Lindens Statements from Governance Meeting

[elleevelyn]

On 5/10/2024 at 1:30 PM, Freckles Fairelander said:

I feel like if I am going to present myself as a teen (or younger) and am using what is usually an adult mesh body to do so, like Maitreya, it should be on me to find and make sure I'm using a compliant skin. 🤷‍♀️

this is me. I will just be wearing my adult avatar outfits from now on when going to "A" regions

the now rules are all pretty straight forward and not a biggie

Edited May 11 by elleevelyn
more info

[Zidaya Zenovka]

Forgive me for not perusing the thread to see if this has been answered but if I have a furry avatar that uses a teen body will I need to use a modesty layer even if that character is an adult? The reason I ask is because I have a number of smaller characters who use teen bodies to reflect that they are a smaller species. I would hate to find out my mouse, rat, and jerboa avatars (as well as my female eastern grey kangaroo main fursona) are going to have to be all modestied up despite the fact they're all in their mid-20's. 

This whole situation is a huge mess. I can't help feeling that it's not really going to deter creeps who will just find other ways to be creeps, and will just end up ruining the fun for people like me who would never use smaller avatars for anything creepy.  

 

 

[Codex Alpha]

1 hour ago, brodiac90 said:

That's interesting, what gender (if any) do you think the middle avatar is? Or could you not tell?

Since the same avatar is being used, and I stick with boy vs girl binary only.. then it's a girl.

However this issue can just be solved by putting undershirt and pants on the base skin, and no one cares, and that's what is happening.

[brodiac90]

6 minutes ago, Zidaya Zenovka said:

Forgive me for not perusing the thread to see if this has been answered but if I have a furry avatar that uses a teen body will I need to use a modesty layer even if that character is an adult? The reason I ask is because I have a number of smaller characters who use teen bodies to reflect that they are a smaller species. I would hate to find out my mouse, rat, and jerboa avatars (as well as my female eastern grey kangaroo main fursona) are going to have to be all modestied up despite the fact they're all in their mid-20's. 

This whole situation is a huge mess. I can't help feeling that it's not really going to deter creeps who will just find other ways to be creeps, and will just end up ruining the fun for people like me who would never use smaller avatars for anything creepy.  

 

 

LL have stated that all avatars under the age of 18 are affected by the policy. So if Governance looked at your avatar and could reasonably suspect it was a child, then yes, it would fall under the new policy. 

[14:35] Keira Linden: We understand there is some confusion regarding the age range that would be expected to follow the new policy, so we want to clarify that anyone presenting under the age of 18 will be required to follow the policy in regards to child avatars.

Edited May 11 by brodiac90

[Persephone Emerald]

2 hours ago, brodiac90 said:

Bringing the topic back to gender and non binary avatars, what modesty layers do you think the following three avatars would need under the policy, particularly the middle one?

Also If you disagree with the current policy then state what you think they should be as well. 

The middle one could be viewed as a girl with that haircut, so a female bathing suit would be appropriate. I'll argue that there's not even a fuzzy line with a gender neutral/ fully androgynous avatar however, because there is no line. 

Any of those hairstyles could be worn by a male or female in RL without anyone thinking twice about it. In RL we have real people to judge by though, not an artificially created avatar.

In RL, when I see people I mentally identify them as male, female, or "trans" because I naturally add up their body shape, height, facial features, and what they're wearing to try to guess how they identify. If someone has what I consider to be a masculine build, but they're wearing a dress, I'm going to assume they identify as female. So in SL, if you want to identify as female, you (specifically you) can dress in a way that will likely cause others in SL to identify your avatar as female.

However, what if someone has a young adult avatar, using a Maitreya flat chest or V- tech and a.purposely androgynous head? Should they be able to wear shorts with no top on a Moderate beach? Would it matter how they identify in that moment in SL? What if their profile says they're over 18 and gender fluid in SL? They don't look like a young child, but some people might think they look like a teenager. Should people just report them for being topless, and let Governance sort it out?

Or closer to your own situation, what if you're identifying as a boy, wearing shorts with no top, but someone has seen you previously wearing a pink ballet outfit with a ponytail. What if they decide to AR you for being a topless little girl? 

My position is that without obvious breasts, an avatar should be able to be topless in a Moderate or Adult region (unless otherwise specified by the region, parcel or event owner.)

Maybe in a General region, everyone should have their nipples either covered, invisible, or painted over?

