Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Motivations and Goals

But if it was about the protection of minors, wouldn't LL think differently about sex furniture in private homes? Their new policy makes no sense either way, because little Johnny can easily cam into private bedrooms or even jump around on a sex bed himself.

If all private homes with sex furniture had to be moved to the new continent or flagged private estates, then I could understand it. Alternatively, if this is about giving easily offended adult residents a choice, there is no need for age verification.

The current policy only makes sense if this was an attempt to seperate condoned adult content from adult content that is deemed bad or filthy by LL's judgement. So that potential investors might see the single bars but not the gay bars.

Just wondering: Will the corporations that will be adspamming the new and improved mainland decline to place their ads on the Leper Colony?

Merging grids would be a dumb, dumb, dumb idea.
Maybe u should start a new VW called Third Life or something.
Ppl who don't like the current version, Second Life, can go there and do their thing.
I for one tried to confirm my age with no luck even though i used an Amex Gold Card to pay for premium membership. Having my Credit Card Number and then wanting my DL, Social Insurance or Birth Certificate numbers makes me extremely nervous about having my RL identity stolen. Lets face it, the biggest banks and insurance companies in the world scammed us ordinary ppl out of billions. How r we to know that LL won't, or that the info is actually secure.
It seems that the religious right in the US of A is sticking it's nose into the SL world where it doesn't belong. And by the way, if u r going to limit adult content, how about limiting the Vampires to their little corner as well so we unsuspecting noobs don't get lied to and bit for their little game that we are unaware of when starting our new Second Life.

Desde simply cannot refrain from weighing in, although perhaps tongue in cheek.

Personally, she is offended by people who are offended by adult content.

Perhaps such people, with their socially offensive positions regarding the tolerance of the amusements of other adults.... perhaps such people should have their presence in second life and their activities therein restricted to special areas of the mainland from which they will not be allowed to leave.

Or perhaps the entire registration process should be reversed. People of such sentiments could be required to register as 'sensitive' and 'easily offended' and in the process complete an exhaustive opt-out activity check list that would ban them from from any area in which there was a remote possibility that such activities might be present. (of course, the list might itself be offensive.. so... hmmm.. there is puzzle here.)

Or perhaps we could simply create a new grid. Perhaps we could call it SafeLife (tm). It would have heavily regulated content and intrusively monitored verbal commerce. "We promise that on SafeLife, there will be no secrets and no surprises." It could be a haven for those adults who wish to avoid any confrontations with materials that cause them discomfort.

Problem 1. Us trying to make sense out of a senseless descision.

If it were only about cleaning up and not having people stumble and fall 'accidentally' over sex everywhere.. they would just enforce/use/police the options already there. Delete Ads and warn people with non mature marked ads that point to mature content. Make the Mature regions parked beside PG ones into 'no-see ums' unless you have mature marked. (not as hard as some make it out to be... all that has to happen is that mature region reports as 'offline' to the pg sim beside it. Just like how the sim beside you that is down in a rolling restart is 'not there').

Properly policing and using the things LL already has in place is more than enough to have SL at the point they say they are trying to make it be with this decision. That agecheck is not needed for that, and isnt even needed for what they say they will be doing... there is a reason it is there and it isn't the ones we are being told about.

I know its just rumours, but they are very pungent rumours that Linden Labs are intending to merge the SL grid with the teen grid ... i dont care what the Lindens say , there is no smoke without fire , and it seems that making all these changes to the grid is a pre-cursor to just that.

First of all, i myself wont be herded into using my credit card information for setting up a premium account. I dont know how many people will echo that, but i can imagine quite a few residents wont take kindly to Linden Labs herding people that dont already have premium accounts into setting one up.

Secondly, As for the issue surrounding "Adult" content.. isn't this an Adult grid ? Arent the residents grown up enough to make their own choices on what content theior poor wee innocent eyes fall upon ??

