Type "Second Life" into Twitter Right Now

[Prokofy Neva]

Do a search on Twitter with the term "Second Life".

If this link doesn't work just go to twitter.com and type the term in yourself.

And here's what you will find:

Furries, furries, and MORE furries. And in fact some of the most graphic and grotesque furries you have ever seen, of the kind you actually never see out and about in Second Life. There are even clips of furries having graphic sex. Loads of them. Scads, droves. 

Now, I don't have anything against furries as such -- I have long had a dragon and some other animal avatars and now have several Dinkies. My tenants are furries. Furries are thought to be the soul of SL in some ways, although for me, elves and fairies are more the soul, but whatever, it's different for everyone.

But this is a particular kind of very exhibitionist furry -- it's often the males who have those female furry avatars with the ENORMOUS boobs -- or other bits. And that is the face of Second Life and draws ridicule. Nothing can or should be done about it -- except to post other kinds of things -- of course first overcoming the hurdle you inevitably must overcome as your friends and family say, discovering your post about Second Life on your RL social media counts, "Isn't that the furry sex place?"

No, it's not just one account with a lot of posts. It's numerous accounts. I have an SL Twitter account that I go on every few days @Prokofy Neva -- I was an early adapter of Twitter on this account, and I actually never see those furry pics and graphic clips go by when I'm casually reading through Twitter. I had to make a point of looking for them (Twitter like other social media funnels what you see to your friends or things you've liked, so I tend to see lots of exploration pictures and videos and stories of new sites, not graphic furries.

But if you look on Twitter now, what's interesting is that there's also now a smattering of posts from universities, saying they are dusting off their old SL campuses due to the need for remote learning now; one says "People laughed when we spent six figures building an SL campus but who's laughing now?"

A number of universities and businesses are now including SL in lists of recommended sites where to have meetings, and posting on Twitter. And facing skepticism and ridicule.

So what do you figure the turn-off is? What is SL ALREADY associated with? Graphic furries. Teachers fear these graphic, hyper-sexualized furries distracting their students and businesses fear it will harm their brand.

Of course those of us actually *in* SL know that this is a caricature, an exaggeration, "not what it's really like".

And there is no way you could stop such posts nor would you want to. People should be free to do what they want on social media. But here the Lindens are spending time and money on ad campaigns; here everyone is arguing about how they should be done, but for free, another massive, home-made ad campaign is going on that drives away many customers, even if it might attract a niche, and that is "Furries of Twitter".

Sure, come on and defend the furry life and the graphic furry sex life, that's fine, I'm all for that. But surely you can see the problem when it becomes *the only way SL is envisioned*. And that's unfair, because it's far more diverse than that. I see hundreds of sims, I go to all kinds of events, including things like "We ❤️ RP" where you'd expect to see strange furry get-ups -- but I'm telling you, I have never seen a more graphic and off-putting parade as I have seen just now on Twitter, as I look at it through the eyes of people potentially looking over SL as a possible venue to have virtual meetings.

So this is why I mention again that ad campaigns have to stress that people can control their environment -- the way they look, who they let into their space, how their space is used. Controlling the environment. This is the secret sauce of SL that Philip mentioned early on. And to be sure, griefers override things like island ban efforts. But truly, there is a great deal you can do to control your experience, and griefing is far from the bane sometimes imagined -- and I speak as someone targeted specifically for harassment for what I do in SL and RL with some of the most persistent and grotesque griefing out there.

What can be done about this? Nothing directly -- you can only put out MORE stuff so that the mix is more diverse. 

[Syo Emerald]

Twitter is full of porn in general.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

Not all of us furries are crapping all over twitter, this is why we all get a bad rap. 

[Beth Macbain]

I just performed this same search and had to go pretty far down the page to find anything I would consider furry porn. Erotic photography, yes, but it's hardly the same thing.

I saw a huge variety of tweets pertaining to SL, from DJs, to some really beautiful landscape and portrait photography, lots of SL pets, someone tweeting about playing board games in SL, destination recommendations, shopping ads... It's almost like you were looking for the bad. Well, your definition of bad. I don't consider furry porn a bad thing. It's not my particular kink but I'm not going to crap all over someone else's. 

I rarely tweet, but if it makes you feel better, I'll start posting my more adult perverted human pics to Twitter to balance out the furry porn!

