Important! Adult shops, clubs and services in SL

Well - yes. And more to the point, no point wagging fingers at parents. People are often devious no matter what age.

I have to be honest. I have never EVER come across any child avs being used for sexual purposes. All the children I have ever come across were being ... children ... usually alongside Mum and Dad etc (although when it comes to my home that's an ageplay free zone - people can do what they want but my home is not one which would be benefitted by children, put it that way )

Or everybody could do like me, AKA, not giving a shit.

I do not control who enter my shop, it doesn't interest me, and the way teens think they won't probably have a child avatar.

Since in my country we do not pursue peoples for simulating crimes, i guess i am safe and all is well.

I am intregued by your ideas and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter!

hehe if i had any

But seriously the world would run so smoothly if peoples wheren't continuously looking "what's going on in my neightbor's house"

In a way its what i find pretty sick.

I think it was Persephone who said, "By banning child-like avies you are probably banning the only demographic almost certainly comprised entirely of adults."

You're probably right. But, if the children aren't there, the pedophiles won't come, and those are the people I really don't want in my establishment.

Please understand, there's a difference to me between ageplay (like a grown man pretending to be a baby) and pedophelia. Granted child avs can be used in ageplay by adults, but as a business owner, I don't want to be accused of encouraging pedophelia. And, I know of one legal challenge to the right of a pedophile on probation to keep a journal of written-only child porn, so the issue is not entirely legally settled as to what fictional speech is protected. Currently, child avs would not be criminal, but it may not stay that way.

I am concerned about the age verification, and think some more research into the issue is warranted so that we, hopefully as a community, could develop a standard which would make us all feel safe. I really appreciate this discussion and all the input I've received. It's made me feel a lot better about seeing child avs roaming in world.

Oh, and Cherry, I've actually filed ARs against child prostitutes in world. I don't know if it's really a TOS violation, but I erred on the side of icky.

with all this on going chit chat, what was this thread about I forget?

You know the "innocent until proven guilty?"

The best would be that you stop to worry about the look peoples put on you in this game.
I personally am not concerned about age verification, childs do not interest me and as i said again if there are child in this game they prolly aren't playing child avs. And since it's impossible to prove they are or aren't why bother.
As for the age old child av theme, well being tolerant also mean to be able to bear what isn't to your taste, regardless of right or wrong. If you visit the village of a tribe of head shrinkers, even if you disaprove their practices you can't ask them to stop cause you don't like it. Plain simple ego centered intolerance.

this would be cool idea i think. as im a new player and just trying to get the hang of things. this game is great and takes time to learn. speaking of the adult content. i cant make my porn sldvd to work lol. as to the disclaimer idea if it worked then that would be great to

And it only took 14 pages for people to forget what the thread was about.

"Protection for merchants from frivilous lawsuits" by parents who decide YOU exposed their kid to pr0n.

That's entirely dependant on what you're being charged with. Allowing minors to access content that is "harmful" to them isn't necessarily a criminal offense, and in a civl case the burden is on you to prove that you did verify age, it's not up to them to prove that you didn't.

(The usual IANAL disclaimer applies )

You're not familiar with the art of conversation, then?

Well, a great deal of the debate and discusson here was determining peoples Knowledge of just how far ones liability extended under the Law. Some was dedicated to asking if the Lindens Can actually say Players Are responsible, or can they Only say The Lindens are Not responsible. A great deal was dedicated to Methodology for Limiting ones own Liability. A Good amount was spent on Methods to determine If Visitors to ones venue were in fact legally entitled to View the materials contained within.
Most everything I read here was Involved with the the topic at hand. Addressing some aspect of a Very grey area topic.

No one really seemed to Forget what the Topic was, and I certainly had no dificulty Following the Chain of Conversation here, and i think there was a Lot of Insightful entries.

Angel.

Consider my post less of an insult to yourself and others, and more of an attempt to get it away from a conversation about child porn and back to the original topic.

The best way to return to the original topic is to post something pertinent about it that advances the discussion.

Now that, I consider an insult. Here is my quote below that was designed to do just that. I don't wish to banter over my methods, feel free to either have the last word or follow your own advice and 'post something pertinent about the original topic to advance the discussion.' Please.

Not intended to be an insult - but I don't honestly see that your post advanced anything new beyond saying that "people forgot what this thread was about" - also not new.

"'Protection for merchants from frivilous lawsuits' by parents who decide YOU exposed their kid to pr0n" is not really a contribution to the debate, IMO. (And do can the l33t-speak, please, it's tedious.)

And we already had someone else complaining about topic drift. Any interesting discussion DOES gradually drift the topic. That's the way conversation is.

All this discussion about being off topic is off topic!

Jopsy, did you get a chance to read that last link in my rather long post?

From my time I've spent in family court, they would require that you made a 'reasonable effort'. Age verification is really out of the hands of the vendors in SL, so it could come down to whether LL made a 'reasonable effort'. Mind you, nothing stops the frivolous lawsuit, but little things like this would stop it from going anywhere. Is a TOS you click on agreeing that you are over 18 reasonable? I personally don't think so, but I suppose it could be argued out after some millions in lawyer fees.

