Darien Caldwell It looks this is not working good.

When this happens to me, I choose one or more of the available tools to deal with it. Filing abuse reports, talking to the owner or manager of the place where it happened, yelling at the harasser. It can be very effective, especially the yelling.

AlettaMondragon Resident There can be many reactions in such an event, but a child is not safe if it can happen to them.

jackiewallace Resident Exactly. That is why people like that guy in the screenshot shouldn't be allowed in SL.

Ikaros Alpha I understand the concern about growing the number of users, but in my view, protecting children must always come first. We cannot take the risk of allowing under-18 users to be exposed to content that could seriously harm them just for the sake of increasing numbers.

Moreover, the actual growth of the user base does not depend on the registration age limit, but far more on what kind of content, experiences, and communities residents can create and offer. Linden Lab is not a content creator or an entertainment company – they provide the platform, but whether users stay active in the long run depends on the creativity and activity of the community.

If we provide high-quality, engaging, and safe experiences, people will not only register but also remain active users for the long term – regardless of whether the minimum registration age is set at 18.

Ikaros Alpha I think we can all agree that a user will only remain active if they feel comfortable on the platform. I am convinced that a platform’s viability does not depend on allowing children to join, especially when the proportions look like this: General regions: 2,324 – Moderate regions: 17,009 – Adult regions: 7,305.

Based on the numbers, we would be letting children into a platform where only 8.7% of the entire content is intended for them, while 97.3% is aimed at users over the age of 18.

I hope I calculated it correctly...

jackiewallace Resident The suggestion to raise the minimum age limit from 17 to 18 is a little pointless to begin with. I suggest reading Isabella's comment below, she explained this perfectly. It would make much more sense to help any possible 17-year-old joining SL learn how to stay safe in SL, in any online environment, and in the real world, especially as a young adult, because within a year they turn 18 and they "magically" become adults according to the law. And that is not how it works, there is really no difference between a 17 and an 18 years old teen in terms of how prone they might be to abuse.

The other side of this is in line with Ikaros' point. We don't even know if the numbers we see of how many accounts are logged in reflect the activity of real people, or if it is the growing number of traffic cheater alts, Tiny Empires and Bloodlines bots, etc keeping up the numbers while the real active userbase is dropping. Part of that is people dying. Quite a lot of people in SL are over 60, in fact I rarely meet anyone under 50. If young people are not only uninterested, but even those who would be interested get the wrong idea that "SL is some 18+ only game", they will likely never join, not even after turning 18. Eventually SL would be populated by only three kinds of people: Old users still alive and able to log in, Tiny Empires players and those who ONLY care about sexual content.

In fact LL is trying to maintain SL's image properly, showcasing a lot of things that can be done here, so the "SL is a sex simulator" stereotype doesn't come from them. I would rather say it comes from all those exhibitionists that are really loud about pushing their adult content everywhere. They are the people that need to be restricted (to Adult content), not the other way around. If you restrict the victims instead of the abusers, you enable more abuse.

AlettaMondragon Resident The fact that Second Life has, in part, become a “sex simulator” is due to its users. There was – and still is – demand for it. To quote Philip Linden: “Sex is fun!” And while we may choose to be prudish, this is also part of life, and the real solution is to make sure that “children cannot peek into the bedroom when something is happening there.”

We can certainly debate at which age the line should be drawn, but in reality, there’s little point – the age of consent differs from country to country. For example, under current Hungarian law, the age of consent for sexual activity is 14. If we were to base Second Life’s rules on that, then technically even 14-year-olds could be allowed into Adult regions. This is exactly why I suggested using Payment info on file as a filter: it is not tied to age, and it aligns much better with international standards.

jackiewallace Resident If you knew me, "prudish" wouldn't have occurred to you when reading my comments. The thing is I can differentiate PG content from adult content. The framework for this in SL is laid out almost perfectly but it is not enforced properly.

If you want to quote Philip, you could also keep in mind his vision was, and I believe still is, to make this a world of possibilities that encourages creativity, and not to impose restrictions.

Fortunately SL is not bound by Hungarian or French law. Don't even get me started on what I think about those European countries and their age of consent laws because it is NONSENSE. My point is exactly that "young adults" over 18 are still prone to all kinds of abuse. The most harm you can do to a 17-year-old is to keep them uninformed under the guise of "protection", then the next year you send them out into the world alone as adults and they can't defend themselves.

