Age verification

Come on folks, stop playing flame-and-counterstrike here...THIS is the reason...and on so many levels...casino operating in US is illegal, deviant behavior groups using SL to promulgate illegal activities in US and other countries? Illegal. How do you drive out the ones using SL for illegal activity? Find a way to make it impossible to be anonymous!

I am 199% ALL FOR this idea, but NOT until LL has a responsible, watertight means for doing so...that does not rely on private third-party contractors whose agenda has ANY chance of including profitable uses of my personal data that are NOT limited to this specific platform and use. Until the company that is processing my information is reputable, open, publicly-certified, and is being directly overseen by governmental agencies, it JUST IS NOT RIGHT!!!

Your divulgence is your choice, use of SL is your choice. But ANY client-based company, including LL, is at least ethically and morally compelled to ensure that the very real risk of data lost during/after transfers and prior to processing is clearly understood and accepted, by even the LEAST internet-security-savvy customer...this is not just TOS-glance-and-click-mode stuff, either...anything less than pages and pages of explanation at the time of subscription, about benefits AND RISKS (we never seem to get the downside, do we?)...well I can only hope that LindenLab DOES see the enormity of this responsibility to both educate and protect!

People engaging in illegal behaviour are rarely so stupid as to leave their name, address, credit card number, and passport when they do it.
They're probably hiding behind a socks proxy set up on a hacked PC somewhere as well.

This wont stop kids or criminals from doing what they are going to do, and it wont generate an instant database of real information for police to follow if a crime is commited, even if they have the best security in the world.

I agree...the point is, this is the FIRST STEP...if done right, it is an improvement over nothing-at-all.

That this WILL be implemented, in some form, that is inevitable...the reasons for doing so, now are just too compelling; and from a corporate PR standpoint, this is do-or-die...like it or not!

Time and energy now MUST be focused on ensuring that, first, this is not done illegally, in such a way as to hurt US OR LL. Secondly, we need to stop wasting time talking about why it wont work...and start talking about how it needs to be done to avoid 1)unreasonable invasion of privacy beyond what is necessary to get the job done, and 2)operating from behind porous security measures that will result in EVEN ONE account holder experiencing identity compromise or theft as a result, and 3)giving the job to any but the best, most publicly accredited, highest-integrity (which may not be the same as "Integrity" agency/group to do the job!

No. Only if you flag your land as Adult. You will still be allowed to go to Mature plots if you don't verify.

I guess if you brought a block of land in a foriegn country and didn't have a passport you could have a similar result.

If it doesn't work, it can't be an improvement.
Age and ID verification on the net can never work, LL should instead spend time and money responding to all the bad press with some basic facts (such as the fact that nobody can be 100% age verified).
If you allow the public perception to be that you are responsible because you didn't do enough, then they will not change their minds when you introduce a non working system. Show them how it is impossible for verification to ever work and how it would affect most of the internet if they held the sites responsible, they may just back off a little.

Well said, and something to think about...while making sure that whatever moves ARE made, or not, do not do more harm to the lil guy (you, or me, or all the other you's and me's) while moving forward, sideways or backwards...whether we ARE going to move, well that's "in-the-can" I think we can all agree.

But I will continue to demand that more attention be paid to this, in terms of implementation, than is paid to our demands for any of the "fixes" so broadly and exhaustively discussed along other threads in these forums!

This issue is about WAY more than client satisfaction...if SL dies, we all go to WOW and life moves on, but if LL screws this up, there will be people whose lives will be disrupted forever, REAL LIVES, not pixelated diversions, REAL LIVES.

And those are the people who should be banging on LL's doors the loudest.

If nothing else LL has diverted everyone's attention away from the open project letter. I have to give it to Linden Labs. They are a sly bunch.

LL can't block age players for the same reason they can't ban gays or slaveplay.
Intolerance is one of the six rules of SL - if they ban one section of the community, they start going down a slippery slope

Yeah one of those -

Stop complaining about the run away train! -
Theres a freighter out of control ready to smash into the pier!
type deals.

*whew* Good!! Pixel Sex is boring. Real Sex is Not.

Because ageplay is about consenting adults indulging in the fantasy of playing (sexually or non-sexually) with other consenting adults who pose as children, not about actual sex with actual children. It is no different from a real life wife buying a schoolgirl outfit from a naughty catalogue to surprise her husband, or a stripper wearing pigtails and licking a lollipop, or Britney Spears singing "hit me baby one more time" in a highschool hallway. Ageplayers in SL are as unlikely to be paedophiles as the pleasently surprised husband, the person watching the stripper, and the guys drooling over Britney Spears in a plaid skirt and knee socks are.

You don't have to like ageplay. You have every right to be squicked by it. But as long as it's about consenting adults, they have as much right to play at their personal fantasy as the rest of us have to play at ours.

Interesting point -- I don't agree with it , but still interesting.

Parential controls on the Client... Protection at source.. Prevention is better than Cure.

From the recent blogs, it would appear that this whole thing is developing, becoming more exposed (no pun intended)... there were actual child pornography RL pics involved in one case reported to the German Authorities... There is the Danger, when does anyone know which side of the very fine line, does Ageplay exist with each encounter/participation?

I am beginning to think we need to rethink the use of the word "adult". None of the people you describe are adults to me. Maybe they are of a certain age, sure..but adults? What is adult about needing this silly stuff to relate to another human being? Its not that I'm shocked by it so much as wondering why it is considered to be a positive rather than a form of arrested development? Britney Spears? a stripper with a lollipop? Ageplayers? a wife dressed as a school girl? I have to be honest and say it sounds like my idea of hell.