Edited May 11 by Persephone Emerald

[Zidaya Zenovka]

1 minute ago, brodiac90 said:

LL have stated that all avatars under the age of 18 are affected by the policy. So if Governance looked at your avatar and could reasonably suspect it was a child, then yes, it would fall under the new policy. 

My issue with all of this is the idea of someone making an arbitrary decision about my avatars based on their height/size despite said characters being fictional and not even human. I'm six-and-a-half-feet tall in real life and have always used shorter characters in part because I hate being tall. I've invested quite a lot of time, money, and emotion in them and now I feel like I can't go anywhere or do anything on the off chance someone gets the wrong idea.

[brodiac90]

3 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Or closer to your own situation, what if you're identifying as a boy, wearing shorts with no top, but someone has seen you previously wearing a pink ballet outfit with a ponytail. What if they decide to AR you for being a topless little girl? 

LL haven't directly addressed that, but they did address a similiar situation where what would happen if a child avatar was reported for being a child avatar whilst wearing an adult avi. I would hope they would base it on what the child avatar is currently presenting as. 

[14:51] Keira Linden: Jenni, if you are reported and you are in an adult avatar that is how we will evaluate the report.

[elleevelyn]

3 minutes ago, brodiac90 said:

LL haven't directly addressed that, but they did address a similiar situation where what would happen if a child avatar was reported for being a child avatar whilst wearing an adult avi. I would hope they would base it on what the child avatar is currently presenting as. 

[14:51] Keira Linden: Jenni, if you are reported and you are in an adult avatar that is how we will evaluate the report.

yes,  The rule is in-the-moment. What it says on our profile, or what we may have worn on a previous occasion has no bearing on  the in-the-moment occasion

 

[Madi Melodious]

7 minutes ago, Zidaya Zenovka said:

 I've invested quite a lot of time, money, and emotion in them and now I feel like I can't go anywhere or do anything on the off chance someone gets the wrong idea.

Welcome to our world. 

[Coffee Pancake]

11 minutes ago, brodiac90 said:

LL haven't directly addressed that, but they did address a similiar situation where what would happen if a child avatar was reported for being a child avatar whilst wearing an adult avi. I would hope they would base it on what the child avatar is currently presenting as. 

[14:51] Keira Linden: Jenni, if you are reported and you are in an adult avatar that is how we will evaluate the report.

So if you're in one location as a child, having sexy time in IM with someone somewhere else, and no avatars are involved or can even see each other .. are ya banned ?

[Rolig Loon]

23 minutes ago, Zidaya Zenovka said:

My issue with all of this is the idea of someone making an arbitrary decision about my avatars based on their height/size despite said characters being fictional and not even human.

I do sympathize with your concern. In the end, the "someone" making the decision about whether your avatar is presenting as under 18 is Linden Lab's Governance team. The rest of us could suspect that you are young, but we can only submit an AR to alert Governance.  Our opinions don't count for anything.  The only time you ought to be concerned about another resident is when the resident owns the land you are on.  In that case, the landowner can eject anyone for any reason at all, including looking underage. That's not a new condition, though, it's always been in the TOS.

Now, if you think that Governance might think your av is under 18, you should probably take steps.  If you are supposed to look under 18, wear modesty layers and do not go to any Adult regions.  If you're supposed to look over 18 but people think you might not be, consider altering your appearance to look older. That's going to be tougher for a non-human avatar than for a human one, but give it a shot. You may be able to think of imaginative ways to alter hair color and style, clothing, animations, and other features in ways you are comfortable with and help others see you as older.

ETA:  FWIW, your av looks adult to me.

Edited May 11 by Rolig Loon
Additional information

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 minute ago, Coffee Pancake said:

So if you're in one location as a child, having sexy time in IM with someone somewhere else, and no avatars are involved or can even see each other .. are ya banned ?

Are you emoting as though you were a child?

I'd imagine that'd be the criterion.

[Katherine Heartsong]

2 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

So if you're in one location as a child, having sexy time in IM with someone somewhere else, and no avatars are involved or can even see each other .. are ya banned ?

Of course with no one to report you, you wouldn't be.

But no child avatar and adult avatar are allowed to be engaged in sexually explicit conversations or situations (per @Rowan Amore's earlier post), so you sure should be.

[Coffee Pancake]

1 minute ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

Of course with no one to report you, you wouldn't be.