AlettaMondragon Resident Me not prudish eaither yummy giggles. I don’t want to keep anyone in ignorance. However, I believe that everything has its proper place and time. I think that if a user goes to the Lelutka Shop to check out a new bento head, they should at the very least be able to expect not to feel like they are at a “meat market,” regardless of whether they are a child or not.

jackiewallace Resident Sorry, I can't see how your suggestion would help with that situation. Most of the random men that hit on me outside of adult places and clubs have payment info. As you said, this has nothing to do with being a child or not. The abusive people need to be restricted or removed, not decent people.

AlettaMondragon Resident In short: since only 8.7% of Second Life can be considered content for children under the “General” rating, it can be said that Second Life does not provide content for them. You don’t go to a brothel with your child, and you also don’t let your underage child go to a brothel. That’s it.

jackiewallace Resident Ignoring a percentage as high as 8.7% is drastic. Not to mention there are many Moderate rated regions that are entirely PG, but they are either on mainland so the rating cannot be changed or some private region owners decide to use the Moderate rating for any reason, but if you check out their sims they are 100% PG. Going by the number of General rated regions is a false indicator, yet I can't understand how you could say 1/12 of all regions is insignificant.

There are many regions offering games (not "skill gaming" casinos) and community activities - for example theme parks - that are Moderate rated. In these regions I have met moms who told me how they loved these places because they could have their children sitting next to them at the computer, watching, exploring. There is nothing else but the parent's own judgment controlling this. However, these parents knew the risks and that it's difficult to make sure they wouldn't encounter anything not safe for their children. Still there were many places and not only in G rated regions where they could be entirely safe with their kids watching the screen and it helped them learn, explore and play, similarly to how watching cartoons or anything else on TV with your child can.

I encourage you to explore the parts of SL that are about sex or any other adult content. There are whole Moderate rated estates where they try their best to keep everything PG, even though all of the residents are adults, so much so that they will not tolerate slightly suggestive jokes between two visitors either. Comparing SL to a brothel is only a testament of not being aware what exactly is out there.

AlettaMondragon Resident Sorry, but as long as I cannot go buy a bento head without at least three people in the store offering me sex through private messages, any responsible parent will see Second Life as a virtual brothel. They cannot see it otherwise. On a platform where sex with animals is completely normal – something that in most countries carries prison sentences – there can be no question that children have no place there. Believe me, I would be the happiest if this weren’t the case. I’m not the one spending hours in a non-adult rated store hunting for victims. Once this kind of behavior is no longer the norm, then we can start thinking about whether children belong in Second Life.

"Any avatar without Payment info on file should not be able to send private messages to anyone except those they have mutually friended, should not be able to send messages to groups (or even read the content), and should only be allowed to visit G-rated regions."

This means minors and all kinds of adults without payment info would be together in General regions. Then they would just begin by adding each other as friends and they could do whatever they want.

The point is exactly to keep those adults that seek adult content in SL in Adult regions, and away from General regions. RL minors have access to General rated regions only. To keep them safe, the only thing that needs to be done is to keep people away from General regions that would bring adult content into them.

AlettaMondragon Resident I understand your point, but theoretically, if a user without Payment info on file can only stay in G-rated regions, then no sexual activity can take place in the virtual space, provided we strictly ensure that adult products cannot be used there. Users are also protected by the fact that they cannot receive random private messages with sexual requests. Completely isolating two users from each other just because they don’t have Payment info on file, in my opinion, wouldn’t be a good decision.

Another option instead of Payment info on file would be mandatory verification for all platform users. However, nowadays fake KYC can easily be done. The community is also largely afraid of the idea of mandatory verification, since many want to hold on to their anonymity. I would note here that anonymity between users would remain, only Linden Lab would know this data. From a legal perspective, with mandatory verification, the Terms of Service (the contract) would only be accepted by someone whose personal data is known to Linden Lab.

If we look at Facebook created by Meta, countless abuses happen on that platform. Many profiles are created using other people’s identities, precisely because verification is not mandatory there. Certain groups of users hide behind the sacred shield of anonymity to commit crimes, thereby causing financial damage to law-abiding users. Second Life is different, since we do not appear there with our real-life profiles.

