SL must be careful to protect ethics on the web

This is a very quick summary of my opinion on what SL means and why developers and participants should be cautious about the impact of this growing community within the 'real world'.

Firstly - I would be grateful if people could respond in a sensible manner, by considering what I am putting forward and not simply reject it because you feel that you are losing 'freedom'. I expect most people will disagree with how I feel but I pleed with developers to listen to what I am saying as I think these issues will emerge the more mainstream SL gets.

The internet (and therefore SL) is very different to the 'real world' in the sense that everyone is anonymous; you can have multiple accounts and therefore your identity can be changed whenever you so desire. Whether everyone actively considers this or not is actually not that important; subconciously people are aware of this and so their actions are 'allowed' become less moral , less acceptable, and therefore MORE DANGEROUS.

In my opnion - SL should attempt to avoid this problem by forcing an account to be registered to a users 'real life' identity by registering SL user accounts against their credit card details.
The benefits of this are two fold:

1. At the moment as it stands - a 12 year old child can create an SL account, log on; then gamble, exhange in lurid conversation, and freely and easily experience the (many) dark and sexual areas of SL life. There is no protection - no restriction - nothing. This, in my opnion is extremely irresponsible and needs to be addressed. Our children are the future and they are computer literate faster than ever before - we need to protect them from these areas of the internet (regardless of whether you have children or not you will eventually be dependent on younger generations to fuel the economy you wish to retire in!).

2. It makes irresponsible behaviour in SL less 'easy to get away with'. As you would only have one Second Life - you mess it up - you lose. At the moment you can just create a new FREE account and start again.

I have alot of admiration for the originality and boldness of the SL project and I am aware that there is alot of positive activity that goes on, but the issues surrounding the ethics of a system such as SL need to be addressed quickly before the MEDIA do it for you, damage your reputation, and destroy the massive potential SL has to offer.

PLEASE - don't remove this thread, I want to hear what other people have to say. If you attempt to ignore this topic; I have no problem in taking my opnions to the media who I'm sure would be more than happy to tell the world how 'technology is getting it wrong'.

You have the opportunity to make the right decision for the world and for SL. Think about it (please)

easily.. there are plenty of content protection programs available.

Second life has free accounts a a free client download. It is uncontrolled.

It's like this so that it is more easily accessable and therefore grows faster - however I think this leads to a very dangerous situation (a small comprimise for the Linden lab share holders?).

Why would we be losing freedom? This is, after all, the 21st century, and very few people are unable to acquire credit cards or visa debit cards tied to their bank account. Those that can't are probably in areas that won't be worrying about Second Life to begin with.

It boils down to "Get verified or lose some freedom." It sounds harsh, but not when you think about all the underage greifing idiots that seem to come in with open registration. Its not perfect, but it is a solution.

RL requires you to have an identity and prove it at times.. why shouldn't SL?


**ps
Suzanne, love the way your sig ends.

They've got ethics on the web now?

Ethics is everywhere. It's about considering others, there are others on the internet. Therefore there is ethics.

Freedom is not what you think it is anyway.. we're all suposedly 'free'.. yet we can't go out and have sex in the middle of the street (for good reason).

Maybe SL should be a democracy? The Dalai Llama is currently drawing up plans for the perfect democracy.. maybe this could be a place that could help him 'test' his ideas?

SL needs tighter regulation; controlled by people not solely interested in Linden Lab's profits.

Most of them are really easy to get around. There are two that work very well if the settings are correct, though. They are called "mom" and/or "dad".

Well.. I'm not sure whether you've noticed but the new modern nanny are the TV and the Computer.. As more and more couples choose to BOTH work and leave their children more and more to their own devices. But that's a whooooole new topic of discussion probably best left for elsewhere

No democracy can be perfect by the very nature of it BEING a democracy. For one to be perfect every member of it would have to be perfect. THAT isn't going to happen.

Sadly I have noticed that, Moo. I do believe parents should monitor children's internet activity up to a certain age (at what age would be a case by case basis, depending on responsibility and maturity of the child). Most modern operating systems can be password protected so a kid can't do computer stuff with a parent not around, and failing that, it's easy to remove the power supply from the modem.

But - the responsibility has been, in many cases, left up to content providers to avoid providing this content to children as opposed to the parent ensuring that the children do not have access.

