. It only serves to bury any more useful comments that come up.

I don't know how much clearer it can possibly be. You quoted the text of the law yourself. It's a record keeping law, and specifically states the images must be of "actual human beings".

A computer generated image meant to look like someone is not a picture of that person.

It seems to me that the obvious \business case for NOT making these changes would be the huge increase in customer service it's going to require from LL.

1. Trying to support moving the land.

2. Reviewing content in-world.

3. Reviewing search terms.

4. Weeding out bogus ARs. There will be huge increases in malicious ones just cuz you'll be able to AR someone for how things "seem".

5. Processing legit ARs.

6. Processing support tickets for all the probable flies in the ointment.

7. Making sure all the software stuff "works".

8. Increased load on the system.

If all that doesn't completely freak-out the peeps and veeps in Customer Service, they are on RL drugs.

This smells like a one-person, top-down driven decision and the business case is being crafted to fit as opposed to the business case driving the decisions. But WTH do I know? I just make pixel clothing and weird things.

Some people have been complaining about it being impossible to get verified or at least too inconvenient. Meanwhile others are saying that kids will have no trouble.

It is difficult for it to be both at once.

"It is a well-documented fact that guys will not ask for directions. This is a biological thing. This is why it takes several million sperm cells to locate a female egg, despite the fact that the egg is, relative to them, the size of Wisconsin." - Dave Barry

Yeah, I suppose that's an ad hominem argument, but it's late and I'm going to bed. Alex, we had a girl on this forum called Nany and she used to play games. If you want anyone to take you seriously, you need to collect your thoughts and put forward a coherent perspective. Otherwise, you will simply end up on everyone's ignore list.

It is a 'digitally or computer modified image.' What is the difference between an existing avatar and a direct digital image of approximately the same quality?

What is the intent of the legislation? A picture of that person made to look like an avatar would qualify, why would the same result from the opposite direction not qualify?

Not at all. People who have complained about not being able to verify are simply unable to because of their locations in the world. Others have cited that in locations where you can verify then its very easy for anyone including kids to do so with fake ID.

Fair point. That one I should likely have thought through more...

No. It's not a picture of an actual human being.

The intent of the legislation is to make sure actors and models in adult films and photographs are over 18. There is really no way to apply that to cartoons. No human being was photographed for the image, therefor there are no records to keep.

One could argue that having a less interactive 'victim' would lend itself *more* to objectification. Also, as I understand GTA (which is only an example anyway) the player does make choices. And there are different responses from the NPC (non player characters) in result to each.

In 'Fable' you can play the hero good, evil, or somewhere in between. You can do the same in SL. I'd argue that the game play reflects the player, not the other way around.

I'd ask those same parents in your example what the heck they were thinking allowing their kid to roam around the www, let alone a wide open community with RL adults in it. I'd also ask them why they expected a corporation or thousands of strangers to police THEIR kids.

I've found his posts enlightening because to me they are indicative of *exactly* how people who do not play SL think, how some corporate suits think (i.e. official policy from mountaintop), and he puts those ideas together better than most or all others in these threads who adhere to the same line of thinking.

It's the logic itself that's flawed IMO, and bespeaks a lack of understanding what SL is really like - not the posts he's written. YMMV of course. But I'm getting a glimmer from his posts as to what's behind all this sudden shakeup.

I agree that those parents are irresponsible, but the kid is the one at risk (or more importantly seen by society as at risk).

A less interactive victim might lend itself more to objectification except where the victim is willing to be objectified and playing along.

Aside from what someone pointed out and you conceded you've also still ignored my point that kids will possibly be more willing to fake identification to get in. The ones stuck in the dilemma of forking over their RL info to some questionable entity like Aristotle forever, or leaving a game/community/business they feel they have invested in/built up/become addicted to (yes, many are) will be those honest adults who either do not wish to use fake information or who are afraid to risk a felonious fraud conviction.

This is where the legal defense "Kids will be kids" might work.



They'd be just at risk in the PG areas of the brave new SL world. Or actually anywhere online (or outside their front door or heck, in some cases, even within it.) No one wants kids hurt but the emotional side of the issue doesn't address whether or not any of this is going to stop that happening. Besides - hasn't LL announced kids will not be allowed into mainland SL anytime soon anyway?



An NPC can hardly be seen as giving consent, which anyone staying in a sim past reading the rules and warnings *has de facto given*. Mutual consent...roleplaying. It's true that it may enhance an objectification of women (so does kids viewing a lot of the porn out there on the 'net itself - or heck not to be bratty but truthfully, so does most of television, graphic novels, etc.), but I disagree that graphic depictions in animation, interactive, mutually consenting or limited-option video game, will turn a teen into a raving psychotic. Only if there are no other normalising influences and the kid perhaps has an inborn lack of logic and/or empathy.

