Your World? Your Imagination?

Is this even true anymore?

With the ageplay issue, age-verified adult residents can't even engage in a little "Hot for Teacher" fantasy anymore. And I truly feel for the adult 'little people' in world who want to do a little pixel-pumpin.

With the casino issue, folks who live in countries where they don't think they should bother trying to save you from yourself can't even enjoy a little hot slots action or a competitive game of cards.

When the media gets ahold of the Gor thing, I have a feeling collars are going to get banned. Certainly slave auctions will.

Homosexuality is illegal in much of the world. When will ads for gay clubs be banned?

Do I even bother to consider what might happen to the furries when PETA gets complaints that people are making visual representations of animals being sexually abused? ("Does internet beastiality affect our children... shocking video of a practice called 'yiffing' from the online world, Second Life after the break."

Yes, Second Life is the single most innovative outlet for creativity and imagination ever conceived and is rivaled still (and disappointingly) by no other online community. You can do more here, see more, create more, then anywhere else on the internet. I know, I've looked.

But how long, with its corporate sponsers and media-induced bannings, can Second Life claim to be the world and imagination-concieved creations of its residents?

Sure, if you are a god-fearing christian flag-waving American living in the black & white world of "good" vs. "evil" where "right" and "wrong" are simple to figure out because you just go along with whatever your president tells you, Second Life is definately becoming more and more "Your World, Your Imagination". But what about the rest of us?

Either we stop making AVs that could be misconstruded as children, even tho we are trying simply to represent ourselves as something other then media acceptable Barbie/Ken-doll images, or we get banned for using OUR imaginations.

Either we hide our gaming activities to the back-rooms of the bars (where it exsists thru-out gambling-outlawed-but-lottery-loving America) or we get banned, even if we feel that in OUR world, gambling is something an adult ought to be able to engage in at thier own disgression.

Our imaginations aren't as important as they used to be to this world, unless your imagination jives with the corporate plan and doesn't offend the folks at Fox News.

Don't you think it's time Linden Labs come up with a new motto?

Yes.

How about:

Second Life - Turn in your neighbor - Buy their land cheap.

I take a completely different perspective on this. I obviously don't speak directly for Philip when I say this - it is my own, reasoned opinion that builds like the Aerodrome at Abbotts, or the Particle Lab at Teal, or Bliss Gardens, or Svarga, or the Caledon estate, are things that exemplify the founders' vision of the "Your World, Your Imagination" motto.. Much more so than some back alley sex shop where perverts can go get their jollies pretending to have sex with children.

I've said this in other threads, it fits here as well. The harder the fringe elements of the community push against the outer walls of acceptable conduct, the quicker they will close in and the more restrictive the grid will become.

As far as media attention to things like furries and Gorians are concerned, those aren't necessarily "hot button" issues for the mainstream public. Child pornography is. There is no slippery slope here folks.

Depends on how the media plays it - If they find some Unverified underaged players being sold as sex slaves ...

this could be a definite issue.

for the Goreans sake they should definitely make their entire sims Adult Flagged content in my Opinion for their own best interests.

That Motto being: "WTF were We Thinking?".

In my opinion it was somewhat naive to think you could create a world for humans to interact, place no real restrictions on it, and not expect it to get...ugly. Humans bring many things with them: Creativity, Community, Passion(Sex IS not bad), Invention, Enlightenment. But with that also brings: Greed, Prejudice,Greed, Avarice,Disengenuousness,Close Mindedness, Demagoguery, Greed, Exploitation, Greed, and Greed.
These things will ever disappear from Human kind, no matter how much we wish for it. As SL evolved, the Providors should have evolved their management structure. None of the major problems today happened overnight. Arguments for Unverified Accounts aside, uncontrolled memberships was something that maybe should have been planned out a little better. Even now, with the current crisis, we get Half Baked, Ill conceived and communicated, disingenuos attempts to "correct" the situation.
SL hooked me almost immediately, not easy being the jaded skeptic I am. But my hopes for it being a place I want it to stay are dwindling. Someone in a (Hopefully) satirical post basically said"Adults aren't mature until Age 25, all Avatars should be exact representations of yourself, all Roleplay is sick and just leads to wanting to have sex."
Funny but frightening. In the quest to pile up the Quatloos, the Providers may just be leading us to that, An antiseptic, Corporatized world where freedom of thought and expression is frowned upon, individuality is discouraged, and everyone speaks German.

NO i don't think that they could come up with a new motto.
1)Its still your world
2)your imagination

The problem is people are abusing the game

Amen to everything you said Pie.