Like I said, you don't have to like it. You are entitled to your opinion of ageplayers. You can wonder if they have a form of 'arrested development'. But the point is not whether you or I think ageplayers are grown-up, or nice, or healthy, or silly or retarded. The point is they are legal adults. Consenting adults can, as far as I am concerned, do whatever they want. Even if they want to put each other in diapers. I am not routing for child molesters here. I am all for putting them away for life without possibility of parole. Nobody should touch a child inappropriately. Ever. But as long as all people involved are legal consenting adults, I believe in allowing people the freedom to do what they want, even if I think it is sick (which is actually how I think of certain forms of ageplay), as long as they don't harm or even inconvenience others with their play.



Are you really that naive? Grown women (or men for that matter) dressing up as little girls for a little fantasy play is hardly something new. You can find the attributes at your friendly neighbourhood adult bookstore, novelty shop, or whatever the current euphemism for sex shop is these days. Or get them from any sex catalogue or from any respectable internet sex webshop, for people who are afraid to be seen in such a venue. Try googling "schoolgirl uniform", and you will find all sex-related websites, not innocent stores selling school supplies for actual kids going to boarding school. The only difference introduced by SL is the fact that an avie can actually look like a child avie, instead of looking like a grown person in a costume. Of course, in the end an SL avie is just another form of costume.

What concerns me is that this form of roleplay WILL effect everyone using Second Life... If the authorities see this platform as a means for child molestors enact their fantasies.. they will close it down unless it can be effectively policed, of which there is very little chance... So those 'Consenting Adults' will deprave everyone the ability to freely play this game.

Netmeeting chatrooms and MSN Chatrooms were 'withdrawn' due to pressure excerted by many fronts, due to the reports and in some cases actual proof, that child molesters were using those facilities to entrap minors into underage sex.

If it were possible to see inside the minds of people... but thats not possible, so all we can assume is that a man of 57 and a female of 27 enacting sexual encounters using this Adult and 'child' avatar, potentially could be perceived as someone using the programme to live out a RL fantasy... what IS happening, and whats is PERCEIVED as happening 'maybe' a long way apart... but ultimately the perception will rule the day. It will always be easier to remove the ability, than to police the inability.

Unless checked, this type of behaviour will effect everyone in SL, whether you are for or against it, is imaterial.

I could be wrong about this but I think RL ageplay is illegal in the uk. For example if a woman dresses up as a schoolgirl for the purpose of sex with her husband, they can face prosicution, and find themselves on the sex offenders regester.

So where do you propose the prosecution ends? I can't look inside the minds of furries, maybe they are enacting a RL fantasy of having sex with animals (illegal in many places). I can't look inside the heads of Goreans, maybe they are enacting RL fantasies of slavery. I can't look inside the brains of rapeplayers, maybe they are enacting RL fantasies of assaulting women in alleys. I can't look inside the minds of PvP shooters in combat sims, maybe they are enacting RL fantasies of shooting sprees. I can't look inside the thoughts of BDSMers, maybe they are enacting RL fantasies of beating up their spouse.

But you know what? None of that matters. Because as long as these people are doing what they are doing in SL, it is just a fantasy. And as far as I know, in the free world there are no laws regarding fantasies. And there shouldn't be. Sure, there are scaremongers and there are people who would like to restrict fantasies, even in the free world. I for one refuse to bow to them. I will defend anyone's rights to fantasise and to share their fantasies with others. Not only when it concerns cutesy fairy fantasies with lots of flowers and and pink little hearts, but also when it concerns darker fantasies, even fantasies I myself consider to be sick. I hope LL and SL (Our World, Our Imagination, remember?) will take a stand with me. If people can't even fantasise in a virtual world for fear of real world prosecution, then there truly is no freedom to be found in the so-called 'free world'. I hope (in vain, it seems) that LL will stand its ground on this matter.

If anything will compel me to leave SL, it will be this: loss of the right to live your fantasy in a virtual world.

I doubt that. Erotic schoolgirl uniforms are openly being sold in the UK.

Correct, you can do what you like in private. If you're going around dressed like that all the time and it's pushing the boundaries then you can cautioned or fined for being inappropriate. Between two consenting adults anything sexual is fine really as long as it hurts no-one else. Part of the issue with SL age-play is that a lot of it is public with little girl avatars offering themselves, I doubt anyone's likely to be done for 'private' stuff on SL like in RL, but putting all that in public where no-one wants to see it is too much I think.
Especially when irrespective of who's behind it, it is essentially simulated child pornography when done in SL.

Yes but you can legaly import canabis seeds into the UK too, your just not allowed to grow tham
I have no idea where the original notion came from, I could be wrong.
But if you were to take photos of the said schoolgirl role-play activity and post them to a website you would fall foul of the Obscene Publications Act 1959

The link you give leads to the BBFC, who classify films. That they use the obscene publications act as a guide does not mean all of their guidelines stem from the act.


As you can see, it's pretty unspecific. Seeing an adult in a schoolgirl uniform is unlikely to deprave and corrupt people seeing it though.

And anyway we are not talking about whether publication of ageplay pictures is illegal in the UK, but whether the act of ageplay itself is.

Although... Don't forget the shops selling those schoolgirl uniforms have no trouble at all displaying erotic pictures of women wearing them. Its called advertising. I did a quick google search, and UK based sex companies use the same kind of pics that are used in other countries to advertise these uniforms.