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Age Verification Gone?


Gideon McCullough
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Steam is a popular gaming client that you can purchase games from and play games through. Has its own friends list and millions of active users. Game portal basically. I find this quite ironic that age verification was removed if this happens to be true. I'll have to look later and see if maybe they just simply moved it.

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Herry Maltz wrote:

Steam is a popular gaming client that you can purchase games from and play games through. Has its own friends list and millions of active users. Game portal basically. I find this quite ironic that age verification was removed if this happens to be true. I'll have to look later and see if maybe they just simply moved it.

Age verification -- as a separate process -- has certainly been removed.  It went on July 9th, and Inara Pey blogged about it at length the following day.    Now, the first time you try to access an Adult sim (assuming you provided a date of birth that qualifies you to visit it) you get a modal dialogue box asking to confirm you want to access Adult Content and, if you do, it adjusts your preferences for you seamlessly.

I agree with Marx; this seems a logical extension of the changes LL had made a year before -- simply asking you to confirm your date of birth on the website.   It's no less secure that that -- if you're going to provide a bogus date of birth at registration, then that's what you're going to do.    And, speaking as someone with some professional experience in this field, I would considerably more concerned about the threats to my teenage children's safety and wellbeing -- if I had any teenage children, that is -- posed by unsupervised access to social networking sites and cellphones than by anything they might encounter in SL.

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sure kids should never be in an adult sim what i never got is why is that linden labs responsibility? i think thats up to the parrents  to supervice right their kids ... also give em a break i mean people where getting veryfied as elvis prisley  ...

and thats kind of a sign that linden labs did not store your information the system was checking if  name licence id etc exist to a real person and thats all ... thought thats my assuption really

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I agree with the abuse toward individuals, specifically the younger population on the grid. Honestly there are going to be people over the adult side of things that blow it way out of proportion. I'm just shocked they removed it in a way. Oh well though. Maybe I should start reading the blog more often? I'd be more informed on things. lol

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Nala Spires wrote:

sure kids should never be in an adult sim what i never got is why is that linden labs responsibility? i think thats up to the parrents  to supervice right their kids ... also give em a break i mean people where getting veryfied as elvis prisley  ...

and thats kind of a sign that linden labs did not store your information the system was checking if  name licence id etc exist to a real person and thats all ... thought thats my assuption really

Hmm, is the content on those sims legally prohibited to minors, or is the age restriction simply in the name of good taste.

In the U.S. if you sell products or services that are not legally available to minors, you are obligated to verify their eligability for purchase.  Whether it is beer at the local pub or porn on the internet the retailer is responsible for age verification.

If the product/service may legally be sold to minors, then it falls to the parents to police their children's activities.  However, parents cannot be all places at all time and a bit of help is much appreciated--especially in the wilds of the internet where the typical parent lacks the skills to monitor their kids' activities.

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Gideon McCullough wrote:

I was just looking through my Dashboard, and noticed that the Age Verification section is gone?

 

Excuse me for possibly being naive, but what is keeping the kids out of the Adult regions now?  (I know what was there wasn't too reliable, but it was better than nothing)

 

Please explain to me?

 

Nothing keeps kids outuv adult regions. Kids can simply lie about their age.

Jeanne

 

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Reading the Official Blog doesn't tell you very much, unfortunately.   Many important changes now, for good or bad, just get quietly implemented.  

If you want to keep up on what changes LL have introduced or are introducing,  I suggest reading Inara Pey's Living In the Modem World and Nalates Urriah's Nalates Things & Stuff, since they keep up what's happening in the usergroups and technical subforums, which is where things get announced now.

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I recently took an alt through the adult verification process and was surprised that I only had to click on a button that confirmed I was over 18! But then, should I have been surprised? After all, this is the only verification I have had to use on other websites to access adult content.

LL could argue that it isn't their responsibility to be doing what parents should be doing; ie having parental control filters set by the owners of the computers.

Here in the UK, there is a lot of discussion about this; parents are being urged via television programmes, schools, information leaflets, printed media, to ensure their kids are safe, and not able to access adult material.

 

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Echo Hermit wrote:

I recently took an alt through the adult verification process and was surprised that I only had to click on a button that confirmed I was over 18! But then, should I have been surprised? After all, this is the only verification I have had to use on other websites to access adult content.

LL could argue that it isn't their responsibility to be doing what parents should be doing; ie having parental control filters set by the owners of the computers.

Here in the UK, there is a lot of discussion about this; parents are being urged via television programmes, schools, information leaflets, printed media, to ensure their kids are safe, and not able to access adult material.

