Innula Zenovka
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Posts posted by Innula Zenovka
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2 minutes ago, Porky Gorky said:
The sky has been falling forever it seems. I left SL and these forums for 10+ years and before I left it was filled with doomsayers predicting the end of days, with me being one of them. Yet here we are in 2024. The fact that SL still exists today is amazing and I don’t think we should be counting it out just yet.
I can remember confident predictions that voice would kill SL.
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2 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:
Oh certainly. But at Lab Gab they announced this Community Round Table thing with no initial topic or timeframe, at the very time they were concluding that Tilia sale.
True, they may have spent the first Round Table on policy change fallout from the recent Medium-rare scandal. If so, I bet they're mighty glad to have another topic about which to engineer ambiguity.
Or they recorded Lab Gab knowing that the sale was in the pipeline, and intending to devote the first Community Round Table to it, assuming the deal didn't fall through in the meantime. Meanwhile that particular edition of Lab Gab concentrated on the various projects on which Grumpity and her engineers have been working, with Kiera coming in for the final section.
No date was given, as I recall, for the first Round Table, so they weren't committed to anything other than holding one the next time a suitable opportunity presented itself and Oberwolf (who I assume is a pretty busy man) was available..
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52 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:
I meant to mumble about this. What we're hearing now from the Lab must surely be communications carefully crafted by both (all?) parties to the sale. It's not only Lab's story to tell, and there may be ongoing obligations about how they tell it.
The Lab Gab connection here is interesting, though. They announced the new "Community Round Table" communications medium, and lo and behold, the first one will address this Tilia sale—a topic surely in the works at the time that Lab Gab was scripted. Coincidence?
(I can't claim that original thought. Credit where credit due, as usual Inara Pey with the scoop.)
Occam's razor would suggest to me that a final agreement about the Tilia sale had yet to be reached by the time it came to record and broadcast the episode of Lab Gab.
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2 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:
All y'all negatory ppls - I bet if LL was on the NYSE or NASDAQ, you'd be shorting it.
The Power of Capitalism!
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2 hours ago, Nika Talaj said:4 hours ago, Perrie Juran said:
This acquisition is subject to regulatory approval.
By what agency? Both companies are private, so there are no shareholders, only investors who are represented by the boards of both companies.
Electronic money transfer is a very highly regulated business, though, and Tilia is licensed in 48 states and territories to engage in it. Presumably all 48 licensors will need to approve the transfer of ownership and new management structure. This may be just a formality but I would think it has to happen.
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1 minute ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:
Wrong.
The OWNERS of LL and Tilla wouldn't sell Tilla unless it benefited THEM, Put's cash in THEIR pockets. Don't assume this means LL will have a HUGE bag of money to spend on shiny, as in reality, they will spend it on Shareholder Dividends.
They are not doing this to benefit US.
From what I've heard, Tilia has high administrative costs, plus overheads in the form of licence fees for all US states. It also exposes senior LL management to hefty criminal liability if anything goes wrong. In other words, while LL needed to invent Tilia to keep the in-world economy working while remaining in compliance with increasingly tight legislation on electronic money transfers, it's not the sort of thing in which you want to be involved long-term if it's not part of the core business.
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I think it would be helpful if, when asserting that members of a particular SL community compromise a certain percentage of SL users as a whole, people would explain where they get their figures from.
I don't know how to define SL users as a whole. Is it individual accounts that have logged in this week? This month? What? Nor do I know where I would get that figure from -- is it published anywhere?
And I wouldn't have the faintest idea how to determine how many people were members of a particular community, particularly one defined by something as nebulous as how people present in SL, be they furries, Goths, tinies, bikers or whatever, let alone how many of them had logged in last week, month, or year.
Perhaps someone will assist me in this calculation.
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20 minutes ago, AmeliaJ08 said:
I see your point but I know I've been age verified by various firms (who themselves may source it from people like Experian) and I do wonder if they are holding data on what exactly the verification was for, as in what service was I requesting to use.
It's a minefield, I think it's highly plausible there could be solid links made between leaked credit data and specific applications for adult services though.
I don't know, but I would imagine that, at the appropriate stage in the sign-up process, the service provider hands you over to experian, who ask you a couple of questions to check against their records to confirm it's you, and they then pass you back to the service provider, along with confirmation that they think you're over 18,
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3 minutes ago, AmeliaJ08 said:
Experian had a giant data leak
But since they hold data on everyone anyway, I guess there's nothing to lose by using their services for age verification.
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10 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:
Oh .. oh my.
It's going to be a poop-show and will require official identity documents, passports, id cards, drivers licences, etc. We did this already.
There's good reasons why LL tossed age verification in the trash, not least of all was a huge break to participation and growth. It disproportionately affects minority demographics.
