Taking aim at Congressmen, corporations, and a hypothetical flood of future users, Linden Lab announced today that it was planning to force a large chunk of its customer base in Second Life to relocate, creating an ‘adult-oriented’ continent and tagging its databases so that users can be better assured that they can toggle all that smutty adult-type stuff on and off based on how puritanical they feel. The move opens the door to the merger of the Teen Grid with Second Life, a move hinted at by Philip Rosedale on a recent episode of Metanomics, and to the kind of mass cultural and economic change that maybe only the anthropologists and accountants would love.
If you’ve been looking in on Second Life from the outside this might not seem like such a bad thing – you’ve been thinking of jumping on the idea of virtual meetings or training or teaching classes or whatever, but you keep reading about virtual divorce and the last thing you need is for your students or employees to get distracted by the pole dancers in the club that popped up next to your virtual campus or office.
Hey – Second Life will soon be “safe enough for kids”, so maybe it will be safe enough to come on in, or to take a second look in any case, last time you logged in was years ago and all you remember are spinning mall signs and virtual escort services.
For residents? Well, we’ll get to that. Regardless, the world of Second Life as you know it is about to change forever.
Safety First? What’s Driving Decisions
Good clean fun wanted.
Linden Lab wants your feedback. They promise lots of discussion, and input, and to refine their definitions and their ‘system’ based on the insightful and, um, vocal commentary of its residents. But as with previous policy announcements, the Lab is hoisting itself into the dunking tank, yet again, by being opaque or, at the very least, vague about the process by which it arrived at its decision, how that decision aligns to strategy, and how it will know if it has achieved its goals.
OK…so before you comment that “a corporation has a right to keep some stuff secret”, I get that part. I’d argue, however, that on a platform where the owners (Linden Lab) continually claim that the world is without value if it doesn’t have the value created by its users, I’d argue that there’s a sort of social contract between the Lab and its users. Regardless – I’ll leave that for the next State of Play conference or something.
But I personally I’d like to understand the framework from which a policy decision like this is made. I mean, surely they don’t actually MEAN it when they say that the decision has been motivated by the fact that “it has become clear that some Residents are interested in pursuing certain “Adult” activities in Second Life that others would rather not casually encounter.”
I mean. Um. OK. That can’t be the WHOLE story can it? Segregation based on the distaste of “some Residents?” So the furries will have their own continent also, based on the idea that “Some Residents find non-human avatars disturbing”? Or is this a morality thing? In which case the discussions around “defining AO content” will be pretty interesting – I’m looking forward to tracking the differences in opinion between, say, the Japanese and the Europeans. A media thing? In which case, well…I guess we’ll see what the media has to say about it.
Over the coming weeks, as the Lab opens up channels of discussion, we can all play Kremlinologists again and try to figure out what the REAL motivating factors were….the “why now”, “who does this serve”, “what goal are you trying to achieve” kind of stuff.
The stated goal of the Lab has been stability, the first hour experience and overall usability. The stated mission is to improve the human condition – and I suppose if you’re American, improving the human condition means being kind of puritanical about, well, about sin.
It may well be that the Lab has been conducting surveys of those “first hour” people and have discovered to their shock and dismay that people are running, screaming to the hills because they teleported to an animation store or a night club with scantily clad pole dancers and off they went, never to return, Second Life a searing burning image of sin that they tell their friends about through their Facebook profiles.
And I’m sure the Lab didn’t make this decision lightly. I’m sure there were internal discussions and data was parsed and people were consulted and options pursued – but again, the Lab doesn’t really share this stuff, so it’s hard to gauge: how long has this been in the offing, why is it being done, which constituency are you trying to serve.
So it’s speculative stuff:
- Is there specific data that drove this decision, or validated it. Has the Lab conducted surveys of non-users, and what insight did this provide?
- Did legal or other pressures play a role in the decision process.
- Are there “deals” that were held up because of concerns over adult-oriented content? Is Disney waiting in the wings ready to open up a bunch of sims in PG land? Or National Geographic? (I remember Philip saying he was off to meet the NG people at last year’s Virtual World Conference). Or someone with deep pockets who can validate the platform as worth a second look as a consumer platform?
- Does the prospect of a future sale play a part on the decision? Has the Lab had tentative discussions in this direction, or is it longer-term?
- Will the Lab use data from XLStreet to ‘tag’ and find data that is adult-oriented? Did they analyze XLStreet for trends and metrics around AO versus PG content? How did this play into their decisions?
Who knows. Your guess is as good as mine. And with the way the Lab has historically communicated around this stuff, their guess may be as good as their own as well.
The Laws of Unintended Consequences
In fact, the Lab has a long history of having what seem like good reasons for doing things, in their own minds at least, and then being slightly baffled when stuff doesn’t quite turn out as planned.