No, it is quite controllable...by the parent of the child. I get so tired of people who try to absolve themselves or other parents of their own resonsibility. 100% of the responsibility for the actions of your child belong to you as the parent and the child themselves. None of the responsibility belongs to a company like LL who has no access or control over your child's action. Only the parent has that control.

I am a parent. I have raised several children, and one of them is currently in teen SL. While she is a straight A student, a model and mature teen, and has never given me a moments trouble in her 13 years...I still do not allow her a computer in her own room (it's in the family room, right near my own) nor admin rights on that computer. Not because I don't trust her, but because I don't trust the people she might meet online. It's 100% my responsibility to educate her on how to handle herself both offline and online and how to manage everything from peer pressure to stalkers and harrassers. I can't do that if I don't know what she is doing, where and who she is doing it with and what she is experiencing.

It's my job as a parent to be involved in my child's life to the level that I know what she does online. Any parent that tries to place that responsibility on a company like LL has abdicated their parental role, IMHO.

The statement that the new system is not controllable is false. It's not controllabel by LL. It is 100% controllable by the person with true responsibility however...the account holder and parent of the account holder. Personal responsibility is dying a very sad death in western society and I must say I weep for that.

The closest you could get would be a system where everything was voted on by anyone who cares enough to vote.. that's easily do-able with the internet is it not?

/me points to the poll at the top

I see what you're saying - but your in the minority. Alot of parents don't have the time or inclination to do what you've done.

They don't understand, and in alot of cases don't even care anyway. If you think the world is full of loving parents who want to spend their life caring for their children you are very VERY mistaken.

p.s. My parents are not included in that but I have many friends and associates who would agree with me

also: kids are interested in what they know they are not allowed; it's a natural human affliction. Combine that with my point above and you have a recipe for disaster IF you run a system that is as easily accessible as SL is (AND DOESNT NEED TO BE).

I'm not saying censor anything - i'm saying restrict access please read what I'm saying. Don't worry your freaky SL orgies are safe for now.. (joke).. (or not?!)..

Uhm. We have that NOW. Everything that is voted on IS voted on by those who care to vote. Which is usually less than 50% of the population.

so it's possible we could set up a vote to have SL credit card regulated?

I bet you Linden Lab would have something to say about that - they need this to grow not protect ethics

No. I was talking about Democracy not SL, or Democracy IN SL.

Errr...
Are you sure everything is voted for by the population? Cos i'm pretty sure the population vote representitives to vote for them on most issues...

I'm saying anything that is called up for vote is voted on by anyone involved in SL that cares.. not just by representitives. A decent voting system would eradicate the need for representitives would it not?

We already had this, its called Propsition 1503 (btw, it OUT VOTED havok 2 as the most requested feature in the space of two days!)

and LL basically said "no."

BINGO I knew it..

the reason is that LL want 'market share' before they can start to call themselves the 'new media'. Restrictions like credit card registration would seriously hurt their membership figures that they need for their marketing deals

I think I may take this to the mainstream media like national papers because this is allready out of control

thats fine but define a universal code of ethics that can apply to everyone.

It doesn't work like that. In india its perfectly legal to marry a 13 year old girl. Here? not so much.

Welcome to the wierd world.

I think everyone is in agreement that allowing the possibility of a fat 45 year old lonely computer geek verbally and visually molesting a 13 year old girl FREELY is.. WRONG.

Welcome to the REAL WORLD.

And then when some bored religious right housewife becomes the next Ann Coultier with SL as her favorite target, what then?

Believe me I understand your points, I was one of the people yelling to LL to bring back CC identification, but they gave us their answer and it was a firm no. I dont see the point in beating that dead horse any more. I WANT them to do it, but I know they're not going to so time to move on for me. I will report underage people when I see them and I will keep my own children out of SL.

But it's my opinion that the very last thing we want to do is cause some kind of public outcry. Thats bound to happen eventually anyway, why bring it on ourselves early?

Because these people are deliberately leaving these flaws in the system FOR THEIR OWN GOOD.

It's money, and nothing but money. What they are doing isnt clever - providing a free platform and allowing users to generate their own interesting stuff to keep consumers logged in and active so that the system can eventually be used to advertise real world products.

The faults are there for these moral-less people to make more and more money. And I'm going to stop them because I believe it is immoral

To put into context:

How long before the future of second life is bright?

How long before the future of second life is orange?