AND LAST , BUT NOT LEAST.... If Linden labs ARE intending to bring the teen grid and this one together... They might be able to stop these teens from accessing mature content, but they wont be able to stop adults from accessing these teenagers.
Linden Labs are playing with fire with that one. I still remember MSN chatrooms being shut down because they were allowing adults to mix with teens online . Are you people at Linden Labs stupid ? You must be if you're even considering going there. So... Please, for the sake of all the residents who have worked hard on this Metaverse, Please reconsider such a foolish act before you all end up facing a bunch of angry parents in a courtroom for allowing their teenagers to mingle with adults on the internet. Please see past the greed that is obviously behind this move and think before you make the biggest mistake in the history of SL.
Thank you so much ,
conor

I am going to use this tool if I can, whether you like it or not. If that means running over you or running you out of here, that's too bad.

It wasn't directed at me, but I first thought the same way. I.e. perhaps people will easier find my shop, I might be able to advertise more efficiently and perhaps everybody will feel compelled to verify their account so that I have no monetary loss.

But the problem is exactly that so very few businesses will be required to move / flag their land, and that private homes full of sex toys won't have to be flagged at all. Not 3-4%, but rather 30-40% of all businesses on the mainland cater to adult sexual roleplayers in one way or another, and be it only by selling latex catsuits or school girl costumes.

It's almost impossible to make a clean cut there. I'd agree with the definition LL put out at first, i.e. that all depictions of genitals (including those on skins) as well as sexual conduct are adult content. But now they're making exceptions for nude beaches, for shops with a wide variety of wares that only carry a little adult content, and so on.

This means, they're seperating good adult content from bad adult content. Skin shop with painted genitals = merely mature. Skin shop with prim genitals in some corner = possibly mature. Adult shop selling the very same prim genitals = adult ghetto. Nude beach = mature, transgender-friendly nude beach = possibly bad and icky. Single bar = mature, PG even but a gay bar... well, they tend to be a bit more fun, a bit more in-your-face, so who knows. I don't think this is fair on a business level, nor is it politically correct.

And let's not forget the issue of age verification. This won't be a simple "show/hide adult content" checkbox in Search, coupled with a "Do you really want to..." dialog when teleporting to an adult place. Residents are being asked to hand out personal information in order to access adult areas. This means that people who are openly gay or lesbian on the grid, or openly into BDSM, are asked to out themselves, if only to a small number of people (until the next time somebody hacks LL's customer database).

Many people won't risk to out / verify themselves and will therefore be cut off from certain forms of adult content and entertainment. Who knows how many adults are still unverified? The vast majority I'd say, but that's just a guess. Let's assume that half of them won't dare to give out vital personal information. Half the grid population, that's a huge loss for the adult industry. But not the whole adult industry, only the part of it that LL decides has to suffer this loss, the part deemed too icky to continue doing business on mature land.

I find this all very dubious. If it's about the protection of minors, then by all means, go ahead and flag / move all adult content. But make sure there's not one single sex bed or genital left on unflagged land, no compromises, equal playing field for all adult businesses. If it's about the choice to see adult content or not, give people the choice without demanding age verification. But don't single out a tiny percentage of the many businesses that cater to adult roleplayers and cut them off from a large share of their customers. That might look as if LL wanted to drive certain people out of business.

It is not in the TOS go look at the TOS, they ban people for it and it is in the list of things you can AR someone for but they for got to actualy put it in the TOS.

The TOS points to "Community Standards" which bans "Broadly Offensive" content.
Which can mean many different things to different people.

Everyone here should wonder who might find them "Broadly Offensive"!
I keep wonder what else might be add next to LL use of Broadly Offensive.

Are you Next?

Well, yes and no.

As you point out most of the issues which Universities encounter with SL are technical - lack of any backup/export facility being one of the key ones (which is why OpenSim is so attractive since you have direct access to the underlying database for doing backups and restores).

Whilst universities do have and exercise some responsibility of care towards their students this tends to be directed towards ensuring their safety from RL dangers (rape, drugs etc.) and ensuring they behave responsibly and safely if they wish to engage in other adult activities. They aren't really that worried about what adult cartoons they may encounter.

Universities do however worry about their reputation - particularly their reputation in the media. If they are cautious about getting into SL, it is for the same sorts of reasons that they may be cautious about accepting a donation from Hugh Hefner. If they are worried about how being in SL might affect their reputation, the idea that LL is building a new continent dedicated to the sex industry is not going to allay those worries.

Matthew

Ishtara Rothschild,

There is nothing in the new adult content policy to prevent 30% - 40% of adult sexual roleplayers from shopping anywhere they like.