Much of the follow-up discussion around this will certainly focus on the logistics, the definitions, and the process of change. We’ll get to analyze the whole age verification thing all over again – looks like credit cards are OK again, and maybe that Aristotle service can have the plug pulled?
How all that plays out is, again, anyone’s guess – I’m sure the Lab has tried to predict, but they’ve shown a stunning inability to actually do so. That’s not necessarily a bad thing: a platform as dynamic and fluid as Second Life deserves a good dose of serendipity.
The immediate list of potential consequences is pretty stunning. Again – it could be that open spaces was a picnic compared to what this will be. This isn’t a price hike, this is a fundamental reworking of Second Life’s culture, and may impact a significant majority of the residents, depending on how it’s handled.
I can think of a dozen ways in which CURRENT users will be impacted, but let’s take a few main user groups (outside of enterprise, education and the “clear” PG-type users):
- An influx of residents attracted to the new ‘red light district’ that got all the media coverage and a sudden land rush of bordello building. (OK, hey, someone has to benefit right?)
- A significant shift in land values as residents try to decide whether they want to lead a PG or a Mature Second Life and either sell their houses, buy a second (“for those special nights”), or decamp altogether.
- Content creators who will need to rethink their strategies: whether to discontinue the 10% of their product lines that are “adult-oriented” and who will need to decide whether to move locations to the AO continent or stay put, trying to guess whether traffic will migrate OUT of the PG Mainland or whether the AO continent will be a sort of creepy shadow zone which people prefer to visit as an alt
- Mall owners who have a mix of PG and ‘Mature’ tenants who will need to restructure their businesses, kick tenants out, try to find replacements, and make a decision at an estate level what side of the ‘red line’ they want to be on.
- Estate owners with a combination of adjoining mature and PG sims who will need to decide whether the “age verification ban lines” are an invitation to peeping teen Toms from the sim next door, or who otherwise decide that the changing ‘values-based geography’ is just bad for business.
- A new culture of abuse reporting and policing. Enough said.
Regardless of the process by which all this is managed – well, we’re talking here about a shift of land ownership that could very well make the open spaces controversy a minor blip.
More Like Real Life
In all of this, however, there’s something that’s even more striking than the potential dislocation, shifting land market, and new regime of governance.
The Lab says that its stated goal is “in some very elemental ways, to more closely mirror the real world.”
Wow. I mean, really. Wow.
That doesn’t strike me as a casual throw-away line. That line strikes me as a fundamental refashioning of the spirit of the Grid. Perhaps its meant to be narrowly interpreted. Perhaps they mean “mirror the real world (for the sake of the press understanding us, or enterprise wanting to come on board, but don’t worry, we all know *wink wink* that this is NOTHING like the real thing”.)
Now, I have no idea what they REALLY mean by “mirror the real world” – I mean, I thought that’s what Twinity was for.
But I’d propose that mirroring the ‘real world’ doesn’t mean mirroring the movie ratings system, and I’d also propose that, well, the real world is hardly a role model these days in the first place – I thought Second Life was supposed to make the impossible possible, and to provide a new frontier for explorations of human society, culture, connection and creation. Who needs to mirror what doesn’t work?
Second Life was inspired by Burning Man. It wasn’t inspired by Springfield, USA or even Amsterdam for that matter. There’s enough non-fiction to go around: some of us didn’t stay because it’s a nice clean place to visit, we stayed because it was a place to play.
Just prior to Philip stepping down (or is it up?) from his role as CEO I wrote:
“So here’s the vision: use code to enable a society built on the idea of collaborative creativity. Make the tools rich and robust, even if it means there’s a learning curve to using them – we’re man after all, evolved from our tools, surely another evolution in our toolset will empower change? Improve the tools over time. Improve the setting for the shared creative output – enhance the water or sky, improve the physics, and work hard to remove the things that prevent a suspension of belief – get rid of the glitches and lags if we can, scale the thing up. And while we’re at it, let people own their creations and choose to sell them to each other if they wish.
Not such a bad vision really. A sort of free-flowing, wacked-out carnival. Just like Burning Man, maybe the people who visit this place will go back to their home towns not just sun burnt, but enlightened. Wagner Au calls it Be Bop reality and Mirrored Flourishing, but whatever…it’s the idea that if you rewrite the world with the idea of the creative carnival it’s going to have a bit of anarchy, a lot of improv, and maybe we’ll all learn something and benefit from it.”
