Op/Ed: Whose Product Is It?
by Jessica Holyoke on 17/06/08 at 10:38 pm
by Jessica Holyoke
As reported in a few other metaverse news outlets, the fifth Second Life Birthday celebration has come under fire from residents based on certain policies. In prior years, the SLB celebration has featured content that was labeled Mature. This year, the celebration is being zoned PG and initially no builds that are related to BDSM, Gor or children were going to be allowed. After some protest, children related builds and child avatars would be allowed to submit applications for builds to be exhibited at the celebration.
In response, some editorialists are saying that this is a good thing. First, because the Lindens are governing and chosing what to promote and what not to. Second, because those who practice Gor and BDSM are extremists and while they are allowed to speak, they are not allowed to speak in public places.
Other editorialists are suggesting that because of the increased attention paid to virtual worlds, and their potential for perpetrating crimes against real children, if the Lindens did not have these policies in place, Second Life might be shut down due to laws that might require more stringent identity requirements.
Looking beyond how many residents and internet companies would fight such a law the second it came out of committee in the US, and going beyond the concept of saying you have the freedom to speak so long as no one can hear it, the question in my mind is whose product is this again?
Linden Lab have been making great strides lately to show that Second Life Grid, which is what it says on my sign on screen, is their product. But in a world that is imagined and created by their residents and customers, how much of it is their’s?
What percentage of the land do we encounter is Mature? How much of the content is Mature? And then when it comes to showcase people’s products and creations, the Lindens limit it to PG only. When the Lindens tried to limit content that they considered "Broadly Offensive" last year, the many content creators came out of the woodwork to defend their right to make and sell their product. After seeing the response of their customers, the Lab backed away from the policy.
In the case of the Goreans, where there are close to 200 sims of Gorean cities, that means that LL makes around $59,000 per month in tier alone from Goreans. That does not include all the other contributions that Goreans make to the in-world economy. With a monthly contribution of at least $59,000, that’s a significant amount of people that are being told that their product is not worthy of being showcased. (Which I seem to remember as being a complaint of the new Showcase feature over Popular Places.)
I’m not saying that the Lindens need to be made to be inclusive. But when someone is looking to showcase what their residents can do and large percentages of their customers are being excluded, why would those customers chose to stay?
Alrog
Jun 18th, 2008
An article on the Second Life Herald that is praising Linden Lab? … I’m shocked…
It’s about time people stopped using this site as a place to vent their own personal frustrations and instead focused on Second Life itself and how to improve and grow the platform.
General Drama
Jun 18th, 2008
(A letter written to Jessica Holyoke, circa 1860)
Jessica,
The slavery industry in America is a significant sector of the economy today, comprising 60% of the labor force in the agricultural sector, which itself is 65% of todays economy.
The culture of America is highly dependent upon the slave economy to enjoy their high standard of living, their political freedoms, therefore it would be wrong to outlaw slavery merely from a utilitarian viewpoint, as it would cause major economic disruption, not to mention violate the property rights of all the slave owners. Unemployment will rise to significant levels, and plantation owners forced to pay a wage will not only have to employ fewer workers due to this unnatural minimum wage requirement, they would be forced out of business.
2 cents
Jun 18th, 2008
The answer to “Who’s product is it?” is very easy.
It’s not the Linden’s.
The only thing they have produced, is the world and the landscape: e.g. the ground and the sky, and that’s it. EVERYTHING else was made by residents…
LL also recognises this: “Your world your Imagination”, however much that little line seems to be an outright lie.
If you take away all resident’s products, builds, and creativity, the only thing that remains of SL, is a Windows XP background.
Angel
Jun 18th, 2008
As a collared Gorean Child who owns a number of Regions I take offense at this policy.
Mind you the Adult Goreans are no better banning all us Gorean Kids from their cities, forcing us to have our own homestone and kennels.
Gareth Nelson
Jun 18th, 2008
Linden Labs own the grid, it’s their world, despite what the marketing says and quite frankly people who take the marketing seriously and think the world belongs to the users are amusing.
However……
That does not make them immune from criticism, for example the fact that sexual ageplay is already banned comes to mind. If that is the case, why did they initially ban all child avatar orientated builds from SL5B? Since sexual ageplay is banned, it’s obvious they’d remove sexually orientated builds from child avatars, but what about innocent sandcastles etc? What comes to mind here is that people are linking “children == too sexual for a PG area”. That is way more disturbing to me than 2 adults roleplaying in private.
As for Gor/BDSM, if they want to make SL5B more PG now then it’s up to them. From a business viewpoint it makes sense not to market themselves (and SL5B is a big marketing thing to an extent) on the sexual aspects of SL unless they want to be branded as an adult entertainment provider.
Some virtual worlds (red light center comes to mind) are intended as adult entertainment, some aren’t intended as adult entertainment but are full of it anyway (like SL). If your ISP doesn’t filter porn but doesn’t actually advertise “you can download porn on our service” then it isn’t discriminating, it’s just appealing to the largest target audience. Second Life is the same: LL know there’s tons of sexual content out there and they aren’t banning all of it (emphasis on ALL of it), but that doesn’t mean they have to promote it. However, when they start blatantly discriminating against certain communities beyond simple non-promotion then that’s another issue entirely.
