RL Censorship vs SL Freedom

Actually, they're warning some individuals, such as members of groups, but _seem_ to be banning creators of groups.

Also, words like homosexual are offensive to some peoples and religions, and homosexual could be considered to _not_ be PG.

What I'm saying is it _didn't_ stop with a**play, just like we said it wouldn't.

And we don't know _where_ it _will_ stop.

And, if I'm right, they're relegating the places such things _are_ allowed to areas so private that no one can find them, since you can't advertise. JUST like they did to a**play.

Won't that be so nice if, even in a private club where the owner wants such things to happen you're relegated to saying 'I'm having the normal end-result of a lengthy sexual encounter!' instead of another word that used to be said there? How long until Orgasm follows c**? It's a sexual word, too. Maybe Dick will be next. Even a so-called 'private' club has been relegated to the terms and realm of public forum, just like the profiles and land listings, so sayeth Robin Linden, if it is a 'high' traffic area.

Look it up if you don't believe me. I'd list her exact quote, but I don't feel like going through the log of the 'community meeting' on a**play, but one of her specific terms for listing 'private' land as 'public, was 'high traffic'(vague, no numbers given), and that if someone _COULD_ be able to see/hear it happening, then it's 'in public', regardless of who owns the land. Of course, by those factors, even a land with a allow list or group _ONLY_, if there were lots of people using it, and people were present during sexual acts, it would be defined as 'public'.

Even skybox clubs you have to use an elevator or transporter to get to arn't 'safe' or considered 'private', anymore. Even when we were allowed to list things, too many people went to those places on purpose just so they could be offended and leave in disgust after telling people what they thought of them.

In the end, I believe Linden is cleaning up SL specifically to lure in customers from countries and businesses that wouldn't normally have wanted to be part of something with non-mainstream 'public' sexuality, even if it was relegated to mature areas.

Why do I believe this? I can understand limiting profiles and group profiles, since LL didn't seem to think we would ever need to have mature listings for profiles, but lands _do_ have mature listings. I think it's nice they're _finally_ implementing new tabs to reflect stating the things that can go on somewhere without someone accidentally stumbling over it, but why be working on it _and_ suddenly banning two specific offensive listings/activities from 'public' and 'private-public' places, and one GENERAL broad term/activity, that makes, basically, any sort of public sex into a comedy with a bad punch-line at the end?

It makes no sense, unless you look at it that way. Not that I expect sense from Linden Labs. And I ought to know, I've been here since the beginning. And they only made _half_-sense way back then. _WAY_ back when they were able to police things. _AND_ much of the same crap that goes on, now, was happening way back then.

Ask any other old timmers, Gaybot, see what they say of the 'good old days' of 'small town' sl, and how perverted it was back then, too. I had a friend with a store that advertised selling cocks, complete with c** scripts in 2003. That surely couldn't have been ok by the ToS. 'they never had the time or people to police it until now' my aching posterior. Just take a 'feminine massage aid' and shove it right up my 'flute case' if you really believe that. They're _only_ doing it now because they're being lead around by the spherical objects by the all mighty dollar.

Every time SL has grown in population, the staff of Linden Labs has cared less and less about the community, and it's shown. You go ahead and have your optimism, mr joined november 2006, I'll continue to be pessimistic from viewing it all from way way back in beta, thank you.

Jesus flossing Christ on a pogo-stick whistling the theme to 'That Girl', but I'm so gosh darn flooting tired of all of this 'male bovine excrement'.

PS Oh, and unless they changed it, even if you cancel your account your character still remains in the DB until they delete it, which they wait awhile, just in case you decide to come back. I have a friend who canceled _years_ ago, his character is still there. So anyone that suddenly, after an hour or two, doesn't show up on a search has been banned and deleted, unless they yank and store suspended characters somewhere else.

PPS maybe I should have censored Jesus Christ, too, as some groups that have been wronged by the Catholic church, over the years of it's existance, might find His name to be offensive.

It's worth asking the question, at least. What limits SHOULD be applied to content?

In public places stronger limits should be applied. This doesn't just apply to sex: some things they do (apparently) permit, like pyramid schemes, should probably be banned because in the absence of some kind of regulatory control they are too easy to automate. In semi-public, semi-private, and private spaces it's harder to justify limits.

Private areas (residences, restricted access clubs, etcetera) should have very few if any restrictions. If there is a problem caused by the lack of private areas less extensive than a complete private sim, then the response should be to create a mechanism (such as the 'phantom zone', 'lands', or 'parcel basements' proposals) by which residents could create genuinely private spaces.

Semi-private areas (non-public areas of open-access clubs, like skyboxes) might be marginally more restricted, but given that "semi-private" is about the best you can get in SL it's hard to see how anyone can really justify strong restrictions if there's any attempt at access controls - even "this is in a skybox and there's a sign in front of the teleporter saying that it's a private area". You can't keep people out, but if someone does bypass the access controls they shouldn't have a right to complain.