[Wulfie Reanimator]

As a very non-exhibitionist furry (not that I'm judging or innocent), everything I saw on the search results is pretty standard for any furry-specific places, or ones that also target furries. Sandbox, hangout, club, it's all mostly the same with people hanging with their bits out or otherwise unmodest outfits, other places just have a higher concentration of them. Full-on sex in public is not that common though. 

I also don't think companies care about furries. Just the graphic content in general. You can find just as many weird "human" places that heavily focus on more realistic taboos and degradation, but including all the kinks furries are into.

Edited March 13, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[missyrideout]

4 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I had to make a point of looking for them

Classic filter bubble. I couldn’t find any. I’m mocking but this is also a real thing. Algorithmic searches prioritize what you actively look for far more than anything else. Why? Because the average user simply hoovers up whatever comes along in the endless scroll. Searching for furry content tells the algorithm you  really really want to see it.  

[Janet Voxel]

5 minutes ago, missyrideout said:

Classic filter bubble. I couldn’t find any. I’m mocking but this is also a real thing. Algorithmic searches prioritize what you actively look for far more than anything else. Why? Because the average user simply hoovers up whatever comes along in the endless scroll. Searching for furry content tells the algorithm you  really really want to see it.  

Damn, beat me to it. Twitter’s algorithm shows you more of the types of things you’ve already been looking at....hm.

[missyrideout]

I follow mostly  politics and current events on twitter, so this is what they consider top content for me. I will allow that searching for #secondlife (not the same as "second life") does return more adult content. But it's a nice mix of things: stuff I've already seen on flickr and some I haven't—and yes some furries—but not at a level that requires panic. 

Edited March 13, 2020 by missyrideout

[Theresa Tennyson]

5 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Do a search on Twitter with the term "Second Life".

If this link doesn't work just go to twitter.com and type the term in yourself.

And here's what you will find:

Furries, furries, and MORE furries. And in fact some of the most graphic and grotesque furries you have ever seen, of the kind you actually never see out and about in Second Life. There are even clips of furries having graphic sex. Loads of them. Scads, droves. 

 

Furries are also an obsession with a certain strain of griefer as well - some may be posting deliberately provocative pictures to make furries look bad.

[Solar Legion]

Oh for the love of ....

Despite your protests to the contrary it is apparent that you do have an issue with furs in general. It is apparent to anyone that has had more than passing interaction with you and it ranks up there with your issues concerning anyone in the Tech Sector - including volunteer Tech Support.

As others have already noted, what you're seeing is your own doing. You went looking for it, found it and now their algorithm is going to show it to you.

Congratulations.

[Tolya Ugajin]

"So what do you figure the turn-off is? What is SL ALREADY associated with? Graphic furries. "

Surely SL is widely associated with sex, but I think the image that generally comes up in people's minds is that of the acne-covered and hygiene-challenged incel fapping furiously to animated cartoon sex in their mom's basement, not graphic furries.

Sorry I don't have a clip that gets right to the appropriate part

[Pussycat Catnap]

Griefers have had a long standing policy of using cheap furry avatars when they come into SL to wreck havoc... Streamers and others likewise... think 'furry' means 'look at how freaky this is' - so they go and get a free furry, and then make their vids.

Sadly they help make both SL and furries look bad... and don't actually represent either community.

You can go on youtube and look for streamers of assorted online games, and see if they have ever done a 'check out second life' video... and a good number of them that have done so spent a bit of their time acting as griefers on a free furry avatar, and/or visiting some escort or sex joint while so doing...
- and as soon as they upload that video, they never look back, and move on to the next thing that will serve as click bait...

Edited March 13, 2020 by Pussycat Catnap

[Chaser Zaks]

(I tried to keep the graphic language down, but unfortunately the subject matter makes that a bit difficult)

Hello, furry who dislikes the fandom here(there are three stages of furry "OMG FURRIES R TEH BEST", "they are ok", "god i hate this fandom". I am stage 3 lol.).

So I searched "second life" on twitter. I found a lot of irrelevant posts(75%), furry posts(15%), and then regular posts(10%). Of the furry posts, a majority were NSFW, however they were properly flagged posts meaning only those who enable "Show sensitive content" will see them.

Not to point fingers, but sex and what not isn't fandom specific. Take Goreons for example, or a majority of Zindra. Those are mostly Human ran operations. It just happens that furries like to be more open about this stuff because they are used to it.