And I referenced Nicholas Negroponte’s 1996 book Being Digital:
Bits are not edible; in that sense they cannot stop hunger. Computers are not moral; they cannot resolve complex issues like the rights to life and to death. But being digital, nevertheless, does give much cause for optimism. Like a force of nature, the digital age cannot be denied or stopped. It has four very powerful qualities that will result in its ultimate triumph: decentralizing, globalizing, harmonizing, and empowering….
But more than anything, my optimism comes from the empowering nature of being digital. The access, the mobility, and the ability to effect change are what will make the future so different from the present. The information superhighway may be mostly hype today, but it is an understatement about tomorrow. It will exist beyond people’s wildest predictions. As children appropriate a global information resource, and as they discover that only adults need learner’s permits, we are bound to find new hope and dignity in places where very little existed before.
My optimism is not fueled by an anticipated invention or discovery. Finding a cure for cancer and AIDS, finding an acceptable way to control population, or inventing a machine that can breathe our air and drink our oceans and excrete unpolluted forms of each are dreams that may or may not come about. Being digital is different. We are not waiting on any invention. It is here. It is now. It is almost genetic in its nature, in that each generation will become more digital than the preceding one. The control bits of that digital future are more than ever before in the hands of the young. Nothing could make me happier.
Which is to say that being digital, being virtual isn’t just a technology, it’s not just about streaming bits around….it’s about being human, and perhaps about being human in new and different ways.
By referencing the decision to create a new continent on which sin can reside to a desire to ‘mirror reality’, the Lab is also indicating that this is all the same thing now. The frontier has run its course, the lessons have been learned from the experiment in libertarian, creative, burning man type anarchy and it’s time for the adults with their movie and game ratings systems, and their serious pursuits like education, and virtual meetings for enterprise and, hmmm, science projects or whatever to do their thing, to clean the Grid up even if it means the forcible relocation of big chunks of the world’s residents.
Now – the Lab is well intentioned. It’s all about choice. About letting the people who WANT Disney to GET Disney (or its equivalent, like the Princeton sims or Magic Bakery or whatever).
And we’ll see: the Lab has made tough choices before and often it’s the unintended consequences that are the most beneficial, and almost ALWAYS it’s the process of getting there that causes most of the pain.
Wagons ho.
This is nothing but bad news. Attempts to child-proof the real world invariably fail, and if SL is altered to mirror RL, then those efforts will fail inworld as well.
If Linden wants to ensure a mass exodus to its first viable competitor (and even to hasten its arrival on the scene), this is a surefire way to do it.
Lets off a huge yeehaw on the first hour experience. Sounds like the new “continent” will house 90% of the official “gateway” portals!
What is the first question the hordes of mass-media following newbies ask? No comment, but in virtual London they get sent to Soho – not some nether-region removed from the greater social complex that may ultimately widen their interest in exploring virtual presence in all its myriad uses.
Exactly what the “sensibilities” of residents are that preclude the presence of something that merely replicates the complexities of real life human society are beyond me. or maybe LL still think they are running a “game” platform – Sin Sims instead of Sin City.
Personally I can live without the “one-track-mind” sin-seekers intruding in places they are less than welcome, but segregation seems far worse. What next – virtual apartheid.
You all still dont get it…
RISK, GAMING, NOT BUSINESS drives LL and their ilk.
BTW, Bernie Madoff just made that same “Risk-gaming” argument as he was arraigned today in court.
never trust a burning man to have any interest but his own.
more real? lol
Hey everyone, read the official blog post and participate in the forums here. You have an opportunity to affect how this project evolves. https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/community/blog/2009/03/12/upcoming-changes-for-adult-content
Btw, the “more real” language was from an earlier blog post that I shared with Dusan. We removed it because people misunderstood it. As Cyn comments in the forums “Basically, we are trying for the majority of Second Life to just be… life. Any form, format, or point of view you like, in what we now call the mature area – sort of like the town square. The very sexually explicit and extremely violent, we want to have in a location you choose to go to, just as you would in the “real world”.
I say it’s about time. Even people who like to have sex in SL get tired of being propositioned all the time or having erections show up at meetings.
I always thought that if any company could make a successful go in SL and understand how to do it, it would be Disney. But I knew SL with it’s wild “Boogie Nights” culture, they would never come here.
SL is a business and it needs business venture money to fuel it’s growth. Unfortunately that means this kind of change was inevitable. From what I’ve read, they don’t plan to haul us old timers to the T&A island. But serious kink stuff will be moved.
At heart, I don’t think it would change our day to day SL life. But what it would change is the comfortable mindset. We would still go about our business but now everyone will be paranoid and jumping at shadows.
Personlly, I’m not worried but I’m not excited about the changes either.