Psychopaths/sociopaths existed long before video games.

Fair enough, but he'd better come up with Brentano->Husserl->Heiddeger/Sartre/Merleau-Ponty or Kant->Hegel->Kierkegaard/Jaspers/Marcel/Barths/Buber pretty quick, or it's all a game.

Apologies. It's 05:30 in the morning

This halfway intact second life (in three months it is damaged by its founders Linden Lab) can be seen as the basis of an avant-garde, the radical or radical naive, playful, fascinated avant-garde, wich did transferring any object from non-artistic space into marked artistic space and turned anything into a work of art, trash or not but art.

Like The Black Square, Duchamp's objects and the obscenities created by Kruchenykh were recoded into art as soon they entered a museum.

But since that, Linden Lab has the irrational or uncreative fear that in fact this would meant exploiting their labour, the labour of the Lab. This transcendence, this transfer into the space of culture, into the living former nothing... - and now: a sphere wich is non-stop transforming prims into something to be exposed in the virtual morphological breathing museum SL, wich is only possible since the platform has been built by labourers, since it has been provided with a social code, since its entrance is guarded by kind of security, since there is a ticket office - in other words, this SL as social and existential space wich first needed to be bureaucratically and industrially secured through enormous investments, is now in danger to be occupied through fear-ridden suits and vacuumed through the cleaning staff.

Only under the room-giving circumstances until today, could the avant-garde artistic act be realised. And once this was understood by LL, they decided that the avant-garde have to disappear ASAP, the freedom of the avant-garde have to disappear ASAP, because it became obvious that it represented an exploitation of the labour of those who had built the outer walls of the museum SL - (is unfortunately the actual tragic thinking of Linden Lab.)

For us all creators or visitors, - we are both in one, - it is like for an artist like Duchamp who exposed an average urinal in a museum, wich transformed the urinal into exposed art with a meesage or no message. It was obvious that the museum had been built by workers, that it was guarded, that there was an institution which allowed him to do what he did.

But exact this has not to be interesting for creators and visitors, because: when you start thinking about obtaining space in a museum, about what the curator, the director or some foundation think about this, or even the crowd or individuals, then you no longer want to create anything avantgardesque, but you want to go and hang yourself - so to speak, hahaha. The thrill to be an artist is then gone.

This is why it is the biggest mistake ever what LL starts here: they talk too much about their building, their biz, their ideas of social codes and bureaucracy - and they drive the avantgarde out with this and even the naive and curious visitors - wich will lead LL directly into bankrupty. If not monetary, but into intellectual bankrupty.

Where the provocation is gone, is only dust left over. Pfffff.

I think you are starting to understand. I have no objection to the content itself, and feel that the concern is likely (not neccessarily, but likely) overblown, but the concern is there, and the legislation is still there, and even if this piece of legislation is struck down and/or does not apply to SL it is a safe bet that another will be tried.

The majority do not understand, and are not likely to take the time to understand. There are freedom of speech lobbies resisting, and they win battles too. The problem is that it is very risky for LL to roll the dice on this.

I seem to be doing something wrong.. near as I can tell we agree with each other, other than the fact that the manner of my arguments seems to be upsetting you. And it is only 9:30 here, but I am not sure what appears to be a progression of philosopers has to do with anything.

Did you see the Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia exhibition at Beaubourg?

Apologies. I get strange when I'm tired.

No worries.. and no need to apologize for strangeness. It is the ones who claim to be normal who are really worrying...

I honestly do thank you for that Alexander, because it is the first plausible explanation for this sudden seismic change.

It just doesn't make sense for LL to rip the grid in half, or to run over the current user base which has in effect built the 'world' to what it is, unless some horrific ogre is breathing down its neck. So at least, that makes sense, and puts that part of the question to rest in my mind.

So that's *one* little cog that can cease whirring in there, I guess. And it humanises the other side of the table, i.e. maybe this isn't exactly what LL *want* either. But more a contingency plan.

I do still think it could be implemented better, such as giving people a bit more time to pack up their belongings for Ursula. I have this image of the main grid exodus full of people with furniture on top of cars or straggling along with cardboard suitcases. (Yes a bit of bathos)

If they've known this law was potentially active, and a possible ruling was looming, that would help explain why it was mentioned perhaps a year ago (by some claims) and is suddenly being sped along (once it made it to court).

At least they're not letting kids into SL coinciding with all this. Talk about shooting themselves in the foot, if so. Branding SL to be safe while everything shakes out, and then the first stories making it to press otherwise, would be one heck of an iceberg.

That law has nothing to do with Second Life.

LL is making this change because they believe they believe it is a more profitable direction to move in. No more, no less.