Now as for me, I do have various female characters along with my male characters, and I am a G.I.R.L.(Guy in real life). I believe I give my female avatars average size boobs. (nips deleted because no nips = sfw from what I am told): https://i.imgur.com/CisBuFZ.png
Now if someone wants to give their avatar big boobs, that is totally up to them. It is their avatar, and Second Life is a place to express yourself. Natural big boobs do exist. As for "other bits", yes I did add such to my female avatar in the screenshot, but that is because that is who she is.

As for "exhibitionist" furries, furries into weird stuff(bdsm, etc), I'll admit, I am one of those furries, but I don't go posting on twitter(My twitter is relatively sfw aside from a few meme posts). I keep that stuff either in SL in places it belongs, or on my personal webpage.
I particularly don't like clothes though because I have autism and I am horrible at fashion. So no clothes = no fashion worry. This isn't a exhibitionism choice, it is a "i'm dumb and bad at fashion so screw fashion" choice.

BUT here is a key point, I am one of those people who socially advertise Second Life, and loves to help new residents and ensure that there is good new resident retention with those I meet. I keep all that weird stuff away from new residents. If they hint that they are looking for weird stuff, I'll help them out with that after confirming it. But if they don't want that weird stuff, they never hear a peep about it from me aside from the "maturity ratings" discussion.

There are also the people who post nsfw images(despite it not being allowed) to the https://my.secondlife.com/#trending_feed feed, which 99% of who do that are people with human avatars, so just saying.

So in summary, I don't feel it is much of a problem as most people looking for info about Second Life as a business platform will have nsfw enabled on twitter, and if they did, they probably wouldn't be the type to judge considering theres some pretty weird stuff on twitter.

Edited March 14, 2020 by Chaser Zaks

[cheesecurd]

How to identify people out of touch with internet culture:

-surprised twitter is full of furries

-surprised that the furries who play SL also use twitter

-surprised furries, an internet centric subculture, are sexual degenerates 

Lol.

[Beth Macbain]

Friday, March 13, 2020 - The day Prokofy got the furries to turn on each other.

And the Dinkies wept.

[Selene Gregoire]

1 hour ago, Beth Macbain said:

Friday, March 13, 2020 - The day Prokofy got the furries to turn on each other.

And the Dinkies wept.

Dammit Beth you just had to go and tell me. Good thing I did my errands and don't need to leave the house again today. 

Edited March 14, 2020 by Selene Gregoire

[Axel UwU]

4 hours ago, cheesecurd said:

How to identify people out of touch with internet culture:

-surprised twitter is full of furries

-surprised that the furries who play SL also use twitter

-surprised furries, an internet centric subculture, are sexual degenerates 

Lol.

 

 

Yup,i wonder if they are aware of other internet fandoms like Bronies or anime

[Evah Baxton]

Yes. I will never understand why I have no problem with Furries either.

[Axel UwU]

On 3/13/2020 at 3:15 AM, Syo Emerald said:

Twitter is full of porn in general.

 

Welcome to the internet. I remember when the internet was first getting started about 1994 AOL days and people on the news were talking about the porn and such on the internet.

[Caitlin Tobias]

It depends on your own search history I suppose.

I search for Second Life and #Secondlife daily on Twitter and while I do see the occasional 'adult' furry, most of the tweets I get to see are posts from fashion bloggers, destinations and stores. I just did a search to check using your link, and I had to scroll 4 screens to get a furry - in both the 'top' and 'latest' filter. 

 

Edited March 15, 2020 by Caitlin Tobias

[Storm Clarence]

38 minutes ago, Caitlin Tobias said:

It depends on your own search history I suppose.

I search for Second Life and #Secondlife daily on Twitter and while I do see the occasional 'adult' furry, most of the tweets I get to see are posts from fashion bloggers, destinations and stores. I just did a search to check using your link, and I had to scroll 4 screens to get a furry - in both the 'top' and 'latest' filter. 

 

Your post is an absolute fact; you were being kind in choosing your words: 'I suppose'. 

Thank you for 'correcting' the narrative. 

PS Question the OP author, always.  As this OP author has a propensity to always skew the narrative.

[Prokofy Neva]

This has been an interesting thread, and it proves several things:

o the idea of what is NFSW is subjective, especially for @Beth Macbain

o depending on your Twitter settings, location, and past search history, you see different things.

