Linden Labs made yet another move to make Second Life into an Orwellian State:
Keeping Second Life Safe, Together
Thursday, May 31st, 2007 at 6:00 PM PDT by: daniellinden
The diversity of things to see and do within Second Life is almost unimaginable, but our community has made it clear to us that certain types of content and activity are simply not acceptable in any form. Real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depiction of sexual or lewd acts involving or appearing to involve children or minors; real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depictions of sexual violence including rape, real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depictions of extreme or graphic violence, and other broadly offensive content are never allowed or tolerated within Second Life.
Please help us to keep Second Life a safe and welcoming space by continuing to notify Linden Lab about locations in-world that are violating our Community Standards regarding broadly offensive and potentially illegal content. Our team monitors such notification 24-hours a day, seven-days a week. Individuals and groups promoting or providing such content and activities will be swiftly met with a variety of sanctions, including termination of accounts, closure of groups, removal of content, and loss of land. It’s up to all of us to make sure Second Life remains a safe and welcoming haven of creativity and social vision.
This article unleashed a lot of emotions, and maybe even more questions.
As for emotions, I had a weird mix of irritation/anger, bemusement, and sadness:
- Irritation/anger
The idea of Linden Labs telling you what you can and what you can’t do. Not only in public, but also in private. I can agree that one should not force his sexuality upon others. Taking someone in the ass or whatever other organ in plain public? I understand. But in private? I dare to say that a large portion of the lands Linden Labs have sold contain objects that under above statement easily can be described as lewd. - Bemusement
It kind of amused me how the society reacted now a broader range of sexual activity is being addressed, and not only sexual ageplay. Of course it hurt me to see people are sill seeing ageplay being equal to pedophilia. But I already wrote about that. It almost felt good to read the anger from the reactions. If lindens were not so serious about this. - Sadness
Unless Linden Labs will see the errors of their way, they have officially set the step that will make second life doomed. They have angered easily more then 50% of their customers.
Now Lindens try to claim these measurements are taken because of Laws in other countries, and the broad support of the public. Neither ones are actually true. If they want to abide the laws of all countries, i would even wondering if any sexual conduct is allowed. Besides, it would also mean forbidding alcohol, drugs, gambling, ect ect. In fact i bet some of those laws would, indeed be in contradiction of each other.
It is neither true that the majority of the people want these measurements. Are the Lindens forgetting why people come to second life? They come to live their fantasies, to be different from the real world. And if the lindens really thought it was about another hair color, they should be locked up on account of being too naive.
It should be clear by now that lindens think the real money is made by selling land to big companies, but they seem to forget that these companies are not willing to invest if they thrive people away.
It is not lindens task to comply, and even less to be a moral crusader. Countries have law enforcement for this.
Linden Labs, congratulations with yet another screwup. Now if you will kindly get that lazy ass of your throne of arrogance , and listen to the people. We want to to have the freedom to express our selves. We want to have a lag and bug less Second Life Experience. Don;t hide behind WindLight or Sculpties. It is all nice, but sl will run great wit out it. If you fix the real bug. And if you allow us what you promised: YOUR WORLD. YOUR IMAGINATION.