Ava Cartier
Jun 18th, 2008
QUOTE: “Mind you the Adult Goreans are no better banning all us Gorean Kids from their cities, forcing us to have our own homestone and kennels.”
Children in kennels…I got into trouble for that once. I made a girlfriend on the inside and my sons have yet to forgive me.
So how is a child in a kennel “legal”, but any other act with a child per SL is not? I just don’t understand. Sex is abuse under a certain age but detaining by kennel is not? Where’s the line?
DagnyT Dagger
Jun 18th, 2008
@General Drama
Um…you *DO* realize this is role play right? Not real life slavery?
Ok…just checking.
Darien Caldwell
Jun 18th, 2008
While I somewhat agree with the article, I find the assertion that because a group contributes $59,000.00 a year to Linden Lab, they should get special consideration. Now that I’m closing my Estate, I’ll let you in on a little secret, I was making LL $40,000 a year myself. Just me, alone. And in the terms of land holdings, I was very small. There are a myriad of Land Barons and Estates that make LL far, far more. Who do you think LL will give special treatment to, in the end?
Darien Caldwell
Jun 18th, 2008
Bah, misread your Monthly as Yearly. Nevermind
Prokofy Neva
Jun 20th, 2008
>Re: ‘Second, because those who practice Gor and BDSM are extremists and while they are allowed to speak, they are not allowed to speak in public places.”
This is a misrepresentation of the position I took, for example, and yet another example of how Miss Jessica inserts Asian-Values type of spins on things where possible, instead of understanding the First Amendment in the country where she ostensibly studied law school.
The problem with the extremism of Gor, BDSM, and Creepy Kids, is that they drive out everybody else. They even drive out each other at times, or they drive out furries. They are not tolerant; they scream about forcing others to tolerate them, but they are not tolerant of ANY criticism or pushback against their efforts to take over, everywhere, and bleed their slavery, violence, and nausteating dysfunction into the public space.
It’s not about them “not being tolerated to speak in the public space”. It’s about the problem of how once they are brought in, they drive everyone else away. It’s not just the discomfort level people feel; it’s that the entire tone of the event changes. It becomes Fringe; it becomes dystopian. And that’s wrong.
I think the Lindens did the right thing as a social policy to have a PG Birthday at which extremist representations like this are not portayed. Again, the Lindens didn’t say “No Goreans, BDSM, or Creepy Kids can come”. They said *they can’t enter builds into the space*.
Are builds exactly the same thing as speech? Well, perhaps, technically, one might find them as such, and
Once again, Miss Jessica is being terribly selective and tendentious, because she finds it perfectly acceptable for China to keep out dissidents from the Internet and even jail them, and says this is “the law,” and ISPs and VWPs have to abide by it, but the minute any of her extremist subcultural gonzo journo life is encroached upon in her mind, she screeches “Censorship!”
The mistake any of us make is the belief that we are indispensable. As Kenny Linden explained, “There’s always another guy to buy the island.” $60,000 in tier is chump change, and a nothing compared to the prospects of having that $60,000 foreclose on millions of other tier from big corporations, governments, schools, ordinary end users who are turned off by slavery and violence. And that’s fine. It’s normal.
Reality
Jun 21st, 2008
Hate to break it to you Prok Dearie but there was no ‘misrepresentation’ at all.
If someone dares to disagree with you in any field you have this amusing tendency to turn around and apply some imaginary group to them, cite that this group is somehow out to get you and cap it all off by attempting to silence them and have others do the exact same thing.
Yet heaven forbid someone do the same thing to you!
Grow up Dearie. Your tactics belong in post World War Two America – not in these more modern times.
anon
Jun 21st, 2008
>[A] problem with the extremism of Gor, BDSM, and Creepy Kids, is that they…drive out furries.
>They are not tolerant; they scream about forcing others to tolerate them, but they are not tolerant of ANY criticism or pushback against their efforts to take over, everywhere, and bleed their….nausteating dysfunction into the public space.
OH THE IRONY
Lykurgus
Jun 23rd, 2008
“The problem with the extremism of Gor, BDSM, and Creepy Kids…”
“…inserts Asian-Values type of spins on things where possible, instead of understanding the First Amendment in the country where she ostensibly studied law school”
Point of fact – a verbatim reading of the First Amendment can be said to protect extremist views and publications of any type.
And since you just HAD to exhume the “Reds under the bed” corpse, I trust you’re aware that one of our most fanatical anti-Commoes(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Rupertmurdoch.jpg )was invaluable to Chinas media-filtering efforts?
No?
Artemis Fate
Jun 26th, 2008
Freedom of speech doesn’t really apply because this is a privately owned service, and they can deny service or deny access to their own events to anyone they want. Just look at any nazi stuff, not pleasant, but still falls under freedom of speech in America, but in SL any groups made with it, most any use of the swastika (even non-nazi uses), are pretty much banned on the spot. A real freedom of speech society would have to allow that, because you have to allow the bad with the good, but SL isn’t a society nor do they have freedom of speech, and so if they want to limit the “How to properly beat, starve, and subjugate a woman so she’ll lick your boots” displays, they can.