under 18 epidemic

In relation to my Linden Answers post

/139/c2/146150/1.html

There are hords of under 18's on the main grid, many of them are hiding their true age from the people they play alongside. Reporting is a fruitless exercise as even if the account is banned, the person is back in moments with a new one - only this time they have learnt a valuable lesson "be more careful about you you confide you age to"

The teen grid is a joke, being populated only by honest teens.

What _specifically_ are LL going to do to address this issue? We dont need fluffy words, or over the horzon promises, we need a solution NOW (please!!!)

For better or for worse, the teens will form a large bulk of the population, for which it is used by LL as a marketing number to market SL as a product to investors. Creating various mechanisms that deprive teens access is contradictory to this strategy.

What kind of colourful activities are you involved in that require that your audience be above 18 years of age? The real responsibility of age verification lies with the users who introduce such materials or activities that are ill fitting for children, be it sex, porn, violence, gambling, etc. Things which are far easier to access via other means over the internet than through SL.

SL is a very very adult place, there is simply no way anyone under 18 should be on the main grid, period.


I produce a few products for sale in SL that are of an adult nature, are you suggesting that I should not sell these items unless I can independantly verify the age of each and every one of my customers?

Are you aware that over a third of activity in SL is related to sex (and thats not including a large portion of commercial activities being in some way intended for an adult audience)

That's not true.

By confining our behavior to areas that are clearly marked "mature" we have taken reasonable precautions to not expose minors to what we do. If someone is willing to commit multiple acts of fraud to access such material there isn't a lot we can do about it, nor should we be expected to.

If parents can't control their own kids that isn't my problem.

Well, having a 17 year old girl myself, I do care if a youngster gets involved in things they shouldn't.

But I do agree with you that the parents are the first responcible ones to look after their children and make sure they get not involved in these kind of things (as getting into the mature grid of SL). So not the sellers of mature things or those that get involved into mature things are first responcible... the parents are!

Morwen

If I have a kid. I send them to school. And the teacher periodically shows my kid some lewd photos. I'm the first one responsible?

My kid walks past a porn shop in the city. The shop displays magazines and sex toys out at the storefront where people see them. I'm responsible for preventing my child from walking past that street?

Back at home, when the kid switches on TV, and theres more of this stuff during prime time. I'm the one responsible to go switch it off and tell them not to watch it?

Being exposed to passive pornography while out of your control is totally different from connecting to the adult SL grid and participating in an orgy, escorting or other activities of an adult nature. You should certainly be held more responsible for your child while she's in your house playing on a computer that you own.

And yes, you are supposed to tell your child not to watch things that you find inappropriate for them. I think that ought to be a no-brainer.

SL is not school, and its content creators are not teachers. Apples and oranges to an extreme degree.

SL is not a public street, it's a privately owned online community which does not allow children. If your child is on the net lying about his or her age, and joining communities which are clearly marked for people 18 years old and up, how is it the responsibilty of the existing residents of said communities to monitor what your kid sees? It's not. No sale.


Yes.

From teachers you may expect a certain kind of behaviour. It belongs to their profession. If they cannot make this true, they should be removed from the profession.

And yes, sex and voilence are a bit too much part of the world. But that doesn't mean you as parent are not responcible anymore.

In your last example, as parent you are 100% responcible for what your kids watch on TV. TV should be guided and controled as an computer/internet-connection.
But well, too often tv and computers/internet are used to keep kids busy without even caring what happens on there.

In the end you are as parent always responcible for your kid.

Morwen.

The problem is that most parents dont have clue what their teenage children are up to, especially when alone in their rooms on the computer. As LL provide a seperate environment for teenagers to enjoy SL they have to accept some responsibility.

Sure, I agree. Therefor I am for some kind of age verification (see another thread here). And yes, I know that will not be 100%. But it will help.

But again, most certainly when it comes down as something as SL.... as parent you are responcible what your children do on thier computers.

Morwen.

So basically, you're telling us that because some parents don't care enough about their kids to monitor their online activities, that some faceless company and/or anonymous people who have no investment in that child's welfare need to pick up the slack for those careless parents?

Parents also have no idea what their kids are doing when they go to play in a local park, or wander around in a mall. Does that mean that the mall owner or the city who owns the park should be responsible if the kids starts getting into situations which they know they're not supposed to?

Where is the line drawn? If we start holding the public accountable everytime kids get into trouble and their parent's eyes are not on them, then we may as well just take all children away from parents at birth, and have the government raise them.

One of the responsibilities of being a parent is instilling in your child the importance of proper conduct, ESPECIALLY when they are not being directly monitored. It is just plain wrong to pawn off responsibility onto the general public because some parents do not care enough to take the time to ensure that their children understand the difference between right and wrong, and that with being allowed to go somewhere unsupervised, whether it's on the internet, the mall, the park, the cinema, what have you, comes with added personal responsibilty.

To a certain extend, age verification is about letting people know what to expect (ie. warning: there's mature content here!) and not just systemetizing who can access the content. In other words, warn people that there's something to be cautious about so that they know to exercise caution.

That makes no sense, and is a straw man argument. I said no such thing, and I would appreciate it if you responded to what I actually said.

I am for age verification. I am not for people who are of age who are playing by the rules accepting responsibilty for children whose parents can't be bothered to act like parents.