Yes, I remember the debacle with Aristotle, too, which must have been twelve years ago at least. So, presumably, do LL, who must find the memory rather painful. Things have moved on a bit since then, of course, and I see no reason why companies should insist on photo id, or any other method of age verification that's any more intrusive than is required to comply with their legal obligations. I've not studied the matter in any great detail, but I don't think I've yet seen any legislation that actually requires particular forms of age verification. The law in Texas,for example, says
QuoteSec. 129B.003. REASONABLE AGE VERIFICATION METHODS. (a)
In this section, "digital identification" means information stored
on a digital network that may be accessed by a commercial entity and
that serves as proof of the identity of an individual.
(b) A commercial entity that knowingly and intentionally
publishes or distributes material on an Internet website or a third
party that performs age verification under this chapter shall
require an individual to:
(1) provide digital identification; or
(2) comply with a commercial age verification system
that verifies age using:
(A) government-issued identification; or
(B) a commercially reasonable method that relies
on public or private transactional data to verify the age of an
individual.It's perfectly possible both to borrow money and to gamble online -- both age restricted activities in most jurisdictions -- without having to produce photo ID, so I see no reason to fear adult content providers will ask for photo id unless they're required so to do.
2 hours ago, AmeliaJ08 said:I do have a lot less faith in the third parties you have mentioned and I can confidently predict that the inevitable data breach that *will* occur will be an explosive scandal in many countries. Privates lose data, it's what they do. Privates with nice cushy risk free government contracts especially.
I'm not so sure. I'm thinking of the major credit reference agencies, some of whom I know for a fact already offer online age verification services internationally, by asking you a few questions to confirm you are who you say you are (or, at least, that you know a reasonable amount about the financial affairs of the person you claim to be) and then checking that against the public and private databases to which they have access. Those companies have a huge incentive to keep their data locked down and out of the hands of identity thieves.
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8 minutes ago, xDancingStarx said:
Users will not show their ID or face to consume adult content. End of story. They will consume it without age verification on one of the trillion sites that do not require it. The big sites know this and this is why they're acting the way they do (not complying)
Will it require showing your ID or face? I've always been able to obtain credit cards and loans -- both of which are restricted, at least in my country, to people aged 18 or more -- online with a minimum of fuss and without any intrusive measures like having to produce my passport or driving licence, despite the fact that the lenders have an obvious financial interest in satisfying themselves I am who I say I am. Why should accessing adult content be any more difficult?
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4 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:
Services are withdrawing rather than try and jump though those hoops to a legal standard. It's not a solved problem and comes with 1st amendment baggage in the US.
I know that PornHub have blocked people with Texas IP addresses (presumably reasoning that Texans are as well able to use VPNs as are anyone else) but I doubt we're going to see adult content vanish from the internet, or providers block the whole of the EU. To my mind, most affected businesses will bite the bullet rather than shut down.
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1 hour ago, xDancingStarx said:
22:23 "strengthening our age verification process. something we'll be sharing more about soon."
No new user who wants to check out SL for its adult side will be going through an age verification process. Many users who are currently participating in adult content will not be willing to hold their ID or face into a cam or similar to age verify, especially on one of those millions of alt accounts. This could have a huge negative impact on the SL userbase and economy.
The problem is, though, that about a dozen, I think, US states have either introduced, or are in the process of introducing, laws requiring certain types of website and social media to require age verification before they allow people to access particular types of content. The UK, France and Germany have all introduced, or are in the process of introducing, similar requirements, and the EU is in the process of considering an EU-wide directive.
Obviously these initiatives aren't being introduced with SL in mind, but SL could very well find itself caught by particular definitions (I don't know -- I've not studied any of the legislation in any detail -- but I don't imagine LL's legal advisors would want to take the risk that none of it will apply to SL) and, to my mind, LL has little choice but to prepare for the strong possibility that it'll find itself -- along with businesses like YouTube, Meta and
TwitterX, -- required to choose between adopting some form of age verification and banning adult content completely.Age verification has come a long way since LL's last attempt to require it, and I can't imagine anyone based in the US, Europe or most other places will find it very difficult or intrusive to verify their age via one of the many third parties who are now offering this sort of service precisely as a result of these legislative initiatives.
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I am involved in a project that plans to use bots, a subject about which I know very little. Can anyone tell me, please, whether cinderblocks/libremetaverse (https://github.com/cinderblocks/libremetaverse) supports RLV?
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1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:
And NOW, featuring Kenneth Williams and the whacky Carry On Crew!
What's not to love?-
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1 hour ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:
Georgia (the country, not the US state) blatantly ripped off England's flag and made it their official national flag as recently as 2004...
