So what changed in the Terms of Service?

[Scylla Rhiadra]

10 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

The problem is that, LL (or whoever wrote these rules) seem to be not aware that child avatars are not just made using specific mesh bodies made for child avatars but also from adult bodies, furry bodies, anime bodies, etc or child specific skins.

I think they are aware. They just don't care that much about skins for adult bodies used for teens (or even tweens) because it's easy to make the argument -- or at least, plausible -- that any avatar wearing such a body is, de facto, representing an adult. A 16 year old girl with breasts is likely to look sufficiently like an 18 year old girl with breasts that, regardless of what age she is RPing or representing -- the argument can be made that she's 18+

It's much much more difficult, if not impossible, to make that same argument when the body has been particularly designed to look like a child.

What LL is worried about is less actually inappropriate sexual roleplay in such cases, than in how it looks.

I am a bit surprised that they haven't made mention of furries (and anime).

[Coffee Pancake]

7 minutes ago, JUSTUS Palianta said:

Making content for children has always been a grey area and done at your own risk. 

Making content for child avatars has never ever been a grey area and presents no more risk than making any other content.

Child avatars have been a central part of SL's community from the very start.

[Madi Melodious]

14 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

The problem is that, LL (or whoever wrote these rules) seem to be not aware that child avatars are not just made using specific mesh bodies made for child avatars but also from adult bodies, furry bodies, anime bodies, etc or child specific skins.

 

This exactly.  In the old days most child avatars were made with adult shapes, bodies and skins, all just shrunk down in world to fit the desired size.  It looks horrible but worked.  Unless they remove this feature from SL, which will require a complete rewrite of the system, it's completely unworkable.    Plus, there is nothing stopping the bad guys from simply uploading their own mesh bodies and keeping them secret.   So, the un removable modestly layer isn't going to work.   Alphas are still the best option, that and to trust in the community members to do the right thing.   I personally have no problem alphaing out those sections that LL has deemed "offensive."  

[Coffee Pancake]

2 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I am a bit surprised that they haven't made mention of furries (and anime).

Everyone will be more than a little pissed if the new rules only apply to human children and furry "cubs" (continue to) get a pass because they aren't "children".

[JUSTUS Palianta]

Ive been making stuff since 2007 and i feel like making child content is a grey area.  So yeah it has been.

[Madi Melodious]

4 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

No, they are a TIONY, NOISY, insignificant minority.

 

 

I'm starting to find your comments both inflammatory and offensive.   

[Coffee Pancake]

5 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

f Walking-ToS Violations are butthurt that we hate them, they should blame themselves, becausse THEY TAUGHT US TO HATE THEM!

Oh please, you hate everyone ..

[Drayke Newall]

16 minutes ago, JUSTUS Palianta said:

Linden can remove items from your inventory.  Every single object has a number just like an avatar.  Not the first time they have done it and it won't be the last.  I think they call that life.

Lol I would like to see how LL manages to remove their system body or their new mesh bodies when both those can be made to look child and both dont have a modesty layer.

[Leslie Trihey]

39 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

@Rowan Amore asked you for an example of somebody in this thread claiming that female avatars under 7 feet tall would get banned.

 

You didn't need to scour 97+pages, just YOUR OWN posting history.

 

Happy to help out and save you from scouring.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

5 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Everyone will be more than a little pissed if the new rules only apply to human children and furry "cubs" (continue to) get a pass because they aren't "children".

Yes. And it's the more surprising as furry "children" (or cubs, or whatever) were actually mentioned as a sort of "cheat" in the Medium article that spawned all this.

[Madi Melodious]

1 minute ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Yes. And it's the more surprising as furry "children" (or cubs, or whatever) were actually mentioned as a sort of "cheat" in the Medium article that spawned all this.

I've talked to some of the furry community.  There are some concerns that they are next on the list of the inquisition.  

[Drayke Newall]

15 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I think they are aware. They just don't care that much about skins for adult bodies used for teens (or even tweens) because it's easy to make the argument -- or at least, plausible -- that any avatar wearing such a body is, de facto, representing an adult. A 16 year old girl with breasts is likely to look sufficiently like an 18 year old girl with breasts that, regardless of what age she is RPing or representing -- the argument can be made that she's 18+

It's much much more difficult, if not impossible, to make that same argument when the body has been particularly designed to look like a child.

