Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Answers to Questions

If ever LL needed an additional gauge of the level of concern in the community, it would do well to note the number of people of relatively long-standing who are posting for the first (or almost first) time in this forum.

The legislation I feel *might* be behind this was enacted in 2006. The courts are still deciding whether it should stand or not, but it was not simply tossed out either. If it was enacted in 2006, and seemed taken serious enough not to be tossed out outright, doesn't that fit with the timeline?

You're already in violation of the TOS, profiles are already supposed to be general access.

1. How are you so sure? The intent of the law seems pretty clear and at best this seems more of a loophole than anything else. Writeups on the amendment elsewhere on the web agree with my interpretation. Even if this piece of legislation does not cover it, the intent is such that there would probably be another do do so. This piece is intended to cover perceived loopholes in the original act.

2. Other than the fact that if this passes, age verification may need to extend to all content on the main grid, how does this not apply? And for all we know, the limitations LL is placing on the requirements may be based on the direction the court challenge is taking and/or what their lawyers feel is the most likely result from the court challenge.

I was responding to a message where you said "if kids can get in by lying, then why can't adults who aren't able to verify do the same" (and yes, that's what you said. If that's not what you meant, work on your communication skills). I'm talking about law-abiding adults WHO CAN NOT VERIFY. Christ on a Crutch, Al, you're ticking me off.
You're waffling. I decline to believe that you honestly don't know what the point of the question was.

Why yes, it was, thank you for noticing.

Actually, I didn't. My apologies as now that I do understand the context I missed, you have a point.

There does need to be better means to verify, that is definately true. There are plenty of situations in RL where inabilty to verify one's identity become an issue, though, yet they are not considered as punishing those who cannot. Even something as simple as getting a bank account. My brother was once denied an account on the grounds he could not produce two pieces of ID, even though my father was there with him and even though my father had been a client of that bank for decades.

My brother did find a bank where one piece of ID was sufficient, but someone with no pieces of ID would have been unable to open an account.

well, since this thread is going nowhere until everyone has agreed what the real reason is behind this move, I'm still voting for the LL sponsored task force from Harvard university.

If the majority of the US Attorney Generals have accepted the report then it would be completely foolish of LL to ignore it (and they have enough instinctive self preservation to be able to connect the dots to come to this conclusion).

It has all the key elements, protecting children, aristotle, laws and lawmakers and they were one of the sponsors of it.

I'll post the link to the page on my blog, that page has all the major links to the various bits. If nothing else go to the overview of the report.

http://satiateddesires.wordpress.com/2009/03/22/why-age-verification-has-suddenly-become-a-big-concern-in-second-life/


there you are clickable and non so everyone should be able to see it.

The reason though is irrelevant although context is always good. LL don't want to give it to us so we're just wasting our life on suppositions. To them the bonus is that it diverts us away on putting pressure on them to help us with the move - until it's too late for them to do anything (can't you just hear the Lindens going "what a shame!" as they snigger at our foolishness in being sidetracked?)

* How will your confidential private info that LL collected be protected?
* What is LL's privacy policy?
* What will LL promise you today, and what will happen tomorrow by announcing a change in their privacy policy disclosing your private info to their "affiliates"?
* What will they do with the gold mine of privacy info?
* What if they publish the entire list of the Adult users on the web?
* Do you have any legal recourse?
* What is they sell it to their "affiliates" perfectly legally and their affiliates publish that list and re-sell it?
* If you think this doesn't happen in the real world, think again. That's exactly how this global financial happened when your mortgage loan is re-sold so many times that no one in the financial business knows what the risks are or even have a paper trail of who owns what when they resell them a hundred times.
* What if LL is bought out by another corporation or by another country, who do you think will have access to this Adult list legally?
* If you think LL has such a cozy relationship with IBM, think again. China had already bought out IBM's Personal Computer Division. So who do you think will have potential access of the Adult user list to blacklist you internationally?
* If you think IBM is owned by America, wake up!
* Who has the money to buy out LL in the future? China has already developing their own version of SL. Who has the most interest in this privacy gold mine of international, multi-country list of people who they want to police?
* Even if you delete your account, your privacy info will still become permanent record in LL.
* Who is going to lose the most in this? The law-abiding users who volunteer their privacy!
* The truth is once you have disclosed your privacy info voluntarily, there is absolutely no way to protect it, ever!
* Why is there an international movement for protecting internet user's privacy by not collecting and deleting user's internet record that won the European Privacy Seal, such as search engine giant like http://ixquick.com, unlike the user-data-hungry google?
* What ramification do you think this is about?
* Is it about Adult content or about selling your privacy legally?
* This is not about internet Identity Thief operating in a third world country. It is about legal identity mining in the hometown USA.

USC 2257 is a law to prevent child pornography by requiring producers to keep records verifying their models are over 18.