In the case of pornographic websites, some have already introduced the rule that users can only access adult content by providing their credit card information. I believe that, fundamentally, this direction could be a good starting point for Second Life as well.

jackiewallace Resident Payment info required to access adult content I can agree with, it is the reasoning behind putting everyone without payinfo or age verification into G rated regions that should protect minors from abuse is what doesn't check out for me.

I've seen instances of this and sadly not much could be done about it, since the first stage of interaction happens in IMs, so it is already up to the possible victim to defend themselves, as nobody else would know what happened if they didn't tell about it - for example filing ARs if someone is approaching them in a sexual manner in a G rated region.

Then the next stage is that the predator convinces the victim to get on qTox, and they will continue chatting there, and that is where the uncontrolled interaction begins. And from that point it is out of LL's sight, outside of SL, but the damage has been done. So no, just because they cannot engage in such activities in General regions in SL, they will be still able to prey on minors and in your scenario, General regions would still be their hunting grounds. Again, it is not the victims that need to be restricted but the abusers.

AlettaMondragon Resident I believe that, technically, there isn’t much more that can be done beyond requiring credit card information to access adult content, similar to Skill Gaming zones. Requiring Linden Lab to perform full KYC on every single user would be an extreme solution. What happens outside the platform is ultimately the responsibility of the child and their parents. That’s also why I suggested that a user without Payment info on file should only be able to send or receive private messages with someone they have mutually friended. This can help prevent part of the problem.

Another important point is that when a new user registers, they should start their experience in protected areas where only Linden Lab staff or designated personnel are present. This way, after registration, the new user won’t be confronted with attempts of sexual approaches. Strong attention should be given to eliminating “hunting grounds” in non-adult regions, and violations should be punished with the same severity as ageplay.

"What happens outside the platform is ultimately the responsibility of the child and their parents."

By the same logic what happens in SL is also ultimately the responsibility of the child and their parents. (So this doesn't really check out.)

"a user without Payment info on file should only be able to send or receive private messages with someone they have mutually friended"

I keep "reject friend requests" enabled because otherwise I would receive dozens of requests every day from people I'd never seen before, we never talked, they're not anywhere near me, they wouldn't even say hello just send the request. So I'm not sure what you mean by "mutually friended". If I understood correctly you would still allow two people without payinfo to friend each other, right? If so, this concept is just pointless.

"when a new user registers, they should start their experience in protected areas where only Linden Lab staff or designated personnel are present"

They're working on it and as far as I've seen it works as intended. However I can only say here the same I've told a welcome hub mentor a few days ago: if the rest of SL isn't safe, all your time and effort invested in welcoming, helping and guiding new residents who enter SL at the welcome hubs will go to waste. So the initial guidance is a necessary first step, but it is only that. The first step.

AlettaMondragon Resident I don’t want to deal with this topic any further. If you look at the two pictures, it’s clear from the traffic data what people are more interested in. This shows in everything, including user behavior.

It is Linden Lab’s responsibility to ensure that a child cannot access adult content and that they are safe within the platform. What happens outside of Second Life is the parent’s responsibility. It is also the parent’s responsibility to decide what they allow their child to do and what not. And it is the child’s responsibility not to register with false information.

Returning to Payment info on file: I know of a user who is an adult, but due to intellectual disability is under guardianship. They do not have payment info on file because they hide Second Life from their guardian. Naturally, they regularly frequent adult areas, even though their mental capacity is around that of a 12-year-old child. Since they are under guardianship, they cannot legally accept the Terms of Service and they have no understanding of the rules. In this case as well, the Payment info on file restriction would hold up in practice.

jackiewallace Resident As for the payment info requirement to access adult content - to be honest requiring payment info to access SL in general - I agree with you.

Your comparison of NH and The FSGW sci-fi area, however... I happen to be a volunteer at the FSGW sci-fi RP, have been doing that for several years and I have been a regular there since my first week in SL. That is more than 6 years. Why didn't you check the traffic score at Firestorm Social Island instead? The Aerodrome (sci-fi rp sim) is the lowest traffic part of the 6 FSGW regions, yet you didn't even take a screenshot of the main parcel's traffic but the 144 sqm landing area that we . This is a roleplaying region, specializing in sci-fi themes, lately there are only 3 regular RP events here a week, the purpose of this region is to introduce new residents to the basics of sci-fi roleplay if they are interested. Sci-fi roleplay is not too popular in SL lately to say the least, and most of the people still doing it have their long-time communities so they don't have to come back to the Gateway to play with us - and while they and everyone else are welcome to do so, the traffic scores in this region show exactly how popular sci-fi RP is among new residents. Not much. The traffic score in your picture has nothing to do with the General rating, and you even checked the wrong parcel in the region.