What LL is worried about is less actually inappropriate sexual roleplay in such cases, than in how it looks.

I am a bit surprised that they haven't made mention of furries (and anime).

That's the problem though. It is all open to perception and looks. Just like users will AR or region ban an avatar that looks to them 16 doesn't necessarily mean that LL will not think they actually look 18.

This is why baseline definitions need to be provided to ensure that there is at least some form of acceptance of what constitutes a 'child like appearance'. If this doesn't happen then all LL have done is zilch to resolve any future allegations of inappropriateness. Just as before a reporter or user can easily accuse LL of not enforcing rules due to that baseline definition not existing.

It is the sole reason why in RL those that 'look' younger are asked for ID for 'adult' things. The ID is the baseline provided by the government.

Now I am not saying LL need to issue ID's to users, but they certainly need to state what will constitute in their minds at bare minimum a child looks like.

As for furries and anime, I dont think they have the balls to go after 3 communities at once.

Edited May 5 by Drayke Newall

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Just now, Madi Melodious said:

I've talked to some of the furry community.  There are some concerns that they are next on the list of the inquisition.  

I don't think the furry community as a whole has anything to worry about, but I think Coffee is right: they are going to need to address the cases of those who represent as furry "minors." And THAT is going to be insanely complicated.

Although, maybe they'll just shrug and decide it's too complicated. In addition, I'm not sure that there are any real "legal" issues with representations of furry a*eplay, as there are with humans, so they may just conclude it's not something they need to worry about

[Zalificent Corvinus]

9 hours ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

I still dont understand how the child can get the sim in trouble, its the childs responsibility to stay away from adult content, not the other way around.

Imagine there's an Adult rated sim, a private estate, run as a sex club, and you hate it.

You make a throwaway alt, as a Walking ToS violation, you send the ToS violation there, and find the sim owner, AAFK on a piece of furniture with adult anims. Your ToS violation strips off, sits next to the sim owner, and then...

Your real account tp's in, is "shocked and outraged" and files an AR with an incriminating screen shot.

 

Governance do the knee jerk response, and the sim owner gets perma banned, the sim is closed down, and you WON.

You invested $10-$20 in a throwaway alt on an untraceable spoofed ip/mac address, and took down a sim that cost its now banned owner thousands of dollars every year t run.

 

How do I know this is how it's done?

I read the forum post of the banned sim owner, before it probably got nuked, describing what happened to them, after they spent more than 3 months trying to convince LL to give them an appeal hearing.

They managed to come back, and rebuild their adult themed business. They were lucky.

 

 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 minute ago, Drayke Newall said:

This is why baseline definitions need to be provided to ensure that there is at least some form of acceptance of what constitutes a 'child like appearance'.

I don't know how you do this. In practice, it's going to be impossible to produce anything even vaguely resembling a series of hard-and-fast guidelines: there are just too many variables.

So, they'll rely on "judgment." As, in fact, they have always done.

[JUSTUS Palianta]

2 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

Imagine there's an Adult rated sim, a private estate, run as a sex club, and you hate it.

You make a throwaway alt, as a Walking ToS violation, you send the ToS violation there, and find the sim owner, AAFK on a piece of furniture with adult anims. Your ToS violation strips off, sits next to the sim owner, and then...

Your real account tp's in, is "shocked and outraged" and files an AR with an incriminating screen shot.

 

Governance do the knee jerk response, and the sim owner gets perma banned, the sim is closed down, and you WON.

You invested $10-$20 in a throwaway alt on an untraceable spoofed ip/mac address, and took down a sim that cost its now banned owner thousands of dollars every year t run.

 

How do I know this is how it's done?

I read the forum post of the banned sim owner, before it probably got nuked, describing what happened to them, after they spent more than 3 months trying to convince LL to give them an appeal hearing.

They managed to come back, and rebuild their adult themed business. They were lucky.

 

 

I feel like the new rules help to keep adults safe from that situation.  Although it won't stop really determined tiny trolls, it will help.

[brodiac90]

LL like any government, politician or big corporations is primarily concerned with the optics. I imagine they don't much care about borderline cases which people seem to be so fixated on. 

What they are rightfully terrified about is child avatars my age appearing in images etc which I totally get. I'd say pretty much everyone agrees, adult and child avis alike, that something needs to be done. People just have different ideas on how it should be implemented which is why LL need to clarify certain aspects. 