Since the adult content policy does not address these requirements, it's a safe bet it is not the motivation for the policy.

The law is not relevant to the discussion.

Gotta have a ? in there to make it clicky..
http://satiateddesires.wordpress.com/2009/03/22/why-age-verification-has-suddenly-become-a-big-concern-in-second-life

We aren't at ALL comfortable, however, acceptance and compliance doesn't necessarily mean that we like, endorse or agree. I have said repeated times in this discussion... which, might i add, every time i try to post a response quoting Blondin i get a *forbidden, not allowed message*, while i can obviously now respond to everyone else, that we don't have to LIKE the rules to FOLLOW the rules.

Stop the BS. Stop waiting. Stop letting rampant rumors and BS fly. We DON'T CARE WHY LL IS MAKING US DO THIS. The decision has been made, the why, and how, and Blah blah blah... who cares. What i *DO* care about it myself, and the hundreds of impacted Adult Businesses, that are losing money. We are all in stasis.. sitting here speculating, watching this one and that one try to find a logic in an OBVIOUSLY ILLOGICAL action. LL isn't listening. They are stalling. Plain and simple. To put it mildly....
It doesn't matter how long they have been discussing it. Doesn't matter WHY. Doesn't matter what the long term effects are. They decided.. and that's it. Our complaints, our money, our hundreds of thousands of invested man hours building *OUR WORLD, OUR IMAGINATION* all the RL money, SL linden, joint efforts, everything we have done up to this point.. obviously DOESN'T MATTER.

The Solution to this:

JUST GET ON WITH IT ALREADY. There have been NUMEROUS VALID SUGGESTIONS on how to make this move as painless as possible. Screw the fact i spent THREE YEARS building and making my FULL SIM HOME... apparently i will have NINE WHOLE DAYS... and DON'T FORGET the TWO WHOLE WEEKENDS included in that, to move, set up, and get on with living.

I, like HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE, simply want to get the hell on with it. WE want to build the new continent. WE want to have our worlds, uprooted as they may be, OUR WAY. LL is spending all this time...*setting up* the new continent. Ursula. We want consideration for a few things...

1. how much land we currently, as Adult business owners, own and run, and the *Picking order* for the new land.
2. No Offense to newer people. None at all. But long-term residents, and Adult Business owners, who have invested YEARS in this game, deserve FIRST Consideration. Yes, all of US deserve to be treated fairly. But Seniority should count, and COUNT BIG. Just like all the newer people came in, and found *their* place, after we all had ours, same difference. Simple logistics said... we had first choice, we were here first. This should apply to the new continent as well.
Just like you came in game, and found that we, the older residents had paved the way for you before you were here, trust we will do so again.
3. I'm not sure, but i think maybe me, and at least 4626755874938759848 (yes, that's an odd random number, and anyone that knows brie just smiled when they saw that *winks*) other people have said...GET ON WITH IT ALREADY. Just say... this is the plan, The dates, the rules.. and JUST DO IT ALREADY.

For 5 years now, from my first avatar, and now with this one, myself, and thousands of other SL residents have rolled with LL and their *improvements that weren't* updates that broke, LAG...did i mention LAG?....griefers,and numerous other things.
We have gritted our teeth, and made the best of it, and improved things our way. We found solutions to bugs, work arounds for things that were *fixed* but not. We have helped write a wiki, a JIRA, made this...OUR WORLD. Just give it to us straight... we, by logging in, agreed to the TOS. and, while sometimes it may be questionable, we are all ADULTS. WE can deal, we can handle it. Stop treating us as a feeble minded step-cousins three times removed, and acknowledge that without us.. there would be no SL.

There has been talk about how we aren't united. I beg to differ. Simply by the sheer volume of responses, and views of this, and the already locked threads, while we all may have different opinions, and ways of stating said opinions, agree. We are adults. We are, most of us anyway, of a like mind... weather you do, or choose not to do, adult type things, we should have the freedom to live our SL's, OUR WAY. There is NO COUNTRY in the world.. NONE, that such diversity co-exists, as we have in SL. Humans, Nekos, Furries; Straight, Gay, Bi, Trans, whatever each person chooses to represent themselves as in SL, and the acceptance to be what you choose... your way. Male, female...we simply want a time table, and the new rules. and the chance to move on, overcome, and continue, as we have, to make SL OUR WORLD.

Is that REALLY so hard?

~Brie

An individual engaging in a sex act via an avatar could easily be seen to be a 'model' for purposes of the legislation. SL easily fits the definition of producer.

The only question is whether being an animated model counts for purposes of the act, and based on the analysis of others, and what I understand the intent of the act to be, it likely does.

The purpose of the act is not just to prevent child pornography, but to ' To protect children from sexual exploitation and violent crime, to prevent child abuse and child pornography.' The act says nothing about whether the role played appears young or old.

