Another Age Verification thread...with a small twist, or maybe a rant.

Yes, that's a fair point. I can't comment on the effect for people outside the U.S. That's beyond my experience.

Originaly Posted by Ceera Murakami
Funny. I don't have any problem at all preventing my child from surfing nasty 
areas of the Internet.

I want to Congradulate you Ceera, you are a top 10%er Parent and should stand as a Model for all Parents to be like.
Unfortunitly there are 90% that are not as good as you, for reasons unknown.. like Parents haveing to work to long and are forced to trust thier underage to make the right choices and do the right thing. Or Parents that have children that Know more about computers then the Parents do. But for whatever reason you will always have that 1% of those Underage that will find away into SL.. Or watch that Porn movie.... play with a Gun... pull pranks on those elderly neighbors down the Block. It just will always happen. They need to be policed.
SL is not going to stop the Underage from comeing into SL.. No Materr what they do.... What SL wants is to Show the Public that they are actively doing something. That they are Trying do something to stop that Underage from being exposed to undesireable materal.
Poncias Pilot washing his Hands. And they are willing to do it at the expense of their Loyal legal members....

look at the forums... How many are takeing a stand and are refuseing no matter what they are not going to get this age verification... these WERE my Propspective Customers.
They were my future Business that I will now never see.

Originaly Posted by Colette Meiji
To be honest - 
I hope this Age and Identification System ends up being enough.
I dont want in another 2 years to have to send my fingerprints or something.

It will never be enough... a year may go by before the next instance happens and SL will find the Need to actively show they are doing More. after awhile we will all get on our Witch hunt and every person we suspect of being underage.. we will point an acussing finger at. Innocent people will then be hurt.
Innocent people will be Hurt from this Age verification

SL is a Virtual Government going wild... They are panicing.. over some issue that has gone on through out history and will go on way after we are gone.
I agree more needs to be done to cover our backs from suits from Parents that are not in that top 10% bracet of Good parents such as Ceera Obviously is... But SL nor their Members are here to Train Those Parents.
But if I was SL I would create a Parental Control Key IN SL with Bright Lights, Bells and Whistles and Pointers and plenty of explanation of how the Parent works it.
Show the World that SL is Actively Trying their best to protect the Underage from being exposed to Undesireable Material by Placeing the Responsibility in the Parents Hands... don't Hide the Parental Control under Multi layers of interfaces that they have to hunt down and find... Put it right up front and in their Face.
Yes yes I know some Underage will still find a way around it but.. SL needs to be Obviously showing the world that the Parental Controls are there.

Well, of course SL needs to act when something happens that is not acceptable.

But no matter what, first responcibilty of what children are doing belongs to the parents. No matter what excuses or reasons you bring up, the first responcibilty is with the parents.

Sure, not everything can be checked or controled... but even when you are busy or whatever, you have to care for your children, also on matters as this. If you cannot do it yourself, make sure someone else does.

SL should only catch the exceptions to the rules and not as happens now that it is forced upon us all.

For me personally, age verification is not a problem. But the ways how they want to do it are.

Morwen.

So far Ceera gets a 2 Thumbs Up from me for doing EXACTLY what a parent should do!!!

Originaly Posted by Mickey James
Something on the order of 5,000 people signed Project Open Letter 
(including me), and I think that's a pretty significant number. 
I don't see 5,000 people, or even 500, getting worked up over this. 

Wow who counted those signatures....Where are those people on the Poll being taken at
/142/cc/182062/1.html

The fact is the ones complaining obviously didn't sign the Project Open Letter and thats because they will directly be effected by it.. and the ones that did Sign it was only wishing to be politicly correct.
Anyone that says Yes lets give up those other peoples rights because it doesn't effect me anyways.. are not careing nor thinking that future down the road they are setting up the plateform so their rights will be effected next.

Lets see you get those 5000 signatures in here and get on that Poll at
/142/cc/182062/1.html

So she gets also from me 2 Thumbs way up...

As she said, it is not that hard to do. Simple things (as computer with Internet in a room where mostly people are, limited rights to install/excute programs, content filter) brings you already more then half way road.... and being interested what your child does (on the internet, but also of course apart of that) brings you already a bit futher again.

We did this with our daughther when she wasn't 18 yet. Explaining her what and why made it even more easy. She requested even not to have access to certain sites.

Morwen

Funny I thought the "fence around the pool" in SL was the "You must be 18 yrs or older to play SL, please provide us with your DOB, please provide us with your Real Name, please provide us with your Address, please provide us with your telephone number, please provide us with your email address, please verify yourself by cc, and please check yes or no if you agree to our TOS".