They threw the “Adult” designation into the source code months ago back in Fall ’08, before there was even a hint of an announced merger of the TG/MG or a sweeping policy on adult content. I feel very bad for anyone who thinks that their opinion matter much, because these forum threads should be considered–at best–feelers into how the community might react once the decisions that have already been made will be implemented. For example, you would have to be *insane* to think that LL’s broken account-verification system would be adequate, yet that’s what they’re claiming. If you read the first Linden posts, you’ll even notice phrases like “We’ve carefully researched the anticipated impact.” If they already have “adequate research,” why are they even bothering to ask what residents think? Because they know it’ll be an even bigger PR nightmare than openspaces if they upheave the Adult community and don’t at least *pretend* to give the people they’re upheaving a voice.
All of this, of course, is well within they’re right. They own the grid, they can shove around people as much as they want. I just wish they would stop being so disingenuous about it one of these days; it’s just pathetic in this case.
I agree, btw, that they’re most likely “sanitizing” the mainland for corporate interests. That’s always been the teet they’ve tried to suckle, even though their support for enterprise needs is ludicrously lacking. My predictions for the ramifications: the new Adult ghetto will fail horribly; the glut of adult products will face harsher competition with their customer base shrinking (as many people work/buy in clearly adult areas without having payment info on file), and many of them will go under. Meanwhile, the mentors–the largest glut of the populace who even knows what an Abuse Report is, let alone how to use it–will be given next to no guidance by LL, and once it *is* somewhat given eventually it’ll probably be too late to prevent the massive amount of headaches that always ensue when residents want to use the world in one way, and LL wants them to use it in another. As adult businesses begin to close, expect another crop of dissatisfied customers to head to OpenSim and await full interop. Despite what the lindens at least on the forum threads are thinking, the economy will take a large hit, but eventually recover as new PG-friendly cash starts flowing in and stories of “M Linden Cleans Up Second Life!” comparing him to Guilliani attract signups.
I’m still have a hard time determining if all of this is a good or a bad thing, btw. So far, I’m just taking it for what I’m at least absolutely sure it is: another nail in the pioneer spirit coffin. It’s going to make me sad to watch another group of residents learn that despite their bold words, LL really doesn’t give a crap about their plot/store/club/community/home after all.
*rereads his comment* Haha, Freudian slip much? The curse of being a phonetic speller…
Here’s what i think it boils down to, why LL chose to do it, chose to reveal the new plan in this way…
“In fact, the Lab has a long history of having what seem like good reasons for doing things, in their own minds at least, and then being slightly baffled when stuff doesn’t quite turn out as planned.”
… that’s pretty much it… to me it seems like they know what they want to achieve, but they don’t know how to go about getting it done, nor do they really seem to care if their ideas are half-baked, or condusive for the community.
They just do what they do cause they do what they do.
( an example of the LL monday morning meeting:
M Linden: and, dont forget, we have Brenda’s birthday in the break room later… oh and Cyn, I think we should get that age thing rolling again. Cyn, just come up with a plan this week so we can post it by thursday. Now, who wants cake?)
I’m out. It’s heartbreaking, but this is the end of everything that’s good about SL.
The first commenter has it bang on the nail – bring on the first viable competitor.
If we’re *really* lucky that’s an open-source hosting package that allows each of us to run our own sim(s) on an individual server with the capability to interlock – just as we would with websites.
That’s the future and maybe this’ll drive us there that much quicker…
The “Cleaning Up Of Second Life” should in no way be accredited to M Linden, for the plans for governance of this kind were in place well before M Linden arrived at Linden Lab. That is an indisputable fact.
Nothing in this policy will inhibit residents from participating in activities they want to participate in as long as they verify and consent to participate. This is no different than showing identification before buying beer, entering a bar or buying an adult magazine. That is a practice which we find acceptable in the physical world and by which society has managed to chug along.
Throwing out corporate interests as a trump card for the reasoning behind the move is not wholly acceptable. Believe it or not, there are many adult residents that would prefer not to be confronted with adult material and it keeps some casual residents away just as much as it might keep businesses away.
In the physical world, we seem to think that having an adult club across the street from a church isn’t acceptable and so we disallow that with very little turmoil. It just makes sense that we work together to avoid upsetting people who may have different beliefs and preferences so that we can enjoy the freedom to pursue our own in peace and harmony.
There will be some interesting questions regarding creators of skins and if those skins might be made available for purchase to non-verified residents. I think the answer is probably going to be yes, skin sales may continue as long as the ads do not show full frontal nudity. Aquiring and wearing a demo of the skin will probably be tolerated as well. I think common sense just has to prevail here. No one is shopping for a skin to commit a vulgar or indecent act and they should not be accused of such. There will be other questions similar in scope but I think the fact that the film industry manages to designate and rate content to a degree that is found acceptable gives us a reasonable expectation that we can do that in Second Life as well.