Jackie, please. Before trying to make a point against General rated content, do your research. Using a vastly unpopular region as an example that would be just as unpopular if it were Moderate rated doesn't prove your point.

AlettaMondragon Resident I just randomly picked one place from your Picks, from the ones you recommend to others. But the facts remain unchanged…

jackiewallace Resident Yes, the facts are that you highlighted the traffic score of the unused landing parcel of the region because you saw that in my picks. We send notices in the groups about our RP events, and there are teleporters throughout the 6 regions, so whenever anyone wants to access any part of the Firestorm Aerodrome region, they would use the teleporters or the landmarks given in the notices, bypassing that landing point. (There is no teleport landing point override in this region, either.)

Then you compared this to an apparently highly popular sex sim that promotes rape. I can't be entirely sure about this, but knowing other places with outstandingly high traffic scores, I bet NH uses traffic cheater avatars as well. Even if it doesn't, if the point you're trying to make is that the problem is with the current minimum age limit or the way the content ratings work, no, the problem is with the following:

The problem is with people glorifying rape.

The problem is with people promoting misogyny.

The problem is with people promoting racism and calling it "raceplay".

The problem is with people glorifying violence, death, killing, cannibalism, building an entire "fetish" around these.

The problem is with people promoting and allowing sexualized underage-looking avatars.

The problem is with people not respecting maturity ratings.

The problem is with the real sexual predators lurking in General rated regions.

The problem is with estate owners harboring these people, trying to deflect responsibility to LL, so that their customers would keep paying as long as they can stay in their regions.

The problem is with people accepting any of the above, staying silent about it, and saying "SL is an online brothel".

This list could go on and on, but these are the ones that I see the most.

Don't take the easy end of this. Don't eliminate the victims. Deal with the abusers.

AlettaMondragon Resident Exactly, you see it very well that adult content is quite a problematic area and its moderation is very difficult. That is precisely why children should be protected from it. Believe me, it’s not the amusement parks that children need to be protected from. I also don’t want to put the burden of responsibility entirely on Linden Lab, because parents have a huge responsibility in what they allow or don’t allow their kids to do.

However, there are areas of Second Life that simply cannot be moderated. For example, a user’s profile, which can also contain adult content. Let me show you an example: I can believe that this user is part of “Friends of Creamy Butt Boys” — may God preserve his good habit — but this information is not for children to see, nor is someone’s sexual orientation.

jackiewallace Resident I am very well aware of the situation and the problems indeed. I don't know you, I don't want to accuse you of not doing anything about this and it is none of my business anyway, I personally try to do my best to separate this kind of content from any space where minors could come across it. For example as a result of my work I got banned from all RGF regions recently. That is apparently more than 1000 regions. I don't even know what they thought when they did that, after I had to ask them twice to change the Green Tech region's rating from General to Adult, which is a sex furniture store. They eventually changed it to Adult and then they decided to ban me from all of their regions. Should I stay silent about this? I don't think so. It is a testament to where they stand in this matter and nobody would know about it if I stayed silent.

Doing this alone, without LL's support is really a drop in the ocean. Barely noticeable. I am happy to make any kind of progress, but by the time I manage to resolve one of these problems (if I do), several others show up.

LL didn't do anything at all about the group and place called "Defiled - Extreme Misogyny" either which openly promotes and encourages misogyny (not a surprise after its name, I know), where they try to disguise their behavior as roleplaying, but if you watch them for a while - I did - and talk to former members of the group they had banned, you realize they are serious and it is not only a roleplay between consenting adults, but the core of their members are real misogynysts. Seeing that group chat for a long time I can tell you no one in their right mind would think it is acceptable even within a roleplay.

(Continued below due to unnecessary character limit)

In several cases of "raceplay" places that appeared in Moderate and even General rated regions, the goal of my abuse reports wasn't only to make sure the adult content wouldn't be promoted in non-adult regions but to shut down those places entirely as they promoted racism. All I achieved was that they changed the rating of those regions to Adult, but they never did anything else.