Someone underage made up to look like someone's grandmother, yet still engaging in sex where the image is distributed would be a violation. Even though the image would not appear child-like, the child is still engaging in sex. Even if the model is just mastribating, which I put it to you compares in safety to sex between avatars, it is still in violation.

How does this not apply?

Interesting read. There seemed to be a general consensus in the final submissions that education for both children and parents is a much better route than age verification, and serious admission of the limitations and risks of age verification.

If anything, the report is a good counter-arguement against key aspects of these changes (and against many of my arguements).

This is just nonsense.

This is not Bizarro world where "actual human beings" really means "cartoon characters". Simulated sex between actual human beings does not mean cartoons.

If it applied, and if LL's adult content policy was meant to bring SL into compliance with it, then it would make sense that they would actually, you know, do what the law says.

The adult content policy does not address the record keeping requirements USC 2257 is about, therefor it is unlikely the policy is a reaction to it.

Continued posting about it is intentionally derailing the thread from it's true purpose. Continuing this irrational discussion serves no useful purpose.

Shall we just agree to disagree?

They're not cases where people are going to be *routinely* told they going to be evicted from their home of three years if they can't get an ID, though. Common sense revolts at the idea, but that's what Linden Labs is saying.

These are not RL homes. They are virtual homes. If you are equating these to RL homes then it seems strange for you to also be arguing that these are 'just cartoons.'

And a bank account is a pretty important thing in modern society. Without one, you have to pay cheque cashing places nasty rates, which does not help survival if you are already low income.

I got told that even with the ? some people can't see if it's an image.. hence the two..

/me grumbles about another quality linden lab bit of kit..

Literal minded bounder.

Then people aren't being routinely having goods confiscated because they can't produce an ID. They aren't routinely having their existing bank account placed off limits because they can't produce an ID. You made an RL analogy, I can go on making better ones all day, we both know we're talking about analogies, not equating physical houses with virtual houses, bank accounts with SL accounts, etcetera. It's an analogy. It's Folgers Crystals. It's ground acorns. It's sugar in your heroin. It's a metaphor. It's a floor wax and a dessert topping.

I'm not even arguing that this isn't necessary, mind you, I'm just trying to get across that this is what is, when it happens in real life, referred to as extra-judicial punishment. Like when someone gets their car confiscated because a passenger in the backseat had a joint in their pocket.

So, it may be necessary, it may be Linden Labs has no alternative. But you're not just saying that, you're dismissing the idea that this is even a problem. Not "a small problem", but you're dismissing the idea that it's a problem at all.

Whether USC 2257 applies to SL or not is somewhat irrelevant as the record keeping requirements of that law are not met by what LL is proposing.

a) if an account is PIOF or PIU, LL only has on file that a payment method (e.g. credit card or paypal). LL would not have the age of the account holder on file (as in some places credit cards are available to under 1, and certainly not meeting the rigour required by USC 2257

b) it is dubious whether the Aristotle verification would meet the rigour required by USC 2257

c) under the current proposals it is permissable for an unverified and anonymous account to rez a sexbed or engage in sex acts in a private residence on mature land - this would certainly violate USC 2257 if it did apply to SL.

Matthew

I haven't forgotten that at all. In fact I've dedicated a lot of my RL time trying to ask pertinent questions, and made a post solely about "Let's get some clear definitions down" as to do and don'ts, and what *exactly* defines an adult sim or business, etc. Honestly I've participated to the point it's become a physical drain.

Also in the post where I thanked Alexander, I also asked what you just did - that people have more than 9 days to move to Ursula in. I haven't forgotten the issues or the logistical dilemmas just because I thanked someone for a viewpoint that made some sense to me.

We've all been saying virtually the same as one another, which is great; strength in numbers. But it was nice to hear from someone who had another possible explanation for some of this and beliefs opposite to mine in some ways, who expressed themselves coherently about it (as opposed to the brief "I dun care I dun wanna be 'forced to see' smut anyway" posts) and except for one instance maintained their manners too.

I also kind of admired him even though I disagreed with his viewpoints, for being the only one saying something when most were saying something else, and holding his own. I've done that before and it's not a picnic.

Briana my own intuition is that Alexander isn't just a newbie and knows more than he's legally allowed to spell out, but that's just me.

I hope we're not all going to turn on each other in the thread for having different viewpoints, that would be unfortunate.

And now I'm gonna disconnect from this discussion a while and unsub to the thread so I'm not tempted to come in from email - it's harming my health at this point. I need less stress not more...which is my problem I know quite well; so I'm addressing it right now.

/me leaves again for now.

Fair enough, now that I have a better idea where you are coming from. I guess the next question is it a big enough question to matter?

I could clicky-click both, if that makes you feel better

LOL i use linkification so can see all the links as links even if you just place them without tags