Come on.
They take millions of dollars based on land-server flipping, porn and gambling. They then eliminate each “market” that made them short term profits, and then they’ll flip the tech carcas over to another company within 2 years.
So much for “changing anything”. From the first “OWN VIRTUAL LAND” banner to the last “BUY A UNLINCENSED FERRARI at SLX” banner, LL has been built on theft of others property and others ignorance of the true meaning of the TAO of Linden.
They only react to the legal issues after they have robbed the bank. Web2.0 ethics, 101.
chris
“I think the answer is probably going to be yes, skin sales may continue as long as the ads do not show full frontal nudity.”
You see this is what worries me, the mindset behind this element of SL. This indicates to me that there may be draconian measures taken with our culture even outside the pornography establishments.
I consider myself on the conservative side, but never once did I consider the nude models in Skin stores lewd. It never entered my mind to look upon them that way. None of the stores I ever visited depicted the models posing in skin as pornographic. They were always well done nude studies.
I refuse to see how this is lewd behavior or that it should be banned. The human body is not shameful. If I had a child, the skin stores wouldn’t bother me. Second Life has a reputation for being an adult playground in general. Which would mean I would allow no child of mine near it, no matter how watered down.
I can’t help but suspect that LL is hoping that most of the free wheeling residents will just run off to openlifegrid or worlds like it. They think they can carry on without most of us. Maybe they are right.
The worry in all this is that LL’s record suggests they could not write a clear rule to save their lives. What, for instance, is ‘intense language’? Shakespeare? Whitman?
What, for that matter, is PG, a category poorly understood in the US and unknown elsewhere. Are we going to get more nude statues with modesty boxes concealing their unmentionables?
Perhaps a prim figleaf could be included in everyone’s library. It could be used to cover the absurdities, gaps and contradictions in LL regulations.
While we’re analyzing language such as, “…in some very elemental ways, to more closely mirror the real world.”
I’m wondering if the use of a term closely tied to a particular religion in this statement:
“…they can toggle all that smutty adult-type stuff on and off based on how puritanical they feel.”
is meant to move this discussion in a particular direction?
Storm in a teacup. This will better allow for shared interests to erm *flourish*. The grid is too diverse, spread out, and you can hardly find a thing.
One new continent it will be (in my mind at least) like the red light district of SL.
I’ll eat my hat if the land in that space isn’t a premium + is a commercial success for Linden Lab. We also screamed we wanted mainland cleared up *not on my doorstep/parcel please* and now this comes along we scream *wait that sex club was actually ok next door*.
Strategically this makes perfect sense in terms on content / community.
Plus for the micro worriers e.g. can I show nipples on my skin advert in store. Common sense always prevails. If your model is grabbing her nipples and in a lewd post – I suggest you have a problem. If she is simply standing there and a non sexual pose – I suggest you likely do not at this stage.
People will test the boundaries and Linden’s normal process is to put a [badly] worded scope definition out, realize on the feedback, refine it, and repeat as necessary. What I have found good about this post is their obvious sensitivity around the implementation and the fact they are making it clear they are seeking feedback. They have been listening, that is clear.
I need to retract the ‘mirror the world’ comment. Thanks Catherine for pointing out that the final release used different language. The fact that it was in the original release still gives me pause, but I’ll take it that it was an unintended phrasing rather than a shift in philosophy.
We held a fascinating discussion yesterday at Metanomics – transcript is here. I think the gist of it was that this has the POTENTIAL to be a “culture changer” but it felt like the general trend was towards this being a “devil in the details” decision.
If the first hour experience can induce less anxiety and offense in people, while still giving the option to beam off to X-Rated land, who’s going to complain (or at least, that’s how the discussion felt, but maybe I was intruding my own biases).
The question is how to get to there from here, how the ‘transfer’ and ‘flagging’ will happen, and how it will all be enforced.
In fairness to the Lab, I think they’ve opened the door to a fairly robust discussion of what we mean when we say ‘explicit’. Clearly, as the interviews and comments on the Lab’s forum make clear, the “intent” here is to move explicit material to the new continent, and to fairly loosely flag the rest of it while always retaining the “back-up” of being able to crack down a little on egregious offenders.
Whether they can pull this off remains to be seen – but as this has played itself out over night, I’m starting to sense that the “move”, if handled with a fairly light um hand, might have some upsides. (and, again, this is my own bias, but I think the upsides for new users are fairly significant, whether they’re coming looking for the X-Rated stuff or they’re coming and hoping to avoid it).
@Luke – my puritanical comment was meant fairly specifically to flag my own bias. I’m Canadian after all – we can be very hmm ‘english’ but we’re also fairly generous in our allowances of the desires and behaviours of others.