Many people won't risk coming in contact with material that offends them and are therefore cut off from creating, buying or using all forms of content and entertainment in Second Life. That is the issue.

The priviliges (these are not rights) of adult content creators and users in Second Life are at the sole discretion of Linden Labs. If they decide to promote one kind of content and user over another, they have the legal and moral right to do so.

The problem with the phrase broadly offensive is that broadly is often used to mean "In a wide manner, liberally, in a loose sense", "not detailed or specific" in phrases such as "broadly speaking", "he interprets the law too broadly", "broad outline". So to me, whenever I hear the phrase "broadly offensive", my initial reaction is to interpret is as "loosely speaking offensive", "vaguely offensive", "slightly offensive", "sort of offensive" etc.

i.e. I might say that I find bright lime green broadly offensive.

However, I think (but I could be wrong), that by broadly offensive, LL really means something stronger?

Matthew

i quite often find Linden Labs policy changes broadly offensive

It's starting to sound like LL may not need to maintain a separate continent for the sex industry for very long anyway, if residents whose businesses are removed to that continent abandon SL.

Oh, there is. They'll have to give up their anonymity before being able to visit adult places.

A gay won't be able to visit a gay sex club without being forced to out himself. And a MtF transsexual (on the grid) will have to out herself as biologically male, before she can teleport to any place that sells prim penises. This will prevent a LOT of people from accessing adult places or search results.



Nobody is cut off from anything at the moment. People can freely choose where to go, where they buy land and set up their home, they can even disable mature content in Search. Some people WANT to be cut off though. And not just that, they want to cut us off, a part of the community, instead of simply staying in PG areas.



Of course Linden Lab has the power (it's not exactly a right) to demand to know somebody's name and address before they grant him access to a gay sex club. I don't think it would look good in the eyes of the media.

LL is still listening to resident feedback, or so they say at least. That's what I'm doing here, I'm providing feedback. I won't just sit back and wait things out, because LL ultimately has the power to do whatever they want.

What is or is not said here is mute....

as in the past Linden Lab has already made up their mind to do this.

Point is THEY WANT MORE MONEY...


this is not about protecting "adults' from other "adults"

it is about making more money by evicting people and making them buy new land and reselling the old land they were evicted from, plain and simple.

There are business which are little more than a box with adult textures on the walls. Those will not find the move to the new continent difficult and will remain in SL.

There are others who have put a lot of care, attention and imagination in their choice of location (terrain, surrounding features), in what they have built, have built up friendships with their neighbours. Those are the ones which will find it hard to relocate and may just leave SL.

So, sorry, you will still have adult content in SL - you'll just have the less imaginative adult content sold by people just interested in making money rather than building communities.

Matthew

A very dangerous position to take !

Now "you are becoming" the moral police....

Please do not "force" your views of morality on me.

PG Business Owner

Renee Faulds

You're welcome.

There are so, so many tools available to us in SL to make other users' experience a happy or very sad one. Your comment is thick with hubris, methinks. I wouldn't suggest that someone as thinned skinned as you run over anyone.

Flags would be the least of your worries, frankly. Might be better to learn to get along and be tolerant of everyone. Tolerance is something I would think someone from your background would appreciate, having come from a group who fought for it so long.

If you think the "Gors and Whores" as you call them would be troubled by you, I think you're vastly overestimating your ability to run over people. I wouldn't underestimate backlash, though.

The begining of the blog from the Lindens states those with adult content can stay on the mainland and dont have to move as long as we flag our parcels adult. Then they mention some will move to the new continent like it is voluntary. Does an owner of an adult club have to move to Ursula nor not if the club is properly flagged???

Don't Glorify Greifing on my behalf, but by all means you are definitely allowed to express your view point in explaining your Witch Hunt.

I see more sexually explicit material in Ahern, Morris, Bonifacio, and Dore than any four random sims on the mainland... and they're PG.

Changing the rating system won't help so long as it's unenforced even in the most newbie-sensitive areas. People will keep on trying to freak the mundanes by wearing rhinoceros-scale dongs in the welcome area no matter what LL does to the rating system.

They will hope you move and abandon your property and buy new land from them - then they can resell your old land......

They have the choice to use the platform or not, the same choice all of us have and will continue to have. They can choose to be cut off or not.