What's next? Do they need my grandmother's mother's mother's maiden name and my blood type to play a damn GAME!

I honestly doubt if a (ballsy enough) parent slapped LL with a lawsuit because their child was accessing pixel porn inside of a game, they would win a dime. Personally I would think the book would be thrown directly at the head of the parents.

We have all signed and agreed to the TOS, which states we are over 18 to access and take part inside SL. If they want more, then slap *WARNING by selecting an avatar name, password, and clicking 'connect' you are admitting you are over 18. LL cannot be held responsible for anything you may see, or hear while inside SL* on the log in screen. I am sure that is no more than is needed to cover them in the case of a lawsuit. No other game companies have to do anymore than this. Look at your kids' playstation and xbox games, they have ratings on them, if you purchase a mature game for your child, then the blood is on the parent, you can try all you want to file lawsuit after lawsuit but it will not hold up in court.

I will always do my part to report anyone I feel maybe a child inside SL, and I am horrified to think children are seeing some of the things that are going on inside of SL, but at the same time, I am not the parent of every child in the world, and somewhere people are going to have to take responsibility for their own, and stop trying to blame everyone else in the world for their bad parenting skills.

Well other sites can charge you $50US per month for that privilage without person to person, building & scripting options if you like.

What is going on withthe child porn is SICK, SICK, SICK and EVIL !!! I may be naive but I never expected that SL would become any kind of vehicle for trading child porn. I am sure LL didn't either. LL needs to stop this and stop it NOW and I am with them on this. The child porn just makes me feel...dirty just being in SL and I can only imagine how the LL people feel. I fel bad for them.

Like many, I have some real concerns about how the age verification thing is going towork, and I may or maynot decide to provide them any more information that they already have. Its irritating that this is a result of their STOOOOPID open up the floodgates policy. I don't think the child porn thing could have ben predicted but ANYONE with half a brain could have predicted that a flood of completely unverified accounts and the resulting anonymity would eventually lead to huge problems. Being irritated at stupid policy decisions isn't going to slove the problem though.


LL HAS to stop this trading of child porn images now and they HAVE to turn over whatever information they have on people doing this tothe proper authorities.

The ripple effect ofthis is going to be enormous! When the US media gets a hold of this story it will be everywhere. Its sad, but the insatiable thirst for numbers and LL's own hubris in IGNORING the WARNINGS of the problems this would create may well lead to the big corporate money jumping ship in huge numbers. Inother words, the very goal they wanted to hit, willbemade impossible by the very tactic they designed to get it.

I will do all I can to cooperate with them short of opening the doors to my bank account.

I think LL have shut the stable door after the horse has bolted. When they started offering free accounts, they should have instigated something then. Now we have 6m residents and its going to be a hell of a job to get the under age out of SL.

I'm not too keen of giving my passport number but if it works, so be it. But are they really going to contact the British government and ask them to confirm my age? I wish them luck lol.

Thing is its just a file transfer.

They dont need SL to transfer files.

They could use Yahoo for that.

And theres no way for LL to check all the textures.

So I suppose all they can do is get people's identities so they can go after them once discoverd.

But, how do they do that without verfying everyone?

I don't know, Collette..I just don't know. What I DO know is that they have to do all they can to stop it from going on in SL. they really have to.

Can say the same about the whole internet though. Dont know where Linden Labs can do anything more than AOL , or Yahoo, or MSN..


Except for sexual Ageplay with SL Avatars theres nothing unique about Second Life in this stuff.

I don't know about Yahoo or MSN but I have AOL. AOL knows who I am, where I live etc. SO does my bank who issued the credit card I use to pay for SL and AOL. I am not anonymous so far as SL and AOl are concerned. If AOL customers get involved in trading child porn and these trades are discovered, AOL can and should notify police and cooperate with them. The same is true for SL.

I am repeating myself now but the absolute flood of free, anonymous accounts was going toOBVIOULY create a ton of problems for SL residents. Its ironic and poetic justice in a sense that this extremely unintelligent eror in good judgment is the very thing that will bite LL on the fanny big time.

I'm not laughing though. Its TOO serious a matter and it directly impacts all of us, both LL and their customers in a variety of negative ways.

I may be over reacting in an over emotional way, but I amjust SOOOOO disgusted by this child porn thing I want LL and whoever to clean house onthis as completely as possible.

