Recent Legal decisions and how they effect Second Life…

(Personal Note:) I in no way participate in nor encourage Age Play sex, either in real life nor Second Life!
In the last year, which I have been inside Second Life, I have read hundreds of posts in the old SL forums, and many blogs about Age Play&#823…

http://www.secretlair.com/index.php?/clickableculture/entry/daniel_terdiman_on_reporting_about_second_life_age_play/

Kelly how about when its your game people discuss it in relation to that? Oh what? You don’t want the kiddie porn tag associated with your game? Yeah I bet Linden Labs is just thrilled about it being associated with theirs.

So it was a post and not an email. Big deal. What was known, and not said in the article, is that the person who posted was booted off the forums for a similar line of posting. There’s ONE line in that article, early on, that reads that there isn’t any age play sex going on that anyone has actually seen. But after that, the author goes on to make you think its rampant. He has an interview with Kelly who, again, has never actually seen this sort of thing but she’s making a game that will allow it so instead of confirming what isn’t, the author can write to what will be.

The author finds ONE person who will give her SL name that speaks out that of course she’s seen it. The author fails to mention that a) the person is not a native English speaker and b) runs a sex club. He writes “while pretending to work in a sex club” — there’s no pretending here. Usagi runs a damn sex club. Consider the source, y’know?

Also what was not mentioned was that the author’s interest was posted in the Second Life forums and um, well TWO whole people contacted the author. Wow.

Yet, now, because Raph’s sensationalized it, because CNet has sensationalized it, there’s a fair amount of people running around thinking that SL is all about the kiddie porn. This is misrepresentation of the highest order and Raph, you participated and so did you Kelly.

Second Life isn’t ‘wrestling with age play.” One or two strange people that seem to have a problem with adults playing child avatars and can’t keep their minds out of the gutter are ‘wrestling with age play.’ That’s the truth of the matter. But that’s boring and doesn’t bring in many readers.

I was hesitant to do the interview (and told not to be no less than 3 people, lol) but I felt it was fair for discussion and newsworthy. Everyone in virtual worlds deals with these issues differently and no approach is perfect. I salute SL for their bravery in trying to give their players unfettered freedoms- freedoms that far exceed what the average company is willing to be involved with. It’s to their credit that they operate this way and give players that kind of world. It’s part of why I’ve been an SL evangelist and resident since early 2004. But it is a newsworthy topic worthy of public debate. We are better off for the dialogue and consideration than we would be leaving topics like this in the shadows and hoping it all works out for the best.

I definitely do agree that the media will grab hold of this sort of thing and sensationalize it — and yes, it HAS happened to me, and I didn’t like it. But stuffing the genie back in the bottle never happens. Having discussions like the one here seem to me to be perhaps the best way to deal with it: knowledgeable people discussing it more as a harbinger of the future or practical administration problem, with no fingerpointing or accusations going on.

Shame on you Raph for spreading rumors like this. You wouldn’t like it if someone did this in one of your worlds. Don’t do it to others mmmkay?

What I have to wonder through all this uproar is: why would a pedophile bother going into an adult space like Second Life when the real children (and a lot more of them) are in places like Disney’s Virtual Magic Kingdom? I recall reading that there was a kind of language emerging from VMK; something to get around the sex filters. So it’s not as if Disney or anyone is going to stop anything.

If I were looking for hot babes in 3D spaces, and I had a choice between a place that had avatars that looked like women but which were all controlled by men, and another space that had avatars that looked like men but were actually controlled by hot babes, I’d be in the latter – pixels be damned.

“It would not be (illegal) under child pornography laws because no actual child was used in the act,” said Jack Balkin, a professor of constitutional law at Yale Law School and an expert on legal issues surrounding virtual worlds.”

While this might be true under US law, in the UK it is an offence to view real *or simulated* child pron. As the offence is deemed to take place at the viewers computer this means that a person in London England who *inadvertantly* wandered into a situation such as the one described would be commiting the offence of making an obscene image. IIRC the law is couched in such a way that SL and the people involved in creating the scene could also be prosecuted.

Owners of virtual worlds have got to be aware that they are playing to a global audience.

(Have just checked on this and I was recalling the Protection of Children Act 1978. Section 7(7) of the 1978 Act gives a legal definition to the pseudo-photographs by stating:

“(7) “Pseudo-photograph” means an image, whether made by computer-graphics or otherwise howsoever, which appears to be a photograph.”

I’m unaware of a prosecution involving a virtual world / 3d generated image, but it’s only a matter of time, especially as there is now media interest.

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