Do I like that there are kids in SL? No. But they were here well before LL stopped requiring some sort of verification. Everyone moans and wails about 06/06/2006, yet fail to realise that before that date, there were plenty of kids in SL. All they needed was a mobile phone number, or a irresponsible parent who would just hand them the credit card (it happens far too often) when they said "Hey Mom and Dad, there's this really cool game where I can learn to program, do graphic arts and 3d modelling! Can I sign up? It doesn't cost anything, they just need a credit card on file!" Kids are crafty, and that's why parents need to look a little deeper into what they do.

If they care about their kids, yes. This isn't a case of some guy attacking them an molesting them which is beyond the parent's and child's control. This is a 100% controllable situation if some parents would just get off their arses and take a little time to investigate what their child is up to.

Yes, by all means, bug LL about it, no verification doesn't make me happy either, but saying that vendors need to bear responsibilty, i.e. age check all customers, is just ridiculous, unreasonable and impossible. How would you suggest they go about doing so?

If tomorrow, LL started requiring some sort of verification again, kids would still get into SL somehow. That's a fact. Would you still want to hold vendors responsible then?

Once your kid is on the net, Google image search and most of the net has no age verification, and they can see all sorts of inappropriate material EASILY. This is why it is SO IMPORTANT that parent strictly monitor their children's online activities, much the same as they should their television viewing. It IS their responsibilty, and no one else's.

Parent's let kids have computers in their own bedrooms? That sounds kinda nuts to me. I, as a parent, am responsible for what my kid sees and does on his computer, therefore we have it in the family room where everyone can see what he's doing at any time. Although he's the primary user of the computer, it's not *his* computer, it's mine.

I can't imagine allowing someone under 18 their own private computer - especially in this day and age.

Exactly.

When I was 15, about five years ago or so, my dad let me move my computer to my bedroom. When he discovered that I was staying up after my bedtime mucking about in chatrooms, he moved my computer back into the family room.

The point here is that my father discovered that I was up to no good. I suppose, if we employ some people's twisted logic, those other chatroom participants who were adults should have been responsible for the fact the fact that I was on there engaging in chat that was not appropriate for me, and somehow have employed telepathy to deduce that I was only 15, and then shook a virtual finger at me to shoo me away.

All the hooha boils down to this. It has nothing to do with anyone wanting to be remotely noble to protect the kids.

The crux of the issue is that sex sells. People want to continue to profit by selling sex products and services. So they want the responsibility and mechanisms to be reimplemented by LL so that they can continue to sell sex and profit without the hassle of possible legal action.

So suddenly, teens become an 'epidemic'.

We can argue all we want, but I'd rather LL resolve the technical issues in SL rather than satisfy the sex vendors first.

Your examples are disingenuous. In one you have an authority figure knowingly violating his trust by showing inappropriate material to someone he knows to be a minor. In another you have someone displaying such material in plain sight on a known public street. That's not the case here.

What we're talking about here is a place set up by adults, for adults that you cannot possibly end up in accidentally. The only way for a minor to see it is to seek it out and then commit deliberate fraud to gain access. So yes, I think in this case the responsibility begins and ends with the parents.

As a parent with a 12 year old son, I know how tempting things are to him. He created a myspace page a year or so ago. Said he was 17, and a "playa." Believe me, that page was removed as soon as I found out about it (about 2 days later). I made him sit there next to me as I went in and had the account cancelled, and he was not allowed on the computer for a month. I have the password to his e-mail account, and he cannot change it as it's under my own URL. He is NOT allowed to have a password on the computer... if he does, I REMOVE it. He is NOT allowed to take the laptop into his bedroom, he has to use it in the family room or dining room.

Until he turns 18... everything he does is MY responsibility as a parent, whether he is next to me, or 2 miles away from me. It's MY responsibility to make sure he knows the difference between right and wrong. It's MY responsibility to make him understand the consequences of his actions. If I don't do that, who will?... his friends? I don't think so.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of parents that don't see it my way, and let their kids get away with doing a lot of stuff they shouldn't be doing.

If by "noble" you mean drastically curtailing my own freedom to take up the slack for parents who don't know how to say "no" then yep, count me out of the nobility.




Drive all the sex/pornography related content out of SL and see how long it lasts. Like it or not it's sex that's driving this technology, just like it did for VCRs and DVD. Sex is what's paying the bills.

You know what puzzles me about people like you? Forget the omnipresent machineguns and killer robots, I saw a shop yesterday selling nuclear freaking weapons guaranteed to raise a mushroom cloud and push every AV in its radius. Teenagers fantasizing about nuking each other you seem not to have a problem with, but god forbid one of them should get a look at an xcite body part. I find those priorities odd.

A great many of these underagers are the most troublesome griefers in Second Life. Lack of parental supervision makes SL harder for everyone, and adds burden on Linden Labs. I wish there was a way to contact these parents and let them know what their little angels were up to on line.

Boy... wouldn't THAT be a nice wake up call to the parents? LOL

It has nothing to do with the sex industry, which is only there because people enjoy a second sex life - if nobody was doing it, do you still think there would be an xcite?

It has everything to do with keeping those adults who do want to a second sex life to be able to so in a safe environment where they are not exposed to minors.

I don't believe the situation is any worse than it ever has been. Remember less than a year ago the ONLY OPTION for pre-18's to play SL was to hide there age as there wasn't a teen grid. That was back when the supposidly (if you listen to come people) foolproof of use of credit cards was essential.

The problem right now is that for the kids grid you need a CC.. for the main one you don't.. Not sure what the logic of that is I don't know but it does mean kids coming to main then having to be manually switched to the teen grid.

But either way I don't see any evidence that the PERCENTAGE of the grid being teen's is any different to what it was. We're just a whole lot more aware of it. It's certainly no epidemic.