The Providers brought this upon themselves, I have absolutely no sympathy for them. Were they that naive to think that opening membership wasn't going to bring in every type of internet dirtbag out there. (I doubt it). Free accounts are fine but EVERY one should have been CC registered. Yes there would have been phonies that slip through, but t would have cut down on the dirtbags substatially. If you don't have a CC, I'm sorry. There is no inalienable right to play Second Life. If this is the end of Second Life, at least in this form, so be it. It will be the result of one thing...Greed. The great social experiment has failed. The SL world is full off all the same human failings as in RL.Although in this case it's obvious a disguisting crime has taken place, LL also should grow a spine. As long as the servrs are strictly on US soil, when you sign up as part of the TOS it should state that All content abd activity on SL is subject to US law as well as the laws of the states the servers are in and all users are responsible for their actions in world.You may also be bound by laws in your home country if applicable.

That being said I do feel for all the great creators out there, and legitimate land owners who have the most to lose. You have put SL in the position to go big time and you are the people getting shafted the most.

I thought this was more about ordinary porn ?

Its about child porn...specific photographs of children in some sort of sexual context. I haven't seen the photos nor will I. I don't want to. Rest assured, however, its about CHILD porn. Sick and disgusting.

You know what? If age varification is deemed a necessity, so be it. LL should also be aware that some responciblity has to be taken by the users, and or their parants. They should also make themselves very aware of what they are asking of international users. Not all of us can afford the time or money to recover our identity if YOUR CHOICE fails to protect us. We want Intergity's personal assurance that our information will be treated with the utmost care and NOT stored or sold to ANYONE period! And no I don't care what any other U.S. Citizen thinks on this as they only have to provide the last 4 Digits of their SSN, the rest of up have to put our necks WAY out there and hope our lives are not destroyed by careless or callous handling of our personal information. Hell maybe if I need to get a passport in the end I can expense it to LL?

easy there panic,

if discovered now they still track down their ip address, most ppl donot have unlimited isp's to choose from, worst case scerino they put a sting in starbucks

an oh yea THERES A FIRE IN LINDEN LABS ITS GONNA KILL ALL YOUR AV'S AND YOU WILL LOOSE EVERYTHING, EVENTHO IVE NEVER SEEN IT, NOR WILL I PUT AN EFFORT OUT TO STOP THIS HORRIBLE TRAVISTY, IM GONNA FREAK OUT EVENTHO THE FIRE IS REALLY JUST THE PILOT LIGHT IN THE BOILER!!!!!!

im shure it does happen, but dont make it out like we are all swapping kiddie porn and your the only one left out

One thing that gets lumped in with "THE SKY IS FALLING" alarmism is concern over the economic effect this is going to have. People who buy money on the Lindex may not wish to verify, and stop doing so. Or they stop buying adult items, and demand refunds because they can no longer keep them rezzed in their house, even though that's not the creator's fault. I have yet to see why that's an unreasonable concern, however.

I've had knee jerk reactions before..you know, like when copybot came out...I think LL is having thier own knee jerk reaction.

Simple truth this is voluntary FOR NOW, pending our good behavior flagging things. I don't give it long before it is mandatory. There will be a whole lot of people trying to get around the system.

For those that say US people have nothing to complain about. Last 4 of the SS number gives the whole number basically. For many of us that is NOT a number we give out lightly. So you can add a great many Americans to the pile up of not loving this solution.

IF this goes mandatory gridwide I do see major economic implications. Both in terms of Lindex and Land.

One possible solution for those that cannot or willnot give up the info to verify is to restrict to PG. But that in itself will cause a massive upheaval in land prices as people try to ditch thier mature land and buy PG.

Then there are those who will simply quit SL. There is no way to measure the loss to the economy those people will represent. I am not fool enough to believe they are all non contributing members. Many I know do a tidy business in thier creations without ever going premium.

LL has opened a major can of worms with this one. my personal bet is it will get launched on a friday 30 seconds before LL closes for the weekend.

I which case, I will be playing WoW all weekend.

I am not saying that those in the US have nothing to worry about, its just that almost all the supporter for this are in the US where only the last 4 digits of their SS# is required and they feel safe with that. They are not considering internationals that may have to reveal far more and could have it freely accessible with no need to reconstruct it.

Myself if my identity was stolen, I am totally FUCKED FOR LIFE! so I need serious reassurances from LL and the company they have running verification before I do this. Basically I would be so far in debt by the time I got my identity back if it was ever stolen that I would be lucky to be able to afford a cardboard box for a home.

As would I and I am US based. I agree completely and will refuse to verify as long as possible. Just tonight we removed all mature flagged content from dragon isle. Thats 60 AVs or so half US have not that will not be getting verified. If necessary we will change the island from mature to PG as well. We are going to fight this as long as we possibly can.