Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Motivations and Goals

So, who is lying?

The Lindens who insist they are going to diccuss this for a month and then come up with a course of action?

Or whoever posted the Maturity Ratings FAQ referenced in the blog post for this discussion, that describes the new Adult Continent and the mandatory exodus of ALL adult content to that ghetto as a done deal?

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

Based on that, anyone with a sex bed would have to move or delete the sex bed, since you can not USE it without "displaying" erotic content.

Read that FAQ, and tell me with a straight face that LL hasn't already made up their minds, and this so-called discussion is anything other than a farce and a lie.

Sorry, but this is all unworkable shiny. Setting rules for the grid simply dont work as the vast majority of residents dont know about them and simply dont care.

Three parcel flags. PG, Mature and Adult. Setable by the parcel owner. Content is filtered accordingly with anything above your prefered level simply not rendering. Any more than that and its just not going to fly because people will be confused and ignore you.

Perhaps even flag objects, "you cant rez this item here.. change the parcel definition accordingly"

You are never going to be able to make this work consistantly. if someone wants to break content based rules they can, very very easily, and then you, LL, have to get involved and play police. (at which point the whole plan sinks into the quicksand that has swallowed every other grand scheme that has required continuos intervention by LL. Gambling, Ageplay, Event posting abuse being the most obvious!)

Adult verification was tried and it nose dived because when it came to the crunch, the residents voted with their feet and ignored it either by choice or ignorance. Most residents dont read the blog and dont read the forums and just dont care.

What ever happened to the golden rule of "live and let live" or "if you dont like something, go someplace else."

Now here's where it looks from where I am.

Linden Labs just slit their own throats today. I don't have any great interest in the adult industry, but I'm damned if I can see how it will survive when it ceases to be possible to access it with an anonymous account. And when it falls, the economic basis of Second Life is fatally weakened too.

Sure, you survived shutting down gambling. Big deal - we were in a boom then, and Second Life was trendy. Now we're in a slump, a lot of major brands look on SL as something that got tried and failed, and you're about to tell the rest of them 'we have a problem here'.

And what for?

There can only be two reasons, since LL (to its credit) isn't trying to push arguments about moral right and wrong.

Argument one is, 'but what about the CHILDREN?' and argument two is making SL more business-friendly. As in, real-world business.

Well, I run a real-world business with my partner. We have an office in SL, rented in a business park. We attend seminars and training events. We're building partnerships and holding meetings. We're exploring sponsorship of SL events. We're spending money here.

And when we're not working, we're off in our home sim, where we rent a couple of parcels from the Guvnah. We're learning to build, we spend a fortune on clothes, we socialise, we're part of a community. We love it.

And we're seriously considering leaving because of today. If the Teen Grid merger comes then we certainly will.

It's not because we're fans of the adult industry. Our only use for couples poseballs is the foxtrot, at formal dances. Roleplaying means, to us, calling people Mr and Miss, and bowing before departing. Xcite is simply yet another badly-spelled brand name.

But this piece of short-sighted, unnecessary control-freakery is a killer. It bursts the bubble - destroys the illusion that Second Life allows you to build your own second life. It says the Big Boss in the Sky doesn't trust the residents and is going to start intervening to make the world look more acceptable to - well, who?

Parents? No need - just keep the Teen Grid and make it work. If the brats aren't in the main world then where's the problem?

Businesses? Hello, RL business-owner here and seriously unimpressed. This won't make me more likely to invest, it'll make me less. I don't want to operate in a plain-vanilla theme park.

Some kind of existential fear of failing to conform to a shapeless, ill-defined but potent sense of How The World Should Be? Strangely, I don't think it is.

No, it's got to be the business thing and the parent thing. And that's stupid, stupid, stupid.

The damage this will do to the SL economy - the bit of it that LL don't like to put in their press releases, but which pays for so much of the other stuff - is going to be horrific. The drain of people to places (virtual worlds or otherwise) where they can still be anonymous will be huge.

Really, it would be kinder to just shut the whole thing down now rather than force us to sit through the thrashing of its long, extended, but inevitable death.

When we, in the US, talk about teenagers having credit cards, we are not talking about accidents on the part of the credit card companies, or bad behavior on the part of the teens. We are talking about teenagers being legitimately issued credit cards (or debit cards that can be used like credit cards) in their own names, which makes it impossible for LL to use payment on file information as age verification. It just won't work, folks. They have to find another way that doesn't involve convincing Visa, Mastercard, and Discover to change their business practices.

The company doing the charge can tell it's a debit card, this is why when I buy online I usually don't incur a fee if I use my Visa Debit card, but often do incur a fee if I use my Visa Credit card.

Parents can sign their kids up to use an associated credit card, I'm not sure if that can be distinguished and you can get the pre-paid cards which have raised concerns over online purchases but differentiating a credit card from a debit card shouldn't be that difficult.