Even so, most people will find a lot of NFSW furries on that search. Even a furry who describes himself as going through three phases of fandom says there are lots of NSFW furries. So I think this is the usual story of either denial, or desire to be contrary to anything I say just because I say it

It has been pointed out that there's a lot of porn on Twitter. Yuck, that's for sure. And I don't wish to view it and don't click on it, so it's not showing up on a search of "second life" because I view porn. If anything I am harassed by Russian trolls using porn as a means of shocking and annoying, and block such accounts.

I have "show safe content" checked ON -- which I hadn't realized because I never bother with net-nannying settings -- and I would need to leave it on my RL account because I have to tweet for some of my jobs. And because all kinds of free speech, LGBT, torture, human rights, war etc content can be declared as "unsafe" or "sensitive", I would need to keep it checked.

I *un*checked in on my @prokofy account and that cleaned up the furry related stream in search somewhat, so that's good to know. But it isn't even just "NSFW" and graphic furry sex, it's just furries period be associated with SL. And as much as you want to yammer on about how "this is the Internet and get over it," it need not be that way when you simply post other content, and not in the contrarian way Beth suggests, merely to add graphic human sex, but other non-sexualized topics so that SL is presented more diversely. There really isn't a way to do this in some widespread way and the Lindens aren't going to put to work 100 interns doing this because Twitter might then ban them as having deliberate, targeted Russian troll like behaviour.

I could note I did this search on my RL account which has "Moscow" set for its location so that I can see the hashtags popular for that location. I *think* that means that I also have to have censored what Twitter decides it will censor because the Russian government asked it to, merely to keep its service from totally being blocked. And that's annoying but I have another account set to "New York" so it's all good.

But that Moscow-centric account is what produced the furry deluge -- there's a lot of Russian furries, did you know? And graphic ones at that.

There isn't any "skewing" of my narrative here @Storm Clarence  I've REPORTED ON what I found on a Twitter search. That's what you do in a normal democratic free society. It has all the usual parameters we all know from the way social media companies skew your search. I've now tried this on three different accounts after reading about the "safe settings" issue and the "location" issue and while some of the most graphic stuff doesn't show, it's still mainly furries associated with Second Life, the search term. It's not like YOUR search of "second life" on Twitter is going to produce fairies and unicorns and rainbows and no furries, so let's not be children here.

The purpose of discussions is to add facts and information and useful opinions, and this thread has done that by pointing out the issue of settings, history, location.

Chaser has reported with a useful post based on real experience, "So in summary, I don't feel it is much of a problem as most people looking for info about Second Life as a business platform will have nsfw enabled on twitter, and if they did, they probably wouldn't be the type to judge considering theres some pretty weird stuff on twitter."

And I certainly take that point. But this topic veered off into the "UNSAFE" furries not filtered out. And ultimately, there's a different, larger issue that it's furries IN GENERAL in the search, and for the average prejudiced person deliberating about SL, their association with furries will be a) sex b) griefing/harassment. Which is unfortunately because it's not the majority of furry presentation in reality, or the majority of SL as a whole, either.

 

[Wulfie Reanimator]

It's always the Russians (or furries) isn't it?

[Theresa Tennyson]

6 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

There isn't any "skewing" of my narrative here @Storm Clarence  I've REPORTED ON what I found on a Twitter search. That's what you do in a normal democratic free society. It has all the usual parameters we all know from the way social media companies skew your search. I've now tried this on three different accounts after reading about the "safe settings" issue and the "location" issue and while some of the most graphic stuff doesn't show, it's still mainly furries associated with Second Life, the search term. It's not like YOUR search of "second life" on Twitter is going to produce fairies and unicorns and rainbows and no furries, so let's not be children here.

 

11 hours ago, Caitlin Tobias said:

It depends on your own search history I suppose.

I search for Second Life and #Secondlife daily on Twitter and while I do see the occasional 'adult' furry, most of the tweets I get to see are posts from fashion bloggers, destinations and stores. I just did a search to check using your link, and I had to scroll 4 screens to get a furry - in both the 'top' and 'latest' filter. 

 

 

[Syo Emerald]

16 hours ago, Axelfoxthefoxyfluff said:

 

Welcome to the internet. I remember when the internet was first getting started about 1994 AOL days and people on the news were talking about the porn and such on the internet.

My comment was more along the lines of "oh wow... porn on twitter, nothing new."