Blog post... a thought just came to mind

Bear in mind I'm only speculating, and have no proof.. but what if...

We've not heard anything about the 'adult verification' thing for a while. Three weeks ago was Robin's last post on the subject (http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/05/10/further-clarification-regarding-age-verification/), which stated that "adult content is that which is overtly, graphically, or explicitly sexual in nature or intensely violent" and will be locked away only for verified users.

We now have Daniel's post which states "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."

This appears to be a contradiction to Robin's post, where what was going to be permitted in adult verified areas is now not permitted anywhere?

Let's speculate... nobody is willing to undertake the necessary verification work, even Integrity won't touch it with a barge pole because of all the crap going down right now... so instead of locking adult material away behind verification, the only other option is to remove it altogether?

Discuss...

Broccoli

They've signed a deal with Integrity, they're just looking for a way to sell it as the previous attmept failed rather miserably. There was talk that it would be in beta by the middle of May, maybe they meant May 2008!

I don't think they'll get away with "Oh you want graphic violence, well it's not allowed but we'll make a new area for you, call it "Adult" and you can go and have your graphic violence there but only if you verify with Integrity".

You sure? Unless I missed it, the last announcement from Linden Lab about a 'deal' was met with a "thats news to us" response from Integrity.

Broccoli

http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2007/05/17/linden-signs-integrity-services-for-age-verification/

I wish they'd get the url link sorted on the forums!

It's also a contradiction of the TOS.

Interesting point, Broccoli. I suspect that the age verification approach doesn't address all the international legal (and PR) challenges that the Lindens face--or, perhaps, just *think* they face. It was fairly apparent at Robin's in-world Office Hour last week that they're grasping at straws with ambiguous "resident self-governance" initiatives, while agonizing over how to placate RL governments that are believed to have "special" content policies--some unknown subset of which correspond to actual laws somewhere.

They really do need to find some way to shed liability for content they didn't create. The problem is that the more they police it, the more they are accepting responsibility for it. So at that level, it makes sense to get "the community" to do the dirty work of defining acceptable content.

It's a double-bind, because "community standards"--and foreign laws--abridge the hard-won freedoms enjoyed by the country in which the Lindens are headquartered. (See, e.g., the US Supreme Court ruling on Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition.)

Kinda glad I'm not the Linden legal counsel.

This thread should be closed, as I am broadly offended by it.

I already thought the same. The age / identity verification could possibly lead to a mass exodus of users who a) want sex, and b) want to stay anonymous. Perhaps LL figures it's a smaller loss to lose the customer groups that are into unusual forms of sexual roleplay.

Which is bound to backfire, because RL minorities aren't minorities in SL. Getting rid of all "offensive" forms of sex (BDSM, watersports, scat, rape, snuff, dolcett, vore, bestiality etc.) could drive away even more paying customers than identity verification.

It would also mean that, while sexual activities deemed non-extreme and "harmless" are still tolerated, there are still minors on the grid who still aren't protected from adult content.

Not to mention that there are those who will make false abuse reports for vendettas, for the sake of destroying rivals, for "cleansing the grid" of those nasty <insert minority here>.

I was told by someone that spoke to an employee regarding the issue, that the blog post was "a reminder of long existing policy", and nothing new or any new enforcement would be occuring.

Whether the lindens are just that bad at contradicting themselves and putting their foot in their mouth is anyones guess.(however quite possible)

It is quite likely though everyone is worked up for nothing. My "broadly offensive" censorship prim protest signs I made were so cute too.

Well, there was an uproar about the age verification stuff.. Careful what you ask for, maybe?

What is an adult?

http://www.avert.org/aofconsent.htm