[Madi Melodious]

3 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I don't think the furry community as a whole has anything to worry about, but I think Coffee is right: they are going to need to address the cases of those who represent as furry "minors." And THAT is going to be insanely complicated.

I'm not saying the furries have anything to worry about, I'm saying they are worried about it.   Some are thinking "why bother?"    Some of them are getting ready to exit too.  I don't know what community bigger child avatars  or furries but I doubt LL would survive a large exodus of both communities.  

[Alwin Alcott]

29 minutes ago, Madi Melodious said:

Do you know many items are in the second life database?   Years ago I heard it was 13 trillion nothing is ever truly deleted.  To remove all that from the grid they will have to rez all out to be sure.   

they managed quite well in the past, in the wild times  there were quite some items removed from inventories  for ip rights and replaced with a plywood prim or useless standard animation.... so i'm pretty sure when they do the math ; this name of product + creator or last owner ; here you go, a nice plywood prim for you, but we take your copy of ,,, [fill in at random] 

[JUSTUS Palianta]

This is not the first-time linden enforced rules on people that no one liked.  SL survived just fine because here we are years later.

[Sydelle Zanzibar]

1 minute ago, JUSTUS Palianta said:

This is not the first-time linden enforced rules on people that no one liked.  SL survived just fine because here we are years later.

This isn't about not liking the rules, it's about the rules not being clear enough to know if we like it or not.

[Coffee Pancake]

12 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

So, they'll rely on "judgment." As, in fact, they have always done.

Which is loaded with personal, social, peer group and cultural bias.

.. and they really seem to have a problem with femboys and kawaii makeup. It shouldn't be surprise that a group commonly seen as a gateway to homosexuallity catches abuse reports, shame and guilt and all that.

Being actually asian and wanting a self similar adult avatar is also felt to be high risk.

5 minutes ago, Madi Melodious said:

I don't know what community bigger child avatars  or furries

There are likely more furries, however child avatars don't exist in a vacuum. They are the heart of family groups and as such underpin a very broad social graph that includes a lot of entirely adult avatars, and that starts to get into social cascade territory.

How many of your friends would it take before SL feels cold and lonely, and you move on, leaving someone else feeling cold and lonely.

 

Edited May 5 by Coffee Pancake

[Madi Melodious]

3 minutes ago, JUSTUS Palianta said:

This is not the first-time linden enforced rules on people that no one liked.  SL survived just fine because here we are years later.

Have you looked at the user numbers when you log in?  They have been dropping steadily over the last few years.    I doubt LL can withstand a mass exit of the child avatars or the furry, much less both.  And for some of you that think child avatars are a minority I would advise you to rethink.  The actions that LL are currently taken clearly indicate that we are not a small part of the community as a whole.  As many of you have pointed out that it would be simply easiest to ban all child avatars and be done with it.  Yet they don't do that, and they are stating over and over they have no intentions to ban child av from the grid, even though current policy changes seem to be doing just that. 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 minute ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Which is loaded with personal, social, peer group and cultural bias.

Absolutely and of course.

But again, this is going to be about optics. I imagine a process something like this: if a lawmaker held this screenshot up in a committee meeting, would everyone in the room naturally conclude that it represented virtual pedophilia? If the answer is "yes," then Governance proceeds against it.

I exaggerate, I suppose, but only a little perhaps. Again, appearances.

8 minutes ago, brodiac90 said:

LL like any government, politician or big corporations is primarily concerned with the optics. I imagine they don't much care about borderline cases which people seem to be so fixated on. 

What they are rightfully terrified about is child avatars my age appearing in images etc which I totally get. I'd say pretty much everyone agrees, adult and child avis alike, that something needs to be done. People just have different ideas on how it should be implemented which is why LL need to clarify certain aspects. 

Yes, this.

[Love Zhaoying]

4 hours ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Probably, if you took the maturity rating to the extreme.

It does say "General regions are areas where you should feel free to say and do things that you would be comfortable saying and doing in front of your grandmother or a grade school class. "

Depending on the swear word, I'd possibly say it in front of my grandmother, but only in front of higher age grade school classes, not the younger ones.

Personally, I would assume that the TOS statement is about "sexy talk" but yeah, "taken to the extreme" it could be all kinds of things.