First, RL:

Last friday I learned that a colleague had just been imprisoned for two years for sexual assault of two underage girls. The sequence of events goes like this:
He messaged a female colleague on the mobile phone. This colleague's 14 year old daughter saw the message and contacted him. She opened the channel of communication. He responded and they soon developed a rapport on messaging, emailing and chat rooms. This went on to photos through the phone.
They met and the first assault took place. The girl introduces a friend who first watches and then participates. Both girls consented to the actions despite being too young.
His own daughter discovered photos on her fathers mobile phone and raised the alarm with her mother who confronts him.
He confesses all and admits to the assaults even before the police interview the girls. He has expressed deep remorse, attempted suicide at one point and has volunteered for psychiatric assessment and help but is now serving a prison sentence. He knew the girls were underage. It was fairly self evident but he was in full posession of the facts regarding their ages.
The crime is clear. It was a physical act. The blame is debatable but the sentence is on the act, not the blame. The judge was fairly clear on this point by giving a light sentence.

Now to SL:

LL post in their TOS on registration that underage children are not allowed. Children who 'borrow' parents credit cards can get in even with verification.
The OP was questioning our liability for minors accessing our adult areas. How about we go further? How about an adult in SL entering a virtual equivalent of my story?
What can they do about age verification except ask? What can they do that hasn't already been covered by LL to a greater degree?
OK, so they ask. Is a minor who's already by cheating got past verification going to hold their hands up at this piont and say 'OK guv, it's a fair cop - I'm 14'?

I just can't see why after 14 pages we're still thinking there's anything to add here?
LL own the servers, own the software, have the sole rights to allow/disallow access. We have none and we're expected to take reasonable precautions??
So, vendors can put up signs informing entry limited to whatever age and over, which is what LL have already done. And?

I did! Very interesting read... though I feel it was pretty heavily angled towards contracts involving "minors as content" not "minors as audience".


If we discard, for the moment, the predatory "Mark Foley's" and "Lolitas" that certainly exist in the world... and focus on the majority of people that fall, hopefully, somewhere closer to the middle of the bell curve...

The heart of the problem for the non-extreme cases, to me boils down to making "a reasonable effort" to keep minors away from material that would commonly be considered harmful to them.

And whether or not the residents policing each other on the grid and Abuse Reporting them is "reasonable."

Adult merchants on the main grid can't be online all the time to police the behavior of their patrons, banning those that act immature. What if they have round the clock staff instead engaging their customers instead? Is that reasonable?


Is it unreasonable to say "This community polices itself, and reports minors when caught to Linden Lab so they can be banned."

Is it safe to say "I actively monitor the behavior of my customers/visitors and eject those that appear to be under age." What about when you're not online?

Is it accurate to say that "I feel that a self-policing community IS likely as effective, and more fair than, Credit Card validations." I can say that, because I think in either case, only half of the minors are being caught.

Is there a case to say that a community that Abuse Reports minors so that LL can vet them is "sufficient effort" to protect minors from "harmful content".

Personally, I think someone would have to prove, not with annecdotal evidence, but with hard numbers, that CC's ARE more effective. (And, as I mentioned earlier in this thread... COPA put CC verification at only 55% effective. How can anyone measure what percentage of minors are caught with abuse reports?)

If "Reasonable effort" just isn't sufficient. Then what? Require "unreasonable" effort, and damn those that can't comply?

Two interesting and reasoned contributions from Bilbo and Jopsy. So, where do we go from here?

Seems to me there is no way any of us can pretend we are unaware that SL is heavily infested with minors (don't you just hate the little buggers?). That makes us responsible for exposing them to any lewd acts we choose to perform in public, and it's no use grasping onto the TOS as a figleaf. Similarly, vendors selling lewd or pornographic material.

Of course, sweet little me wouldn't do anything like that, and don't say I dress like a ho', it's just a fashion statement!

Oh, to heck with it. We should just get rid of all our sexy avis and all those provactive pose ball animations and other adult material.

No more sex in SL.

No more problem.

and at that point .. 85% of the population moves to ... the competition

Wouldn't you agree however that 55% is better than 0%? COPA's effectiveness has been challenged, while some state it's only 80%, with reasonable judgement and others have taken lots more facts into thier figuring to come up with 20% (such as how many teens have computers without parental monitoring, how many have credit cards, etc.), but they fail to mention that those verification methods take an adult responsible for giving them the means to do so.

If a teen steals a credit card to get onto the grid, then the teen would be held for theft should a parent raise a concern, because they used an adult method to get there, violating real laws that are in place for the real world (such as fraud).

COPA wasn't given a chance to blossom because of all the 'rights' activists.. (I can't believe the ACLU is arguing for easy view and access to free porn....) so I honestly think the only real way to test it, is to give it a go.

We already know the numbers, which are astronomical even with the filtering software out there (most tech guru's have basically laughed at these filters), so why not give it a shot?