[14:19] Keira Linden: We are also in the process now of evaluating several different products and systems to help with proactive moderation.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

21 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

The middle one could be viewed as a girl with that haircut, so a female bathing suit would be appropriate. I'll argue that there's not even a fuzzy line with a gender neutral/ fully androgynous avatar however, because there is no line. 

Any of those hairstyles could be worn by a male or female in RL without anyone thinking twice about it. In RL we have real people to judge by though, not an artificially created avatar.'× 

In RL, when I see people I mentally identify them as male, female, or "trans" because I naturally add up their body shape, height, facial features, and what they're wearing to try to guess how they identify. If someone has what I consider to be a masculine build, but they're wearing a dress, I'm going to assume they identify as female. So in SL, if you want to identify as female, you (specifically you) can dress in a way that will likely cause others in SL to identify your avatar as female.

However, what if someone has a young adult avatar, using a Maitreya flat chest or V- tech and an purposely androgynous head? Should they be able to wear shorts with no top on a Moderate beach? Would it matter how they identify in that moment in SL? What if their profile says they're over 18 and gender fluid in SL? They don't look like a young child, but some people might think they look like a teenager. Should people just report them for being topless, and let Governance sort it out?

Or closer to your own situation, what if you're identifying as a boy, wearing shorts with no top, but someone has seen you previously wearing a pink ballet outfit with a ponytail. What if they decide to AR you for being a topless little girl? 

My position is that without obvious breasts, an avatar should be able to be topless in a Moderate or Adult region (unless otherwise specified by the region, parcel or event owner.)

Maybe in a General region, everyone should have to have their nipples either covered, invisible, or painted over?

Thanks for this thoughtful post, Persephone.

We all, I think, understand the point of all of this. But the modesty layers thing in particular, because they are gendered, are beginning to seem like the thin edge of a rather awful wedge.

What we've all been talking about here is, in effect, policing what people wear. And there's a logic, and a necessity to that. But what is now beginning to seep into this conversation is an element of enforcing gender conformity, and the binary.

39 minutes ago, Codex Alpha said:

Since the same avatar is being used, and I stick with boy vs girl binary only.. then it's a girl.

We're a few short steps here from arguing that undies for boys should be blue, and those for girls should be pink.

[Rolig Loon]

3 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

So if you're in one location as a child, having sexy time in IM with someone somewhere else, and no avatars are involved or can even see each other .. are ya banned ?

That's a pretty distant worry, I think. Governance doesn't have the time, energy, or inclination to start monitoring IMs to see what you might be talking about, especially if you're chatting with someone far away. Besides, the "offense" you're envisioning is only barely sexual, so the worst it would likely draw is a slap on the wrist, not a ban. There are much more realistic situations to focus on.  

[BilliJo Aldrin]

39 minutes ago, Zidaya Zenovka said:

Forgive me for not perusing the thread to see if this has been answered but if I have a furry avatar that uses a teen body will I need to use a modesty layer even if that character is an adult? The reason I ask is because I have a number of smaller characters who use teen bodies to reflect that they are a smaller species. I would hate to find out my mouse, rat, and jerboa avatars (as well as my female eastern grey kangaroo main fursona) are going to have to be all modestied up despite the fact they're all in their mid-20's. 

This whole situation is a huge mess. I can't help feeling that it's not really going to deter creeps who will just find other ways to be creeps, and will just end up ruining the fun for people like me who would never use smaller avatars for anything creepy.  

 

 

I don't think modesty panels apply to animals, only humans. 

Bingo on not deterring the creeps, all this does is punish the innocent

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

40 minutes ago, Codex Alpha said:

Since the same avatar is being used, and I stick with boy vs girl binary only.. then it's a girl.

We're a few short steps here from arguing that undies for boys should be blue, and those for girls should be pink.

I think it's "fair" to say "when in doubt cover girl-parts". Especially if not flat-chested! 

[Zidaya Zenovka]

4 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

I do sympathize with your concern. In the end, the "someone" making the decision about whether your avatar is presenting as under 18 is Linden Lab's Governance team. The rest of us could suspect that you are young, but we can only submit an AR to alert Governance.  Our opinions don't count for anything.  The only time you ought to be concerned about another resident is when the resident owns the land you are on.  In that case, the landowner can eject anyone for any reason at all, including looking underage. That's not a new condition, though, it's always been in the TOS.

