"Adult content" question

The website analogy is really awkward to deal with because if you go surfing for pornography, it involves active behaviour on your part; be it using specific keywords with a surf engine or typing the URL of an adult orientated site into your browser.

In Second Life, you can just teleport to a friend's residence and find yourself looking at an impossibly high skyskraper textured with hardcore pornographic images, even though it's not on your friend's land.

Maybe when you own land thats part of a sim - or on the mianland.
Its more like owning a PART of a website.

Like you own the upper left corner.

Colette, it seems to me to be very fuzzy and complicated right now, as most law involving digital content is. The questions really are "what stands up in court and what doesn't?" If someone's kid were romping around SL and happened to see simulated avatar sex on a parcel which is privately owned, the definition of exposure to "lewd behavior" would legally come down to could any public passerby view the act? Now, if those activities are happening in a closed building with the windows shaded and the only way someone can view the activities is by panning in with a camera, then TECHNICALLY the activities are outside of general public view. If someone needs a set of binoculars to view the people on the next block over having sex in their home, then by definition the act is outside of normal public view and the person viewing is actually a Peeping Tom rather than someone with a legitimate complaint about public indecency.

In many cases RL parallels don't apply in SL, but I think when you are talking about a potential RL legal matter then the RL legal precedent is going to apply.

You just reminded me that lots of websites have disclaimers stating they aren't responsible for content on third-party sites, and that you follow external links at your own peril.

It it time to put a similar message about adjoining parcels into a notecard, and have it automatically sent to anybody arriving on our land?

I somehow think the RL problems going to come in when a underage kid is having cybersex with an adult and some RL information is exchanged. And the kid gets cuaght by a parent who isnt willign to accept their own responsibility for their kids actions.

I think its will be cybersex that is the problem - not the Porn.

Since none of the "porn" on Second Life is really even comparable to what people can get without age verification for free on the normal internet.

Colette, you are bringing up a whole separate subject that is beyond the enforcement of LL or any identity verification service. The point of this verification exercise is to remove legal responsibility for minors viewing adult content from LL. For those who have a taste for anonymous cybersex, there onus is now them to make sure that the other party is age verified and if they get caught with a minor, the legal ramifications are their own and not that of LL, who has provided an age verification service. The bottom line (no pun intended) is that anonymous sex in SL has now become as dangerous as it is in RL.

Well said. The age verification is for Linden Labs protection. And we can share some of that protection too by using the process it verify that we are doing business or enteracting with a verified "adult". It's a good thing for all. Not just LL.

I meant if anyone is going to get sued it will be over cybersex between adults and minors - rather than some minor seeing some porn.

In response to your legal comments is all.

A lot of SL businesses will be hit with age verification too. Not just the obvious ones like XXX clubs and escorts services. For instance:

- Skin Manufacturers (All those nude model displayed)
- Animation Makers (Think of all those pose balls)
- Clothing Manufacturers (All that sexy leather)
- Xcite for sure (heard they were on the beta grid working on the next gen-italia)
- Gorean sims

This also cuts down on some of th ugly, and baudier spinning billboards found on SL...oh wait. No it wont, those are found on 16M plots that I am sure would be mark "Adult" even in a PG sim.

Which brings me to a concern. If I have land on the mainland, say 2048m plot, residential, has a sexgen bed on it. The plot is "Adult" flagged. Now, if someone pans thier camera in to take a peek from a non-"Adult" area and sees me in the nude using my sexgen bed with another...could I still be held liable if I am AR'd?

Livinda.........I would think not, as long as your parcel is flagged "adult content". It falls back on the one sneaking a peek, not you or LL.

This finally verifies to me that LL has totally sold it's soul to the Corporations.Verifying age may be a good thing, but the plan proposed is idiotic. This third party will be a great asset in data mining us for the them to bombard us with their garbage, in world and probably out of world as well. This makes Sheepbot look like child's play. I will not give out my SSN, DL, or other sensitive info. How this affects my SL experience remains to be seen.

then this new system wouldn't be effective anyway it would make many of people I know leave SL :/, This bring me to the point that the old system didn't have a problem, if you thought a person was underage in SL AR them and all is well if they are back that means they passed verf. etc.