I’m hoping the Lab acts more Canadian than puritanical.
Many have tried and many have failed. Nut at last, LL will succeed where others have failed. A Megamall for every Highway and Byway of the Human Sexual Condition. Bravo!
…expect another crop of dissatisfied customers to head to OpenSim and await full interop…
Its interesting to note that each time Linden Labs pushes its fingers into the Second Life grid, the other grids gain momentum. End song to this all will be a myriad of inter-opped grids with each a specific kind of populace, and Second Life’s grid being the neutral town square.
Lets wait and see how good http://www.redlightcenter.com/ does out of this announcement.
This is not about sex and morality. This is about money and web 2.0 ethics and will most likely be executed as just another way to increase LL’s server rental profits this next quarter. There will be no financial consideration for their customers time and money already spent. A few will , as in the past be privy to insider info and flip new parcels and sims given LL “partner of the moment” blessing, but most will lose more time and money and in the end, LL will simply delete all efforts not in their own best financial interests of any given moment.
This is of course, what we all signed up for after clicking “I agree with the TOS” and placed “our content” and “our work product” into a system which dosent place much interest in it or it’s value financially to others.
I’m just wondering if I can still sing the “God will fuck you up” song at shows. Will they shut down Luxor Stage?
I can’t help but think there is a lot of excessive hand-wringing, lack of tolerance for a little change, and lack of imagination of how this can be good.
Johna makes the point that other grids will also prosper… but it may not be so much that they are fleeing, it may simply be that virtual worlds are maturing, growing, and diversifying. It is good that others are trying other options. These don’t have to be harbingers of doom or threat, they are simply the natural way that new things can be innovated and tested.
As to the fear that once RL kids are added, it will threaten the freedom of mature areas, remember this is a world where rules can be defined and enforced with a lot of granularity, objects, areas, and avatars can have a lot of different limitations placed so that kids can’t go into adult areas, adult themed objects can only belong to appropriate accounts, and unlike the real world, and adult can have a “restraining order” that prevents them from going near the kid’s playground, if need be.
Change does not have always be bad, but change does cause disruption. Like the Linden said, they are first opening this up to debate, so think through your concerns or suggestions and get them in the mix.
I remember a hippie once told me that “FEAR” was “Forever Evading Another Reality”. Don’t give into fear and intolerance of change when you can embrace it and help shape it.
Once the “shock and awe” of announcing the proposed cleaning up of Dodge City has subsided, perhaps the knee-jerk condemnation can give way to some rational discussion about what is clearly an issue.
The veritable “blogsplosion” of comments on this issue indicate that without a doubt, raw nerves have been touched but much calmer one will be needed to make some decisions. Given that Second Life as a PRODUCT serves the needs of different customers in different ways, there’s no doubt that some folks are going to be dissatisfied with any changes.
As to my contribution, I would argue that the discussion should NOT be on how to define “adult content” and what is and isn’t allowed but on how to control ACCESS to particular locations.
And it is, of course, predominantly about sex – a brief skip through the blogosphere will support that – and by default, that means the current “Adult areas.” The underlying concern seems to be two-fold: kids who can wander into a “three-men-and-a-goat scenario” and end up emotional scarred for life, or of adults who wander into a “three-goats-and-a-man scenario” and find it offensive (even if the goats are consenting goats).
Rather than try to prescribe whether goatly action should be allowed, the challenge is to prevent access to the entertainment. Banning goat sex will serve no purpose because (a) there’s no way to police it and (b) there’s no way to police it. Yes, I repeated the phrase but I thought it was important enough to deserve a second hearing.
Oh, and related to this is the other elephant in the room (or goat, if you want to continue the metaphor) – how do you “punish” criminals in Second Life? Irrespective of whatever system ends up being implemented by LL, or whatever definitions of “adult content” get foisted out, the REAL problem is how to enforce them. Simply clicking on “Abuse Report” when you see some hot goat-man action only flags an event; it doesn’t ban the goatish avatars, who can simply sign up again as Goatboy2, Goatboy3, and so on until he runs out of numbers.
So, my take on this is that all this strum und drang about kinky sex masks the underlying – an unaddressed – issues of (a) how do you police SL activities, (b) how do punish infractions of the TOS/Law, and (c) how do you prevent repeat offenders (alts).
…and now we are back to our old friend, compulsory registration using a credit card – or at least that general issue of linking RL and SL identity. And that’s an issue that I suspect will make this current spat seem like the good old days.
[...] issues cause a lot of controversy. Dusan Writer writes: (…) being digital, being virtual isn’t just a technology, it’s not just about [...]
“And it is, of course, predominantly about sex ”
Its the “AFTER THE FACT AND MONEY/TIMES SPENT” issue that is the core of the matter.