Yes Ravenhurst does, and we are listed as a mature sim. It was a question I asked in another post about how this would affect us. If it was a matter of removing a few of these words from our description we may, but who says bdsm, sex or capture is Adult, they said extreme sex/violence, neither of these descriptors say extreme.

This is why the ratings systems will not work, your idea of extreme and mine are likely different.

That was exactly my word: Ghetto.
Pervy land.

With a whole other SL being free and clean from any kind of sexual explicit cuddles ? Let's sue the AO builders then....Ouch...a deep kiss out of Adult Continent. Report.

Theoretically, though, teens getting credit cards legitimately are doing it with parental consent, placing the burden on the parent to monitor the card use. Minors still are unable to contract; they need a guarantor to get a card legitimately. (Thus a teen using a credit card obtained legitimately to access Second Life is in the same position as a teen who gets her parent to obtain a Second Life account for the teen using the parent's credit card.)

Pre-paid debit cards are a different issue. I don't know if it is possible to distinguish (by account number perhaps) a pre-paid debit card from a credit card.

.............you're getting ready to merge the main and teen grids, aren't you?

It all makes perfect sense.

instead of putting them in a separate place how about marking it so we know not to bother them seems more reasonable and fair. they don't wanna move and I don't see how it benefits anyone to make them.

my problem is sometimes I'll find a place that sells sex beds when I'm searching through adoption or mer stuff. i don't see how changing their location stops that.

I think this is a good idea that will require very careful execution. I believe it is imperative for Second Life to separate itself from the popular notion that it is a place brimming with uninhibited displays of sexuality and deviancy. This is not a positive image. Most people who are aware of Second Life, but are not a part of it, generally see SL as boring, perverted, or both. This has to change; as we residents know, Second Life offers the potential for so much more.

While a lot of SL's economy revolves around its adult content, it's important that visitors, particularly new visitors, have the ability to be exposed to the variety of activities appropriate for all ages that SL has to offer, without having their experiences being marred by witnessing content of an adult nature within a few minutes of wandering around after joining.

When I joined SL in 2006, I admittedly joined to be part of the crowd who would mock of those who took part in some of the more extravagant activities of an adult or taboo nature (a griefer). This changed within weeks as I learned of the build tools; over 2 years and 5 sims later, I am now running a large grouping of successful aviation sims that are PG related, supported by sales of my aircraft, which many enjoy.

Whether it's aviation, sailing, sci-fi, era RP, or something else, there is a lot SL has to offer that isn't of an adult nature, and a lot of people simply aren't being exposed to it, because they are turned off of SL's adult offerings early on.

I have read ... well, I've been reading for a couple of hours, if that's any measure. I have only one real issue here:



Aside from the folks in Europe having a crap time with age verification ... it's fairly transparent to me why this is happening. No one needs adult verification inworld unless there are residents who should not be accessing that content - and those residents would be underage.

The Teen Grid is lifeless partly (dare I say mostly) because LL opened up unverified accounts. The teens are on the grid already; I've met (and AR'd) a couple of them, and I've heard of others - and I don't get out that much. So, you'll shut down the TG and integrate the little miscreants into our world.

Let me make this as clear as I possibly can: I DO NOT WANT TEENAGERS IN SECOND LIFE, AT ALL, EVER. I don't care if a sim is PG, M or Adult. I don't care if it's my land, a friend's land or otherwise. I do not give a flying pig whether content is properly pidgeon-holed, regions are properly tagged and labeled, none of it.

As much as I realize that teens will sneak onto the grid one way or another, your making them legal residents here is as disturbing as your letting them in in the first place. I am 50 years old, and if I want to talk to teenagers I'll go outside and stand near the cellphone store. Keep the little crappers out of my SL.

We already have two different Parcel designations, Mature and PG. Is that not enough?
Not to mention the completely segregated "Teen Grid" if there truly is such a thing. I don't know, I have no business there, so have never tried to see it.

So, actually, three levels of morality policy (Read Censorship) in place already.

If Residents cannot understand they will view "Mature Content" on Pacels Labled "Mature" and that this would include the ridiculous third classification "Adult", they need to have a remedial reading course at least, or, you can determine that they are victims of the mind control conducted by various political and religous groups.

I said this to Phil over the casino issue, and I will say this again, you are over controlling your ant farm here again.

Curious, Casinos remained banned, even though banking has been move offshore, and so, are no longer subject to your end of the payment processing mess about transfers of funds for gamling, with the exception of your ongoing relationship with E-bay / PayPal. (Sorry guys, they will never buy you, they are both on the way into cyber history, like the TRS-80 and the Commodore.)

Of course, for us in the US, our own bank card companies could feed you a plate of grief, but, well, I don't think they'd have standing, as your bank receiving the money is not here. No one has brought a succesfull suit against any of the big poker concerns to my knowledge, or their sanitizing intermediaries.