In the case of two places that were in M rated mainland regions, right next to and in direct view of public land (a railroad in one and a road in the other), promoting killing, torture, dismemberment, cooking and eating the victims, and having sex with them, it took 2 months in the first case and almost 2 months in the second case until LL forced them to move to Adult regions. They still do the same things just in the adult regions. In fact 2 months to achieve that wasn't even a long time. Other cases easily took 6 months, 9, a year, or forever.

I have many more examples. 6 years is a very long time if you keep your eyes open. I usually don't put all this out on a public platform, but these are problems everyone should be aware of.

The examples above are all labeled as "prohibited content" in the TOS, CS and Content Guidelines, but it is also stated there that prohibited content can only exist in Adult regions. I think prohibited content should be prohibited entirely, but that is my personal opinion. The more serious problem here is that even the enforcement of keeping prohibited content in Adult regions is extremely poor.

AlettaMondragon Resident I completely agree with EVERYTHING you've said here. You got directly to the specifics of the issues, and didn't sugar coat. If only LL would actually DO something about these points rather than half-assedly attempt to manage situations by adding more stipulations to those who DO NOT break the rules, all while happily gorging on all the money we spend here and sitting on their rears either unable or incapable of handling the real issues. I commend you on this very well written reply.

> They are the most at risk from actual sexual predators and grooming online.

This showcases how little thought you put into it. Do you believe the problem is the teen who wanders into the whorehouse (if SL is such a sexual place, let's use a whorehouse for comparisson), or the pedophile on the kindergarden? The problem is adults on Roblox, not kids anywhere. There will always be a place and there will always be kids and there will always be danger, so the best thing is to ACTUALLY WORK to build a better place: we need to teach basic internet security (including at schools), to talk about privacy, trust, about predators and aliases, about never meeting in person, never giving up personal information, we need to "arm" them with knowledge and atitude even because, later in life, they will come accross fraudsters and con artists and all sorts of predators, sexual or of any kind. Putting a blindfold over their eyes only hightens the risk of them doing something "hidden" from their parents, falling into traps, and becoming gullible adults.

> not having a way to confirm an age does not mean we have to just forgo a minimum age requirement baring minors altogether

That is literally what it means. A law without enforcement is no law at all. The bare minimum of modern society has 3 powers: one make stuff up, one executes into action, and the third validates that it's been done in a fair and intended way. Having only the legislative doesn't mean squat (I mean, we all are watching the news, worldwide, right?).

There are some ways to validate age without breaking privacy (I won't go into details here, this damn legislation Carnegie Foundation drafted in 2020 is about ad value and a whole other discussion), but there is no monetary interest for it. It's a scam that does not protect kids at all.

Adding a age limit to TOS without validation just creates plausible deniability (it cuts liability for the company, meaning that any Linden could then REALLY shrug off without a care in the world). This would INCREASE the risk, not reduce it.

You want to protect kids? Great, so do I. It's a huge chunk of my life's work.

Answering a 15 year old that asks you "what is a condom for?" is much more useful than pretending teen pregnancy has never happened or that gonorrhea is a river in Egypt.

Isabella Cinder, arrant nonsense, ' much of the market is dominated by this fact' is totally inaccurate and either ignorant or a lie on your part.

steph Arnott that line is not mine but from op (just to be clear), and I absolutelly agree with you.

In case someone wonders, the ">" at the start of a sentence means "quote from previous message", as usual since the embrionic phase of the internet. There is an unpublished RFC about this from 1995, but it's one of those little oh-so-common facts that "everyone knows and does not need to be written down" that suddenly goes out of fashion and leave historians and antropologists scratching their heads. Humans are funny that way.

Isabella Cinder, the quote is arrant nonsense, less than 15% is what is claimed.

Wicked Nightfall In 2008 I was in a G Rated region and the next one Moderate with a glass structure featuring explicity photography. The Lindens acted on my AR. Simpler times?

Holocluck Henly TBH first time Ive heard from any member of SL that abuse actually did something for. That's great. I didn't have that luck. I sent three reports over 2 months - no reply.

Only time abuse did anything was once I had a FOR SALE sign on the mainland that spun and was banned for a day - exposing kids to rape was all good but my spinning sign was bad for the community.

Thanks Linden Labs