The situation of Adult content in the future Second Life®
Some days ago Cyn Linden published in a post in the new Second Life Blogs some information about the projects of Linden Lab® regarding “adult content” in Second Life.
Is better you take a look at it, but is a bit confusing… anyway it seems is more a declaration than a project. For what i understood Lindens want to restrict the “adult content” in Mainland to an specific continent. Also they want to improve the tool for Estate owners to limit the access or provide a good information to the visitors about what kind of content they can find there.
For me there are now two big questions: First, what is “Adult Content” exactly?
I think this is a hard one. The residents we all come from different countries, with different concepts of what is “Adult content”. Of course a “common core” exist, but there are some grey areas, specially about nudity, or partial nudity, or even about violence. As an example, for me a gun is much more “adult content” than a nipple, but i’m sure some people have not the same point of view. Also nudity is used in some skin vendors, how this will affect them? Linden Lab is now trying to open a discussion about what is adult content in the Forums. I think this will be possibly the most conflicting point.
The other big question is: Age Verification?
Cyn mentioned in the post something about being “Age verified” to access the “Adult” continent of Mainland, the same to access the Private Islands with “Adult content”. Possibly this will be another big issue. I am “Age verified” and have a form of payment registered with Linden Lab®, but some people have doubts about that, and about the privacy of this information. I think it would be a great idea to find a way to be “age verified” out of this; some people don’t have Credit Cards (because they can’t or because they don’t want) and some other people doesn’t like the idea of giving personal information to a “third party” company, like the one Linden Lab® is using right now.
Although all this considerations, all the doubts, the rage in some blogs or in the Forums, will this work? About this i think is very interesting a blogpost by dandelion Kimban. I understand, in a 3D space like Second Life®, some kind of access level based in content may be good for everybody, even for the ones looking for this kind of “restricted content”, but how someone can control the content? The content will be actually controlled by the residents, so it exists a possibility that finally everything remains the same. Well, not the same exactly, some residents will speculate with the value of land in the new “adult” continent, as happened in some themed areas in Mainland, like Nautilus or Bay City.
There is still a way to walk regarding this issue, and is not starting good, in the Forums some people is using big words, comparing the creation of an adult area in Mainland with the creation of a Nazi concentration camp. I think that comparison is excessive, unfair and insulting, constructive comments should work better than starting calling things to people and opening a question like this one to public discussion is really positive. Anyway, let’s see how all this ends… as dandelion says maybe it will be only one of those projects that even they are meant to change everything they don’t change actually nothing… or at least nothing too important.
9 Responses to “The situation of Adult content in the future Second Life®”
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LMAO
How do you expect me to read now when you posted that picture?!
Definition of “adult” will be tough. It’s not only SL issue, it’s the problem of the Web, and old media as well. And there is no definition. Nor there will be. At least, there will be no definition that will satisfy all (nor the majority) of the parties that care about it.
Problem of age verification is somewhat easier. There is Aristole (which I refuse to use as any other data collecting service) and there are credit cards as the least harmful solution so far. Sure, it’s far from perfect, but if anybody can think of anything else we’ll be all very happy to hear about it. I have to say that LL did a nice move with giving up on insisting about Aristotle as the only way to verify.
I also have to ask if verification is necessary at all? Can’t we have the zoning and disclaimers on landing points and leave that to do the job combined with resident’s responsibility? My bar is, by many standards, a very smutty place. There are no walls, it’s open air visible from all sides. Nudity is optional, sex is not common practice but if someone do it good (which is also undefined) it’s ok. It’s damage enabled zone and shooting is ok too. Everybody that enters it for the first time are warned about the content so they are free to stay or leave. And I never had any problems.
I know that many “concerned” parents will scream about kids being able to access adult places then. Well, they will be. They are now. They are also able to access very nasty stuff on the web. Easily. But nobody here is their babysitter. Talk to your kids, educate them. That is the only, ONLY, way to keep them safe on-line.
I agree there are better solutions than age verification. You are right than flagging or setting disclaimers would be a much better option, dandellion.
I’m with you also in the last part of your comment, are parents who should care about what their children see in the Internet, not only in SL, personally i saw some webpages with worse stuff that i can imagine in SL. Even i think this is a first step to the merging of the Main and the Teen grid i still think you are right.
I think this is an interesting, and probably inevitable development. While the definitions may be tricky, I feel that a common understanding will arrive, and the adult shops will simply move to the new “Pornsylvania” continent (or whatever it’s called) and things will continue much as they do today.
However, I do fear that merging the teen grid into the main grid (which I assume is the ultimate goal here) will unleash thousands of teenage griefers. That’s what we need to worry about!
Well, griefers are problem no matter if they are teens or not. Nothing stops a griefer to come to MG and cause some trouble.
About the merging of the grids i posted some time ago, and yes, i agree this is one step towards that merging.
How history repeats itself!
Many of us will still reject this enhanced verification. But I can guarantee that 90% of the teens and pre-teens that will end up on the main grid will all be adult verified. Same as happened before.
Second Life without penises!? Surely this cannot be!!!
But seriously, they’ve been going on about this for ages now, ever since the German kiddy-fiddling exposé a couple of years ago which resulted in the banning of anything “lolita” related. It’s not like the residents have any real say on the matter so they should just hurry up and decide what they want to do and do it instead of going on and on about it which only stirs up confusion and resentment.
I don’t tell you enough how much I love your blog posts, Raul. They’re always very considerate and fair, and I appreciate that.
I agree that with so many fantastic residents in SL, we should be able to come up with a good solution for everyone. I think that Linden Lab sets the stage for very negative discussions all the time by TELLING us what their plan is for us, instead of saying, “Hey, we have a problem, and want the community to help us look for solutions.”
I am genuinely curious to see how they define adult content. We have the same problem on Flickr and it’s very hard to be fair to everyone.
@ Soibhan: Well, right now there are a lot of teens in the Main grid… even they are not permitted, as you still can find gambling, even is not permitted. Actually i think the merging itself is not a bad idea, while the parcels are correctly flagged.
@ Arahan: Well, my tender crumpet, this is not a new story, is the same old one repeating over and over… like a bad deja-vu, and i’m sure this will come back again. It seems SL® and penises, nipples, manginas and all that nice stuff will be together still for a long time… unless Linden Lab® is bought by Disney® of course.
@ Thau: Thanks a lot, Thaumata, you know, i think one can express his opinion without attacking or insulting, I learned that shouting don’t give you the reason or the truth. I think you pointed to the BIG issue in the relationship between Linden Lab® and the Residents, there is no interaction with the community, they only say: “We will do that.” and then let the people express their anger in the Forums… The “Office Hours” are being reduced to something less than symbolic, the last “Town Hall” was 2 years ago…