Used to look like this:
St George is their patron saint as well as ours, of course. So I think they probably have an equal claim to use his cross in their heraldry.
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24 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:
That's interesting, I thought Tilia was spun off into a separate company!
It is. But Linden Lab still own it.
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12 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:
Everyone listed on that page with the exception of Eric & Anya (Patch & Grumpity) are also listed as being part of Tilia's executive team .. which on the whole seems far more well established (including 4 directors and a CTO)
Feeling a bit like the ugly red headed step child over here ... you know, the one that's been looking after the entire family on their own the whole time.
Can't wait for new house rules.
Linden Lab owns both Second Life and Tilia, so why is it surprising that they share a common Executive Chairman (who owns Linden Lab and, therefore, both of them) and his Chief of Staff, and common Heads of HR and Legal?
ETA -- I should have written "common Heads of HR and Legal, and a common CFO"
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4 hours ago, Gopi Passiflora said:
There's avatars of many different species, but the dominant and most prolific species of avatar are humans, just like in Star Wars. Humans seem to be at the top in both the Second Life virtual world and in the Star Wars world.
And parts of SL might well be described as a "wretched hive of scum and villainy," I suppose.
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On 3/25/2024 at 5:03 AM, Zalificent Corvinus said:
Something some people forget...
Not all countries require people to carry or even HAVE a "government issue photo ID". Mine doesn't.
I don't have an ID card, or a driving licence, as I don't drive, like most people who live in urban areas here, I use public transport, I don't have a passport either, I don't take foreign holidays.
Maybe they could demand a photo of peoples Private Medical Insurance documents. Oh wait... Most people here use the NHS and don't have private medical insurance.
Maybe our gun licence and carry permit? Most folk here don't own ANY guns, let alone have permission to walk around in public with one.
If you're a Brit, as I think you you've suggested you are, then there's always the new photo ID to vote in person as a fallback.
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55 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:
Peeve: Reading y'all's posts above about "thanking" someone as you pass, reminds me: Yesterday in the grocery, I saw multiple people (1 after the other) thank a soldier in uniform for their service, who happened to be a woman.
The Peeve is: It seemed strange to see those people thank the soldier, but shouldn't have. Just unusual these days (it is more common when the US is involved in a big war). Were they more likely to thank the soldier because she was female and/or alone?
From what I've read about the practice in some US churches, perhaps the pastor at a large local church had just delivered a homily on the subject of thanking uniformed soldiers when you see then?
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1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:
Still, it would be lovely to think of myself as a sort of Queen of Death! One little kiss . . . it won't hurt, I promise, and then it will be all over .
I think the deity in question is Atropos
QuoteAtropos was the oldest of the Three Fates, and was known as "the Inflexible One." It was Atropos who chose the manner of death and ended the life of mortals by cutting their threads. She worked along with her two sisters, Clotho, who spun the thread, and Lachesis, who measured the length
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4 hours ago, Sid Nagy said:
Prepaid cards can be very useful for budgeting reasons for everyone and for minors to learn how to deal with money.
100% reliable age verification is simply not possible.
In the end the parents of minors are responsible for the Internet behavior of their siblings IMHO.Nevertheless, an increasing number of US states have introduced, or are in the process of introducing, age verification legislation for sites offering pornographic material. So, recently has the EU, in the form of the Digital Services Act.
While this is obviously directed at regular porn sites rather than SL, the legislation in some jurisdictions may also catch SL, and if it does Linden Lab will have to make changes to accommodate it, either by requiring whatever age verification is required before allowing accounts from particular states/countries to visit Adult regions or by blocking them from those regions altogether, as Pornhub has done to IP addresses in Texas.
Obviously Pornhub know as well as anyone else that this won't prevent Texans from using a VPN to access their site, but that's not the point. The point is to avoid being sued/fined.
Most major credit reference agencies seem also to offer age verification services to businesses who need them. That makes sense, since if you've got a credit rating -- good or bad -- you must be old enough legally to enter into credit agreements.
I don't know what information they require in order to verify your age, or how this would work for people in countries they don't serve, but since it's certainly possible to apply for credit online with remarkably little fuss, I can't imagine their age verification procedure would be particularly arduous.
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Thunes to acquire payments platform Tilia LLC
in General Discussion Forum
Posted
I don't think b) is the whole story, though. Originally we used to transfer US$ to our SL US$ accounts via PayPal or credit card and LL were responsible from the time it arrived with them, including all Lindex conversions, which LL were responsible for accounting and reporting to the relevant authorities. PayPal, Visa and Mastercard weren't involved after LL received the US$.
The problem wasn't that payment processors were worried about adult content (how else do people pay for adult videos and sex toys they buy online? Not bitcoin all the time, surely?) but that they weren't interested in, or equipped to handle, Lindex transactions.