No one in this world, especially any who were recently badly damaged by the Open Space flub (read disaster) has very must trust in your ability to deal fairly with the content providers who are actually PAYING THE BILLS and everyone's slaries there at LL and Linden Research.

You know, I just bought an additional 512^2m Mainland parcel for my Nightclub cum Bordello... That is the latin word "cum" by the way, not the other word. No doubt, this post will get dumped because of it by some idiot text-parsing item you all spent good money for.

I am in a quandry now whether to continue my operation at all, at least as a parcel based thing. I suppose I oughta unload the mainland parcels lickity split before you all do something else to quash the freedom that attracts Residents to this game.

At the very lest, you might consider getting the basic functionality working right... the mess left by the admin restarts of like two or three weekends ago was unconscionable, by the way. I have better tthings to do than immmerse my sell if the colllateral about this game, and just enough time to enjoy my role play.

As to the sime where my nightclub is located, well, the land use there, Saengseon is presently just above it's all time low.

If we want intense regulation and moral scrutiny, for that we have the Real World. If we want to imagine whatever it is we diesire and manifest it as objects and fanatasy role, we have SL.

WE have "Mature"...that should be sufficient to the reasonable person. The SF Library has West's Guide in the referrence room collection, I would send your legal team on a field trip to find it and within it, the definition of a reasonable person.

This is one of the coolest experiments in massively multiplayer simulation, and, well, you are really boffing up the social end of it.

What I see is a few month long plan to dump "Adult Play" from the world, and in so doing, as usuall, screw a bunch of your customers.

If I had foreknowledge of your capricous changes in Policy that I have observed for now nearly three years, I do not think I would have put the $3000 USD into this game that I have.

I predict you will eventually fail and leave all your vendors in the lurch, paying off the employees who make it through the last day with PC's, servers and Monitors...

Unless of course you manage to keep teenagers off the main Grid, but then, that has much to do with their country of origin...in some coutries, you have your majority at 16 years, and others, not until Marriage or age 25, whichever comes first.


In summary, this thought generally stinks, and I view it as an ucacceptable risk to my investment of Cash and Time...

i'm making animation with QAvimato and Life Forms and when i imported them to sl thy looks deffernt.Why?

I find your stance highly offensive - are *YOU* going to leave?

That has the feel of saying to me that the person being mugged is responsible for not having enough money on hand to satisfy the mugger. Being offending is *NOT* being harmed.

+1.

Now what ?
Who said SL was supposed to shelter -18 young adults ?

But is that a reason to punish everybody for a main rule that is isn't respected ?
The fact is: Credit card sorting doesn't help.
Flagging, tagging will not.

Who is to blame ?
Internet ? Parents ?
LL ?
Kids ?

Kids knows when they signs up that they will meet mature content.
Maybe it is not written big enough when they enter ?

Or do they know ? If so, who is to blame, again ?

A few quick reactions.

1. First, I was glad to see Amity say this:



Amity is spot on. I'd only add this, to those who say a credit card isn't adequate proof of age: Congress seems to think it is. Use of a credit card to screen access was endorsed by the COPA. I think it's sensible for LL to anticipate what the law requires, even if the law's requirement is less than a perfect solution. (And even if Congress is still having trouble adopting a law that doesn't violate the first amendment!) Merchants who are concerned about sales to minors should welcome LL's proposal on this score.

2. Second, I'm strongly opposed to merging the two grids. I very much hope Teen SL stays separate. I'd feel better about LL's current proposal if it were accompanied by an unequivocal statement that Teen SL will always stay separate.

3. It's true that "erogenous zoning" is a challenge, but it's not insurmountable; states and municipalities manage to find a way in the real world. Some sample questions: Does a club that sometimes sponsors erotic dancers qualify as adult, if there are never "escorts"? If that's adult, what about a club that has no erotic dancers but hosts "sheer" nights? What sort of animations are "adult" and what are not? What about shops that offer a mix of mature and PG animations? What about a movie theater with a mix of programs? These are tough questions, but I don't think they're necessarily un-answerable. LL would have to come up with clear answers -- and the linkage supplied with the blog post doesn't come close.

4. I'm not quite sure what LL means when it says merchants either would have to move or would have to have their land flagged. If the latter is an option, doesn't it mean that everyone will just opt to have their land flagged? If so, will anything really change?

5. If LL offered ironclad assurances that the Teen Grid would stay separate, I'd be inclined to support this proposal. If, on the other hand, this is a precursor to merger, then I'm against it.

http://www.metanomics.net/transcript011909

Stop talking about separate grids. That's not on the menu in the future. Anyone who read flip linden's interview a few months back and sees this now should immediately see what is happening.