 

In most case kids are far more tech savvy than their parents are .. leaving it up to parents to keep their kids outuv places adults have decided they dont belong simply doesnt work .. When my 2 younger brothers were teens they laughed @ the filters our mom & their school tried to place between them & 'age inappropriate' online content .. the things they pulled were outrageous ~everything from hacking their schools website to ripping off credit card info .. Sounds to me like the current discussion in the UK you describe isa bout 20 yrs too late

Jeanne

 

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JeanneAnne wrote:


Echo Hermit wrote:

I recently took an alt through the adult verification process and was surprised that I only had to click on a button that confirmed I was over 18! But then, should I have been surprised? After all, this is the only verification I have had to use on other websites to access adult content.

LL could argue that it isn't their responsibility to be doing what parents should be doing; ie having parental control filters set by the owners of the computers.

Here in the UK, there is a lot of discussion about this; parents are being urged via television programmes, schools, information leaflets, printed media, to ensure their kids are safe, and not able to access adult material.

 

In most case kids are far more tech savvy than their parents are ..
leaving it up to parents to keep their kids outuv places adults have decided they dont belong simply doesnt work .. When my 2 younger brothers were teens they laughed @ the filters our mom & their school tried to place between them & 'age inappropriate' online content .. the things they pulled were outrageous ~everything from hacking their schools website to ripping off credit card info .. Sounds to me like the current discussion in the UK you describe isa bout 20 yrs too late

Jeanne

 

This (what I bolded) is so much the truth.

The Media (newspaper's, television, etc) loves hyping the "dangers" of the Internet because it sells.

The Government love's the Media Hype because it makes them look good and they are able to use it to justify increasing intrusions into our personal lives.

Some people don't raise children.  They just breed.  If by the time they are 16 your children aren't able to begin handling Adult topics, you have failed as a parent. While I feel bad for the children, I have no sympathy for the Parents when they cry to the News about how their precious Snowflake got hurt.

No doubt that children have been lured into dangerous situations on the Internet and this truly does suck.  But amazingly, the reality remains that the statistics have barely changed, that ~80% of abuse cases, both of children and of adults, are perpetrated by someone the victim knew.

I for one do not want to live in a Nanny State nor do I want my Internet censored or limited because someone didn't watch over their children.

 

eta to correct a typo

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I am too with Perrie on this one.

There was talk about UK having automatic filters to prevent kids from accidentally gaining access to adult material, but I, as someone in a child-free home, do not wish to have to jump through hoops to view whatever I want to view without censorship, just because some parents are not responsible enough to look out for their kids better.

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Echo Hermit wrote:

I am too with Perrie on this one.

There was talk about UK having automatic filters to prevent kids from accidentally gaining access to adult material, but I, as someone in a child-free home, do not wish to have to jump through hoops to view whatever I want to view without censorship, just because some parents are not responsible enough to look out for their kids better.


such a filter would only inconvenience adults & provide a game for kids to figure out how to bypass .. which would take the savvy kids like 2 minutes .. & then theyd tell their friends how to do it ..

whats wrong w/ ppl ?!?  are they just stupid? or what ??

Jeanne

 

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  • 8 months later...
  • 10 months later...

I cant believe I am reading posts from people who are saying basically "so what about the kids.  Who cares if they stumble into a extreme adult sim and run into some crazy guy who will expose them to life altering sexual contents and situations so long as I dont have to bother typing in my SS# or drivers license number to be able to create an account".  Are you kidding me!  When i created my account 4 years so it was as simple at that.  Took me a few sec to type one of those two things in to verify myself.  As it is now, if a kid is smart enough to figure what year you had to be born in to be over 18 they can access any and eveything they shouldnt be able to.

I am a parent of 3 boys and I am tech savy and I monotered them closely.  But you so was my mom but i still managed to get around her when i wanted to.  Kids will, thats the bottom line, good parent, bad parent, absent parent etc.  Unless they stand over their shoulder at all times they are online and lock the computer away in a vault when they cant, kids will get into things they dont know about.

I dont see the harm in putting back the requirement of entering a SS or Drivers license # to age verify.  Should never have been removed.  And i have no failed to notice that about the time they took that requirement off is when they removed the teen grid and opened the main grid to teens.  SHAME ON YOU LINDEN LABS!

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You're posting in a two year old thread about a topic that is long since settled.

It may have been comforting for some users, back when Linden Lab was still paying Aristotle / Integrity for security theatre, but that's all it ever was. Although it did interfere with registration by some adults, it never discouraged a single minor from accessing any Second Life content. It only gave some folks a false sense of confidence -- that kids were being protected, or that they themselves were being protected from encountering minors pretending to be adults.

It's very good that such illusions are no longer being promoted.

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