Im really surprized people dont see the issue with this.

I could report ANYONE I dont like as underaged - and temporaily block their account.

Famous designer, ex boyfreind, a rival, anyone.

I really think the whole guilty until proven innocent Idea is no good.

Hopefully - in the LEAST - if your age verified - you'd be protected from this nonsense.

See some of my earlier posts in this thread. Legal precedent is that if that sexgen bed is on private property and not in view of the general public then it is out of public decency review. Using the camera to pan inside the house doesn't matter because that person is using a tool to view someplace that is outside the general public view. What matters is that if it is in view by the general public or anyone going by. Just because I can use binoculars and look inside my neighbor's house doesn't mean that I can file charges if I see something "adult" going on in there.

I think you said the same thing I did. Perhaps better, though. But if I understand what you said then Livinda would not have to flag her parcel as "adult"?

Yes, that is what I'm am saying. I doubt we are going to get any further clarification from LL on this subject, but the legal reading I did this morning is pretty clear on "in view of the general public" as being the standard. If the "adult content" is on a privately owned parcel, not visible without use of a tool and accessible by only the owner it cannot be considered to be in general public view to a minor.

First chance I get, I'm reporting Colette Meiji as underage, then..I'm, I'm...I'll steal her ID..then, I'm..I'm yeah, gonna...Oh hell...I ain't gonna do no such thing. but it could happen though.

I have a lot of concerns how easy it is to deny people access to their account.

Other examples -

You could spam people with notecards originally altered by your target, getting them reported.

You could lobby to get them banned from blocks of Ban Link Sims - the new policy says they will monitor peopel banned from large numbers of sims.

You could get a handful of people to play "Cruicible" and accuse someone of something they never did. Such as Griefing.

The entire account protections you have is Linden Discretion.

People are big on wanting faster bannings for griefers - They seem oblivious to the fact that the faster someone can be banned from the grid, the easier it would be to get banned yourself.

Sounds like the Salem Witch Trials to me...and I am a paranoid schzophenic, so therefore, they are ALL OUT TO GET ME. *bans everyone from her sim*

Seriously though, you are right about the "Guilty until proven innocent premise". Who's to say I couldn't get 50 alts to AR someone I don't like just to get them banned?

Hehe just becuase im paranoid - doesnt mean someone isnt out to get me.

Good quote, I should use that sometime.

id heard it before - dont know where it comes from though -

Ahh found it - though this isnt where i heard it.

From the blog:
Robin Linden Says:
May 4th, 2007 at 5:15 PM PDT

@40 - the rule applies to parcels flagged as containing adult content. These parcels are in mature regions (no adult content can be present in PG regions).

If you are not age verified you will not be able to access these flagged parcels or any island estates that are flagged as containing adult content. You will, however, be able to access mature regions where there is no adult content. Make sense?



- Skins - I doubt it. Since they are adding the adult content option to the current mature sim definition, and I've never seen a skin ad with the models in an explicit sexual context. Although that is up for grabs.
-Animation Makers - not all of us make sex balls.
- Fashion - Nope. If anyone of any age can walk into victoria secret, then why should it be any different in SL?

This type personal responsibilty with vague guidelines is very typical LL misdirection away from the crumbling foundation of stability.

To the OP: I really hope they don't make private homes need this flag. That's just asking for peepers.

Yes Luth I saw the word adult -

However they didnt appear to mention the current Mature flag at all, so its hard to know for sure they dont mean that flag.

I assume they mean there will be an Adult and a Mature flag but some clarification would help.

LL needs to hire more than coders

They could use some WRITERS.

It would have been simple to handle that part of their announcement



Thus clearing up a lot of potential confusion.

Robin did say this part

"If you are not age verified you will not be able to access these flagged parcels or any island estates that are flagged as containing adult content. You will, however, be able to access mature regions where there is no adult content. Make sense?"

Which pretty much says to me there will be 3 different classifications:
PG
Mature
Mature flagged as "adult content"

If you are unverified, you can get acess to PG and Mature but not the mature parcels that have been flagged as "adult content"