I don't think this needs to be about adult content, really. I don't want to be around 13 year olds... like, at all. It bothers me that we are assuming "Adult" == "Dirty". There are many reasons why you might not want adolescents included in activities that have nothing to do with adult content.

So, while i am not all that bothered by the segregation of adult content, i am more disturbed by the idea that anywhere that isn't sleezy is someplace kids need to be or are welcome to be. If i want to keep kids out, but let people know my area is still free of sexual material, how do you propose i do that?

Merging the grids = can of worms. Open at your own risk.

The move to seperate NC-17 content has been seen as the first step towards what MAY eventually be the merging of the teen grid with main grid.

I am a member of the Child Avatar community and am already thinking ahead and wondering what will the response be when REAL kids start mixing with Virtual kids who are adults. If LL even consider a merged Grid, then they will have to consider this situation and talk to us about it.

Other than the being 50 years old part, I agree with this 1000% You go, Pops!

If LL are NOT planning on merging the Teen Grid with the Main Grid then the only people offended by adult content would be adults.
If a child accesses SL they do so illegally and are in violation of the ToS. It is not something they could just happen upon without "a lot" of premeditation. Signing up, working out how to leave Orientation Island, etc, etc.
PG and Mature areas exist already. Why not implement things like this;
The SL Client could include an option (on by default perhaps) that restricts users to PG areas unless they specifically change the client settings to allow them to enter Mature areas. "The region you are trying to reach is flagged Mature - explicit adult content may be present - do you wish to continue and allow adult content?"
This way, sensitive adults have the option to not visit these areas. This would work for businesses or educators. If their employees/students decide to access mature regions, they do so of their own volition and the professor who posted here regarding his potential liability would be indemnified.
I have no interest in adult content however many of the live music venues I enjoy in SL are in Mature regions. It seems such a heavy handed approach to insist places like these should move in case a performer sings a few swear words.
I had to laugh at the earlier post that informed us you can't remove your undies on the TG. LoL - I didn't know that but any kid with a Barbie or Ken doll has seen way more.
I understand the legal need to protect LL from litigation however, it is already 18+ so if this is about protecting adults then the function required would be to make access to Mature regions optional.
Search should include the option to include mature content as XStreetSL already does - that would include Profiles.
This way the 'many residents who have asked for this' can choose to restrict themselves to PG areas rather than cause the upheaval LL's proposal will undoubtedly bring.
Compliance and enforcement is currently arbitrary and subjective. How will the new rules make that any different. This way, the onus is on the user to determine what they want to see in SL.

Kaimi, I think you have a good point.

I have an idea. The Lindens should never have mixed all those PG sims in right next to Mature sims. Why don't they just lift all those PG sims out, move them all to a new continent, and have a PG continent? Total safety there for full families. (Where the PG sims were moved out of, could simply be water sims afterward.)

I think a whole new PG continant is a better idea that what is being suggested too.

I don't know what this discussion really means, as Prospero posts in the blog:

"NOTE: although, as you've read here on the blogs, the new AO functionality is included as part of 1.26, this blog post is not the right place to discuss policy."

Nowhere in *this* blog post did I see any mention that code is already in place to handle this. What it suggests, considering the normal speed of deployment of server code, is that someone in the original post needs to learn the difference between singular and plural:

"During the next six weeks, we will seek input from many segments of the Second Life community. We will introduce guidelines and define what “Adult” means, we will explain how to designate and “flag” this content, we will introduce the “Adult Continent,” and we will implement technical changes to make this process as efficient as we can."

The changes are already *made*, it looks like.

Right now, the *BEST* we can hope for is a sudden change, much like the OpenSpace/Homestead SIM sudden change in course that we had after the announcement that *ALL* OpenSpace SIMs would be charged extra.

The blog post implies that this discussion might matter. The code being deployed as part of SL Server 1.26 implies that it matters not at all.

I thought, with the leaving of Robin Linden, that we'd see an end of posts where you wondered what these great sounding ideas actually meant in implementation.

Question: Will the Main Map have some kind of indication that private islands are Adult, so that people who might be payment verified, but don't want to see that stuff can avoid them? You know, people don't always teleport around by following results from a search. That would be a nice feature, you know - putting some kind of border around estates so that you can tell where the limits of one, such as Caledonia, are.

You know, the time for this blog post to have been made was a couple of months ago, when the customers might have felt like they could actually make a difference... Oh, wait, that was about the time of the afore-mentioned OpenSpace/Homestead debacle.

Please, Please, PLEASE reconsider and make the new continent "Kid-Land" instead of "Adult-Land", and make the profile setting for teleport restrictions available so that users can choose not to teleport to any "mature" sims.

This is how they work, it's deliberate policy. The trademark issue had people saying exactly the same sort of things regarding when the discussion should have taken place, i.e before the policy was announced, they obviously didn't listen then and they obviously aren't listening now.