This is about business, ownership of time and money, law, and fair value of any agreement or relationship.
This is about “beta culture”,the “product warrentee” ,the “personal freedom of ownership” and the “service” corporation.
Sex , like gambling before was always going to be an issue in this “lab experiment” as designed by the Linden’s for the Lindens:).
More rats now keep seeing the true maze. Thats the true problem the lab now has.
The rats? well they always get tossed after the labs are done with them.:)
I found the whole thing kind of funny. Sad too and somewhat inevitable. But you got to laugh.
Btw, the “more real” language was from an earlier blog post that I shared with Dusan. We removed it because people misunderstood it. As Cyn comments in the forums “Basically, we are trying for the majority of Second Life to just be… life. Any form, format, or point of view you like, in what we now call the mature area – sort of like the town square. The very sexually explicit and extremely violent, we want to have in a location you choose to go to, just as you would in the “real world”.”
IT ALREADY IS. IT’S CALLED TELEPORT.
The real world does not have these huge distinctions for adult content. In my city centre I will find toy stores near stores that sell sex toys. The dirty bookstore usually stands out like a sore thumb because it’s the store that has the windows blocked, but they’re not shunted to a completely different zone.
If you go to Amsterdam you don’t need to be an adult to walk through the red light district, there’s no barrier with an id check. A responsible parent of course is unlikely to bring their kid traipsing through there of course.
There are positives to an adult continent, the same as there are positives to a non adult continent and this is where I think Linden Lab should lead this. Encourage, but don’t force, people to setup shop in a more suitable location for their offerings or needs.
[...] what does NOT surprise me is.. well. Read the first comment posted to Dusan’s considered blog post about the whole [...]
hello
You know what I find TERRIBLY annoying about this discussion? The notion that Linden Lab, those hippies, those technocommies, those Extropians, being somehow driven to “prudishness” because of their status as Americans, and presumbably Puritan motives.
The fact is, the non-Americans are the biggest drivers of this. It was the European prosecution of child pornography simulation in SL that drove the policy against “ageplay” for example, which would have been tolerated under the First Amendment.
Can you please name one virtual world out there that has this number of people and has adult content? Red Light District died. So, could you cite any? In Canada or the UK? Where we are hearing the biggest screaming and finger-pointing about these prudish Americans?
Seriously, I’d love the Europeans to try making an MMOG or VW that has gambling and adult content and doesn’t charge VAT lol. These three things that they thing evil imperialist industrial religious complex Americans are trying to wipe off the Internet. Then we’d see if in fact the populations of those countries really supported such online activity or not.
The Red Light Center seems online and doing fine.
American Corporate Financed Pornography is safe too. Way to much money involved by large cable tv, hotel, and media corporations who sell “sugar pop ” by day, and “pay per view” by night:)
I am not so sure on the UK side in that scope of European Prok.
Registrations of UK users rose substantially after press on the sex scandals etc.
I do not believe this is driven by *cleaning up content*. This is driven by commercial land etc. Think of those premiums for the Linden built mainland areas. I suspect they have already been working on this and it will be found to be commercially lucrative for the Lab.
Their own red light district so to speak will sell for a premium no doubt.
absolutley jonathan,
I expect 1500.00 setup fees and 395.00 monthly tiers – to be 6 months later extended to all “estates” to run CLASS S(for sex) Servers.
This is just another attempt to get while the getting still seems good.
The only plan is to keep all customers unsure of anything, keep them “blogging” at themsleves to feel “good and important” and to keep doing what will ever keep cash flowing into the bank account.
Its really not any “new paradigm”..;)
Those who can still profit from the system will stay, those who can no longer afford to, will leave, still believing in “TAOs” or not:)
“the crime of apartheid”
When I first arrived in SL I was shocked and dismayed by the discovery of BDSM, the obvious Sexual nature of a lot of the content and most defiantly by the concept of slavery, I am African, to me it was a nightmare. But I explored, I met people, I listened. I found a diversity of cultures, of beliefs of sexual tolerance. A world where we were separated only by Time, not by Borders, Colour, Creed or Sexual Preference. I stayed and I loved it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeska Linden
To be clear, the blog states there are three main features involved in this change:
* Provide a way to geographically separate Adult content to a new part of the “mainland” designed
* Filter search results, so that those who do not wish to see “Adult” results will not
* Require that those who access or see “Adult” content (whether on land or in search) have had their accounts verified – such as by a payment or age verification method.
In the real world I grew up in a country with forced removals where different groups were allocated separate land, pass laws to verify your status, of censorship in media and in speech. In short the 3 points Jeska highlights above. We had a name for it:
‘Apartheid — meaning separateness in Dutch (which is cognate to the English apart and -hood) — was a system of legal segregation enforced by the government in South Africa between 1948 and 1994. The vestiges of apartheid still shape South African politics and society.’