Now, if you think that Governance might think your av is under 18, you should probably take steps.  If you are supposed to look under 18, wear modesty layers and do not go to any Adult regions.  If you're supposed to look over 18 but people think you might not be, consider altering your appearance to look older. That's going to be tougher for a non-human avatar than for a human one, but give it a shot. You may be able to think of imaginative ways to alter hair color and style, clothing, animations, and other features in ways your are comfortable with and help others see you as older.

That's just it. My grandmother was 4'3" tall. I was 6'5" in sixth grade and towered over her. Whenever we went to Disneyworld people would often come up to me and tell me how cute my little girl was before realizing she was much older than they thought. People shouldn't have to make their oc's look completely different than they imagine to keep stupid people from reporting them but I guess that's SL now. The people who overreact win, everyone else loses, and absolutely nothing of any real consequence is done to help curtail actual harmful abuse, the majority of which happens outside SL, anyways. 

[Arielle Popstar]

24 minutes ago, Zidaya Zenovka said:

My issue with all of this is the idea of someone making an arbitrary decision about my avatars based on their height/size despite said characters being fictional and not even human. I'm six-and-a-half-feet tall in real life and have always used shorter characters in part because I hate being tall. I've invested quite a lot of time, money, and emotion in them and now I feel like I can't go anywhere or do anything on the off chance someone gets the wrong idea.

My thought is that the upper pic is of an older dog that in human terms would be in the later 30's. The lower one appears more feminine and I would peg as potentially up to 20 but is harder to really put an age to. 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 minute ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I think it's "fair" to say "when in doubt cover girl-parts". Especially if not flat-chested! 

For practical purposes -- that is, avoiding ARs and disciplinary measures -- yes.

But that's also rather disturbing, isn't it? And the point that Qie and a few others have made before is spot on: putting a top on to a girl baby, toddler, or prepubescent does actually have the effect of sexualizing them, and their chest. "Nothing to see here . . . yet. But it's still sexual!" Clothing that is intended to mask sexuality almost always has the effect of, if not drawing attention to it, at least underlining that one particular meaning of the body.

[Love Zhaoying]

7 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

That's a pretty distant worry, I think. Governance doesn't have the time, energy, or inclination to start monitoring IMs to see what you might be talking about, especially if you're chatting with someone far away. Besides, the "offense" you're envisioning is only barely sexual, so the worst it would likely draw is a slap on the wrist, not a ban. There are much more realistic situations to focus on.  

But what if you THOUGHT about sexy times, then wrote your thoughts down, and someone stole your writings, and it ended up on the internet, and someone else read it, and it was stored on an unencrypted server, and the Lab ran AI software to scan for sexytimes in chat, and also scanned for child-presenting avatars, and correlated the two to both be you, even if nobody read the chat? What then, huh?

Edited May 11 by Love Zhaoying

[Rolig Loon]

1 minute ago, Zidaya Zenovka said:

People shouldn't have to make their oc's look completely different than they imagine to keep stupid people from reporting them but I guess that's SL now.

You're quite right. Just remember that it's not what "people" think.  It's what Governance determines that counts, no matter how many people AR you.  And Governance has made it clear in the FAQ that height will not be used as the sole criterion -- or even a necessarily a relevant criterion -- when they decide.  Read through the FAQ yourself.

[Rolig Loon]

1 minute ago, Love Zhaoying said:

But what if you THOUGHT about sexy times, then wrote your thoughts down, and someone stole your writings, and it ended up on the internet, and someone else read it, and it was stored on an unencrypted server, and the Lab ran AI software to scan for sexytimes in chat, and also scanned for child-presenting avatars, and correlated the two to both be you, even if nobody read the chat? What then, huh)

How many angel AIs did you say are dancing on the head of that pin?

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

For practical purposes -- that is, avoiding ARs and disciplinary measures -- yes.

But that's also rather disturbing, isn't it? And the point that Qie and a few others have made before is spot on: putting a top on to a girl baby, toddler, or prepubescent does actually have the effect of sexualizing them, and their chest. "Nothing to see here . . . yet. But it's still sexual!" Clothing that is intended to mask sexuality almost always has the effect of, if not drawing attention to it, at least underlining that one particular meaning of the body.

How about this: if someone WANTS to present more ambiguously, wouldn't that also include (for some people) dressing as ambiguously as possible?