It sounds like Robin was talking about semi-public areas, parts of clubs that are publically accessible by unaided avatars, for example. At least I hope so.

My mistake, the public/private issue must have been from the IM session I had that I was not allowed to copy. I'd asked exactly what private and public were, then asked how private private had to be to not be a public forum. Being that I don't have any evidence to back up what I was told, I guess I'll just have to shut up about it since no one will believe me without a actual timestamped piece of text to show.

Perhaps you didn't read most of what I've posted, earlier. I agree that sexuality should be limited to private homes and properties, though now private, at least as i've been told, and you should probably ask as well, is no longer 'private'. I disagree that this is the way to do it.

Linden should have given us ways of diferentiating pg, 'mature' and x-rated material before..

You know what, I just give up. The cult of linden worshipers wins against me, I concede. You're right, I'm wrong.

I had a nice long reply to this, I deleted it.

Why bother when you'll just ignore salient points like you have several times before.

I told you that they haven't bothered to do anything about any of the words from _beta_ up to now, you ignored it, I've mentioned that the forum only represents a small percentage of SL, you've ignored it..

That's why I gave up.

I find that there's really only a couple of other people on the forum that I'm fighting for, all the rest of the people I'm for don't post, either, as they know it's a waste of time, and the lindens probably wouldn't listen to us if _everyone_ in SL rose up against them.

So I'm done.

It's nice to know you don't worship the ground the Linden's walk on.

My apologies.

It just looks that way since you agree with everything they say and do.

And when they ban your account, they ban the card you used, so you can't make an alt with it.

I'm sure someone, sometime, somewhere with a second bank account, or who's willing to spend the time and money to get one, will get an alt and gripe on the forums soon enough, if they have been banned..of course the moment a moderator sees someone on here claiming they're an alt they made because they were banned, the post will be deleted and the account will wind up suspended or banned.

Oh, and I don't know why I'm bothering, but the major outcry isn't because they can't have sex in the streets or anything, anymore, it's that, because of the whole 'public forum' thing, and the way it was explained to me and several others I've talked to, it even includes privately owned sims, private clubs, and so on.

You have to access-ban the place for it to be considered not a 'public forum'.

Go ask the help.

Make sure to include 'the banned words list' as part of the question, so they'll know which definitions to use.

They may make you e-mail support.

Go check it all out, yourself. Ask if people have been banned, while you're at it, if you're actually curious.

Get all the proof you need from the actual source. Or ignore that, too.

Yikes. So much going wrong in such a small space.

1) there are plenty of sexualised behaviours which do not include sexual contact or an interpretable sexual act. Age-play including making the dunce sit in the corner for an hour under the stern eye of the strict and dowdy teacher is... still age-play: what the avs are doing online is no guide to what the trucker on wi-fi in an overnight stop at -20 in Nome, Alaska, is up to in the privacy of his cab...

2) Have you actually played, whether in an age role or not? Far from being an escape, it seems (especially in SL) an interaction in which people end up baring their souls, or crying in their beer about how they do it here because they can't/dare not in RL/have self esteem problems (etc etc). Do it for more than fifteen minutes (yes really) and I strongly challenge anyone to say that it's fulfilling, or encouraging of pursuit of interests in RL. After all, you don't just RP the encounter - you RP the consequences too.

3) "can endanger children" - ah, the great approximator! Statistically, what most endangers children is the ignorant prejudices and over-reactions of adults who either can't or won't look at the most frequent sources of genuine abuse out in the real world. You'd rather defend against the meteorite than give your kid stabilisers on their bike...

My take on the Original Poster's Original Rant and later posts is that

He is annoyed that after 4 years SL has decided to crack down on this particualar activity for potentially dubious reasons.

He is further annoyed that Linden Labs isnt willing to stand up and make a public announcement but is doing things low key , almost sneaky.

And that he feels they are being hypocrytical to their original stated objectives for second life.

That and of course censorship is objectionalble.

I think he wants LL to be responsible, and admit they are censoring sexual ageplay - spell it out in a public form. If the issue is so justified, why no blog post? Why no comment in the TOS to include it with Racial intolerance?

Not trying to put words in his mouth this is my take of what hes been saying.


Is something to be said for all that - Linden labs is attempting to take the pragmatic / almost realpolitik approach. Hush Sexual Age Play up quietly and ignore criticism on the fact they have done so, while also ignoring ciriticism about how they have done so.

Now I understand why Linden Labs is doing it on the hush hush - they dont want further bad press. I also dont expect them to admit any motives that dont make them look anything but responsible.

But then Im beyond jaded when it comes to anything that businesses do.

I think you about summed it up perfectly Colette. I just think this whole thing is stupid though. But as we all seen from LL, their not very good at making decisions to begin with.

They do, it's called The Cornfield.

Not putting words in my mouth, hon, that is basically _exactly_ why I'm pissed off.

