[*censored* covid isolation]

OP's problematic posts aside... isolation has been rough. I hope everyone is doing their best to be kind to themselves. ❤️

 

[I can't be the only one who is amused by this]

It got a giggle out of me.

[Is Amazon Now a Threat to Second Life Itself?]

Simple solution: If you see obvious trolls and hate speech, report it. If you see domestic terror threats, report it. Don't feed trolls, just report them.  

As long as Second Life upholds its terms of service, pretty sure it's A-OK. Plenty of right and left wing sites still thrive on AWS without issue. 

[Protecting Second Life From Hate Groups Hiding & Organizing Here]

9 minutes ago, Jordan Whitt said:

Tell that to the people of Seattle, Portland, Chicago etc.

Hi there. Friendly Portland native here. My hometown didn't 'burn to the ground' and the violence my family (who all live in the downtown) suffered was not at the hands of BLM. There is a reason people came out in droves to vote this past election. 

Actually the worst of the summer were the wildfires.

[Uplift - Still a good idea in 2021?]

1 hour ago, Paul Hexem said:

Just the opposite. They're not legally liable at all, not as long as they have Section 230. There are a number of exceptions for specific laws and getting a warrant would have an affect, but overall, Amazon wouldn't be on the hook legally for what Parler users do.

Section 230 still requires providers to remove material illegal on a federal level. (Terrorism, CP, pirated movies, whatever) They lose the protections the moment they stop good faith moderation. It's not a 'you can't touch me' legal shield.

Did Parler have material that was federally illegal? Can you call what was on the platform that they refused to moderate sedition or terroristic threats? That's likely a question for actual lawyers and to be argued before the supreme Court. Section 230 is...problematic in a lot of ways, not just including the ones you mention. It is the reason we see YouTube take such a heavy handed response to claims of copyright infringement.If the data on Parler was ruled to be federally illegal then Amazon could be liable. That's not to say they would get named in the case, it's pretty untested legal territory for a cloud host. 

And I'm gonna guess Amazon doesn't want to take that chance. Not when the political balance of power is shifting. 

What does that mean for 230 going forward? Oh who knows. 

 

[Uplift - Still a good idea in 2021?]

33 minutes ago, Blush Bravin said:

I think the whole argument that somehow SL is threatened because of what's happening with Parler and Amazon is a bit over reactionary. If Parler would have removed the obvious calls for violence and killing of government officials from their pages this would not have happened. They've been catering to religious extremists and far right wing militia groups since their beginning and are now suffering the consequences.

Absolutely. And Amazon appears to have told them to clean up their act prior to making the decision to remove them. I'm going to guess based on my experience with AWS through work clients that it wasn't the first warning either. 

I don't see this as a threat to Second Life. If you report things in SL there's usually a response. We could argue all day about it being not enough or to our liking but that's sort of besides the point. 

The adult content is not a concern either btw. AWS hosts plenty of porn.

[Uplift - Still a good idea in 2021?]

It's important to understand that Amazon is not taking a moral stand. They are closing down Parler because they could become legally liable. This is about protecting their own hide. The laws in the US require platforms make a good faith effort towards moderation or be liable for user content, and a key part of Parler's image was that they did not moderate and they gave voices to people moderated off other platforms. They aren't making that 'good faith effort.' 

You can find terrible things on Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, and yes, SL but what all of those platforms have in common is a terms of service that they make a 'good faith' effort to uphold. If you report something, it might be removed. Parler wasn't removed from AWS until they refused to implement a moderation plan to remain on the Apple app store. 

The actual effectiveness of any of those platforms moderations is sort of beside the point. What matters from a liability standpoint is the effort is made.

[Uplift - Still a good idea in 2021?]

1 hour ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

couple years back,  they were over 300 petabytes of data used in the asset nodes alone.   but they have backups   see them pull sims back from non existance after over a year I think it was.  so I'd not worry about data loss.

Touching only on the technical point it is likely those backups are on AWS too now. Data storage and ever increasing backup size is a constant problem for any big system. 

[Favorite Stores in SL]

Death Row Designs. 

Hyper detailed mesh furniture / set peices with a focus on distressed / post apoc styles. Their sim is set up beautifully and really shows off their work. It can be a bit laggy with so much stuff so it's worth turning your draw distance down and other avatars off as needed.

[Oh my Gawd! - Totally unOfficial Pet Peeve Thread.]

9 minutes ago, kali Wylder said:

reasons why my ex is my ex.  I sent him an email to tell him that my bank had merged with another bank and that my account number had changed so he could update for his child support payment for our autistic daughter.  She's 28 going on 7. He responded with details how he was down-scaling his support payments so he could save for retirement and that he would cease paying anything come March of next year.  Thanks a bunch and merry Christmas.

That sucks are the payments court ordered? 

Peeve: the systems in place to help parents of autistic children are not good enough, especially for those with adult children. This is an issue very near and dear to my heart. 

[Season's Greetings from Linden Lab!]

Merry Christmas, and thank you for all you've done this year ❤️

[What are you actually peeved about today ?]

Petty pet peeve: 5000 prims never feels like enough. I will forever be wishing I could set up a dozen skyboxes for all of my roleplay dreams. 

[The nightmare of the White Knight.]

Maybe don't make a toxic callout post when you're trying to make a point about toxic callouts. 

People having boundaries around toxic behaviour isn't abuse. People highlighting a pattern of bad behaviour isn't abuse. I'm not saying there isn't abuse on the forums but damn, this is either the longest term troll or some serious cognitive dissonance. 

[What is the average number of alts for a SL user?]

I have 3 alts. Bitterthorn is my primary with all my building / scripting and my more serious long-term roleplay.

Alt 2 is male, used for my male characters in roleplay.

Alt 3 is my short term RP alt and my one I explore with to check new places out, or when I'm not looking at being bothered while online. 

[Favorite skin makers? Looking for skins with more realistic flaws.]

Thanks so much for all of the suggestions, everyone! I got shown around Izzie's yesterday and picked up a new BOM skin from Session and it's really looking good. I'll take a look at stray dog for my male Avi later too!

[LONG periods of time without user group meetings.]

If investors are to blame it wouldn't be because of some shady reason. Changing financial backing for a company can mean a lot of internal movement and work, so it would make sense the Lindens are really busy this month!

[Cannot Take Off or Detach some items!]

Hey! Welcome to second life.

Those parts can't be taken off, as they are part of the base avatar. Basically those parts can only be swapped out with other pieces. A full body alpha will hide them however, in favor of your mesh parts. 

[Favorite skin makers? Looking for skins with more realistic flaws.]

Hey! I want to broaden my skin selection for my avatars, both male and female. I'd really like skins that aren't perfect baby-smooth with realistic blemishes or age lines. What are everyone's favorite makers? I have mostly Catwa or AK heads but I'm down to look into another brand of head to get the look I'm going for. Unfortunately since Genius isn't available at this time skins for Genius wouldn't do me much good

[Genus Heads.]

Filing a second DMCA means the person who filed it is usually willing to defend it in court. That doesn't make it any more or less legitimate because we have no facts, but Genius may be gone for a long time now.