I now have to live with the aftermath of Apartheid and it is not nice, our society is so fragmented, groups are still suspicious of each other, cultures keep to themselves. Everything is the opposite of what drew me so deeply into SL.
If LL are hell bent on enforcing “the crime of apartheid” onto the virtual world of SL, then they are bound to repeat history and as a social experiment Second Life has failed.
These proposals will not affect me in any way, they may effect some of my friends, but they will effect a lot of people initially and all of us in the end.
I lived with and fought against Apartheid all my life, do I now have to repeat that in my Virtual world?
Dusan’s analysis of the immediate effects to the community is very sound. Avatrian does not really dabble in any adult or mature oriented content. So we are unaffected by all this. However, the thought of a seperate T&A continent, virtual apartheid and sim relocations…it does not illicit good feelings. Disruptions are never welcomed and wide sweeping cultural changes imposed from the top are always alienating. I think when LL does their cost/benefit analysis before doing these things, it is easier for them to see (and therefore value) the corporate few in relation to the residential many.
This will really create a two-class system in SL : The “Verified” and the unwashed “Unverified” who are banned from all lands flagged “mature”. What an impact this will have for people with multiple alts!
I can see how people who are Unverified will be viewed with suspicion by the Verfied.
The problem with global, ubiquitous censorship (and thats what LL is trying to implement, effectively) are manyfold. Two of the most important ones (besides many technical problems) are:
#1: Laws and law enforcement without a supporting jurisdictional system (a court of appeals for example) are basically what defines a dictatorship.
#2: There is no global standard (and probably can’t be), what is “decency”. The internetz (and SL) is global, though. LL is basically trying to enforce local standards (“frontal nudity” ROTFL) to its global target group.
Cultural standards vary wildly over the globe. In some countries exposing a woman’s nipple is considered indecent (or worse). In other cultures showing her face outside the home is indecent. In Germany the public display of a swastika is illegal – as is consummation of child porn (not only production). Personally I find pictures of people carrying giant guns much more obscene the pictures of a couple making love. Culture (and law) is local, sometimes even personal. The internetz isn’t.
There are may people, who have no problems with #2. Prok’s comment is a good example. The reasoning behind it is basically: LL is an American company and an American company has a right to enforce American standards (this is NOT an purely American attitude btw. it tends to be more prevalent in more powerful nations, though
The problem with this attitude is that (1) it doesn’t hold water legally. Residents coming from other nations have to follow their local laws (even in SL). That’s why this move only helps Linden Lab in the US on the purely legal side, which now is less than half it’s market. (2) it at least misleading advertisement if not something stronger to present yourself as a basically neutral, global platform but behave like you are a district of one of the worlds nations.
Let’s be honest and reasonable:
If you look at the phrasing of Linden Lab’s original post it becomes fairly clear, that the main impetus for this program is to provide the corporations and other organizations which are the focus of their current sales, PR and marketing activities with a “clean” environment. Corporations in general ARE more puritan than than the citizens themselves in most cultures of the world.
So it seems to make sense to them to “clean up SL”. This is a valid business reason. That’s all.
All the other nice words around the announcement is just … PR
I an new to SL and just starting to find my way around the world. I looked at SL teen and thought that it was a bad setup but good idea.
I like the idea of adult content control but think they should relaunch SL teen as a restricted version of SL and allow those that want more control of x rate content to migrate to a PG rate version.
Maybe its time LL update how user interact in SL and start ranking content provides as a a way to improve the world, SL 2.0 maybe.
The main problem with this scheme is LL is trying to set up governance without government. The forum is chock full of Does the Adult classification apply to Case X? The answer is almost always no, but that is not consistent with what the Adult definition actually says.
So we are going o have a regulation where case-by-case declarations by the enforcers override what the regulation actually says. IT’s a coder’s dream to have law-as-code that somehow executes itself without courts, judges or juries. It’s a user’s nightmare to have law=as=code where the enforcers spend all their time insisting that the text of the regulation does not mean what it says.
It would be seriously hard to come up with a more arbitrary scheme of regulation or one that was more open to regulatory griefing.
[...] Lab’s decision to create a continent in Second Life for explicit adult content had me picturing wagon trains loaded up with dance poles and avatar, um, [...]
[...] Dusan Writer believes this is a step in the upcoming merger with the teen-grid, I believe that it’s a broader move that aligns Second Life with many other online policies. [...]
[...] it looks like the embargo is off and all the major bloggers/journalists are sounding off on the proposed new Adult content policies. As a Minor Nuisance, I [...]