Adding that even in private clubs that are supposed to be for such things, and used to be able to be stated that they allow such activities in them, the words and actions associated with said words, are not to be _obviously_ done in them, and it's prefered if they were to be done in complete private, meaning somewhere no one can 'accidentally' witness them.

And yes, I did say words, because 'anima/human sexuality', non-consenting sexuality, and now even the word c**, meaning 'male sexual fluids' are verbotten in any 'public forum' which, as I've been told, specifically includes mature areas with high traffic. I didn't even know there were 'animal/human sexuality' groups on SL.

Unfortunately, no one believes me on the private land/clubs are considered 'public forums' because of high traffic thing because it was from a conversation with the live help and I wasn't to copy and paste it to show others. That and no one's taken my advice of 'if you don't believe me, ask them yourself'.

I was asked what I wanted out of SL.

I've had to think about it, and my reasons for being here have been, from the beginning, is simply a place to hang out with friends, talk about things, and, should the mood hit us, play around, roleplay, maybe even *gasp* sexually. That's it, really. It'd sure be nice if the clubs and such for doing that 'sexuality' thing were allowed to stay around, but with 'c**' now a 'bad word', I don't see how that's likely for too much longer.

I don't like coding, it's not my hobby, and I'm not really an architect. If I want to fire off guns, I'll go play an FPS, so the shooting ranges arn't my thing, either. I'm mostly just a roleplayer and a writer.

Nobody should RP anything they aren't... Wait... I mean, no one should RP.

All avatars should be EXACTLY what our RL selves are, in all details... except naughty bits, all avatars should be neutered... [uneasy silence] But anyway, the Reality verification should include both DNA testing and 3rd party maintained visual inspection stations... where maybe we can improve SL/RL congruity by neutering.... [uneasy murmurs from the crowd]

No one should build anything which violates the law... which includes the laws of REAL physics. [shreaks and howls of dismay]

No one should have a Second Life... or a Real one, different than anybody elses. Cuz we all should be the Best We Can Be, and that means all the SAME.

RAmen.

Solent Green is people!

Blah Blah Blah

Your lucky you have the freedom to buy sex balls - it is because LL allows you to have it. So quit complaining.

It seems LL is learning the hard way that freedom of speech is a nice concept but is a pain in the ass when the press is vomiting at the face of your company.

As a personal opinion, i do not feel compelled to abid to any rules that are unwritten and unofficial.

I do believe the Golden Rule covers the rest...

golden?

The Golden Rule = Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Meaning that every person should ask themselves, "what would love do in this situation?"...

Meaning that we need to consider the effects of our actions on others, rather that on ourselves...

If everyone lived by that, we wouldn't need "written rules and laws"...

The reason we have to have so many written rules and laws is because people are basically selfish, and inconsiderate... They think that they have the right to walk on others, as long as it doesn't break a written law or rule...

People have a tendency to demand their own petty rights, and deny those basic rights to others...

And finally, it is that same reason that those very written laws and rules show each and every one of us that none of us is perfect, and that is the very reason for why Christ died for our sins.

That means that nothing we could do would make us perfect, and we need the grace of the One who is perfect to accept us no matter what. Once we understand that, and stop demanding things our own way... we can finally understand the Golden Rule, because it was actually applied to us 2000 years ago on the cross.

(ok, I will get off my soap box and/or pulpit)

in what is it challenging the "do wtf you want on your own land" ?

Left the forums awhile ago to go do my own thing, but this is exactly how the rules challenge "do wtf you want on your own land".

"The diversity of things to see and do within Second Life is almost unimaginable, but our community has made it clear to us that certain types of content and activity are simply not acceptable in any form. Real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depiction of sexual or lewd acts involving or appearing to involve children or minors; real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depictions of sexual violence including rape, real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depictions of extreme or graphic violence, and _other broadly offensive content_ are _never allowed or tolerated within Second Life_.

Please help us to keep Second Life a safe and welcoming space by continuing to notify Linden Lab about locations in-world that are violating our Community Standards regarding broadly offensive and potentially illegal content. Our team monitors such notification 24-hours a day, seven-days a week. Individuals and groups promoting or providing such content and activities will be swiftly met with a variety of sanctions, including termination of accounts, closure of groups, removal of content, and loss of land. It’s up to all of us to make sure Second Life remains a safe and welcoming haven of creativity and social vision."

This quote taken from this post;
http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/05/31/keeping-second-life-safe-together/

Basically meaning it doesn't matter if it's on your own land or not, it just takes some people complaining about it, and enough people deciding it's 'broadly offensive' if it's not already on the top secret list that they won't tell you the contents of. I know, I've asked for a list of 'offensive material' several times, and been told 'no' each and every time.

I don't think I need to say a thing more on the subject. LL has started doing exactly what we said they would when they started down Censorship road. Oh, and if you don't know, Gamgling is forbidden, now, as well.
Blog post; http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/07/25/wagering-in-second-life-new-policy/