One of the hallmarks of a democracy is "majority rules, with minority rights". Even though I may personally find the actions and language of a group like the ageplayers, Goreans or (insert name of someone you disagree with here) offensive, they certainly have the right to express themselves as members of a free society. Obviously no right is absolute and that there are certain acts which we as a society have decided should not be allowed, such as RL sex between adults and minors. But within the context of SL, where we are all supposed to be adults to have access to the grid, we should be allowed to decide for ourselves which mutually consensual activities we'd like to participate in. After all this is a VIRTUAL world, no one can be physically harmed or made to do anything against their will.

Does LL need to take precautions to prevent minors or those who do not wish to participate in activities that they find offensive from doing so? Yes. But I don't know if they've explored all the possible avenues for doing so, instead coming up with this sledgehammer approach when a more surgical, less intrusive procedure is called for.

There is something the "moral majority" likes tp preach about called personal responsibility. I think we should be allowed to exercise it.

I am starting to feel that this whole thing is less about "protecting the kids" or giving LL legal cover and more about an agenda of "sanitizing" SL. As a furry I'm speaking out because while today the axe is falling on gambling and ageplay, who's to say when the executioner may turn his gaze towards me...or you?

Maybe the new SL motto should be Your World, Your Imagination*

*Unless you imagine something which someone else disagrees with, in which case you may be subject to banning and/or public ridicule, humiliation and possible referral to the appropriate authorities for criminal investigation in a country of which you are not a citizen.

Welcome aboard, Deej.

How about


"What are you going to do now?"

"Im Going to Linden World!"

"Ich bin ein Lindener".

Second Life, Family Edition.

Your PG World.

Your PG Imagination.

My opinion may not be popular but it is my opinion.

LL's mistake in the most recent garbage about age play was caving in to a bunch of sensationalist journalists. Unless said journalists coughed up alot of irrefutable proof (which we dont know, but suspect they didn't since LL has been unable to find the pictures).

The REAL photos were a crime but unfortunately we have no idea where they came from. We know what the journalist SAID thier origins were. That video was highly edited. The journalist himself MIGHT have uploaded the pictures and then simply edited out the frames with the blue box saying you paid 10L.

We cannot know for certain if the journalist himself was the default AV "doing" the child AV in the video. But it was certainly bad planning on his part to use those shots which many will take as HIM doing the child AV.

All in all it was shoddy reporting at best. Intended to cause a fuss. LL caved with little proof. And that is where LL blew it.

Oh no SL is gonna stop letting us bugger avatar versions of Shirley Temple. Why who do we blame this on and start calling them! OMG Lindens are Nazis!!

you do realize Pie was refering to a lot more than Sexual Ageplay, right?

Please reread her original post

The Ageplay issue was a bullet point, Not the only part of this.

No time I am gonna log in now and play some poker

though I hope I do not encounter pixel humping "little people" who may be misconstrued as children.

It was definitely Blitzkrieg Journalism. Stuff like this is why I have such low regard for a lot of today's media (Sorry Gummi). Present your allegations, along with th evidence, allow LL to investigate and respond. I am still not convinced this wasn't a setup. Also, though doubtful, is there any action LL can take for The TV Producers using inworld images without consent in a broadcast, and for setting up accounts under false pretenses?

Yup.

Those things are the true wonders of SL, the things that I like to see and use. But will the SL climate as it evolves aloow for them to flourish, alongside the IBM "Think Center", The Coca Cola MegaBore, or The Nike Virtual Sweatshop? (That one may be a place for new residents to go instead of camping, make virtual sneakers for pennies a day.)

Makes me wonder why they were the media was in possession of those photos in the first place. If they were indeed given to the reporter, he should've reported it to the authorities and LL first so the people involved would be caught immediately before they could've given out more photos to others. The media seems to think that they are the police these days, in my opinion.

how about "your world, their sensationalisation" ?

How about

"Your World, If You're a Corporation" ?

Okay, I likewise saw the television segment and I have a rather different perspective on it.

I'm sorry, that schitt ain't right.

You can't look me in the eye and tell me that every single person who participates in that scene has no sexual interest in RL children. I can't believe that. I don't think those pictures were uploaded by the journalist, as someone accused; I think they were being passed around from pedophile to pedophile.

Do you really think the avies posing as children do it because they enjoy it? It's possible some of them do, but I'll bet you cash money that the majority of them do because they get paid, and paid well. So it's not entirely consenting adults, it's more like one consenting and the other assenting.

I know a lot of people are going on about slippery slopes, but I'll tell you what--if that was left untouched, it becomes a slippery slope all the way down the other side of the hill, and I'm not really eager to go there.

While I'm on your side of the debate, I think you should avoid strawman statements like these. They're what give people like Prokofy a lot of righteous fuel.

Am I the only one who believes sexual ageplay is going to continue in SL even though it may be banned?

"Your World, Your Imagination?" Not if you imagine doing it in front of journalists or activists.

As in RL, what goes on quietly unnoticed among close circles...goes on unnoticed (in most cases).