The Alphaville Herald

Are Mainland IM and Chat Doomed To LL’s Naughty Word Filter?

by Jessica Holyoke on 26/06/09 at 7:26 pm

Linden's new Community Standards include broad Adult Content powers

by Jessica Holyoke

Linden Lab uses the Big Six of the Community Standards as an addendum to the Terms of Service (ToS).  Until now, the Big Six were Intolerance, Harrassment, Assault, Disclosure, Disturbing the Peace and Indecency.  Now Indecency has been replaced by Adult Content.  With the new Adult Content policy included in the Community Standards, and by extension, the ToS, the actual enforcement and meaning is a bit different than before.   

This is the old standard:

5. Indecency
Second Life is an adult community, but Mature material is not necessarily appropriate in all areas (see Global Standards below). Content, communication, or behavior which involves intense language or expletives, nudity or sexual content, the depiction of sex or violence, or anything else broadly offensive must be contained within private land in areas rated Mature (M). Names of Residents, objects, places and groups are broadly viewable in Second Life directories and on the Second Life website, and must adhere to PG guidelines.

This seems to mean that public land rated mature cannot have nudity or sexual content or have violent or sexual depictions – but this has changed in the new standard:

Adult Regions, Groups, and Listings
Second Life is anadult community, but 'Adult' content, activity and communication arenot permitted on the Second Life 'mainland.' Such material is permittedon private regions, or on the Adult Continent, Zindra. In either case,any Adult content, activity, or communication, that falls under our Adult Maturity Definitionmust be on regions designated as 'Adult,' and will be filtered fromnon-verified accounts. Other regions may be designated as either'Mature' or 'PG.' For more information on how to designate land,events, groups, and classified listings, please carefully read the 'Maturity Definitions.'

If Linden Lab is following through on what they have told residents previously, when the Lab is saying any type of communication, what they are really saying are land descriptions, event descriptions, group descriptions and classified listings.  But the policy as written above is broader than anything that they have stated before and is much more inclusive as to what is covered.  It seems to prohibit any adult communication received  by anyone not age verified.  

The Lindens previously stated teh Adult Content policy covered what public activity is allowed.  The policy listed above does not make a distinction between a public act and a private one.  In fact, "communication" could easily include private IM's.  The policy door is now open for Linden Lab to point their adult keyword filter at chat and IM's to make sure that PG and Mature land is free of the banned words and content — an interesting option for the Lab when Google executives are on trial in absentia in Italy for basically not monitoring YouTube closely enough.

Looking back at the old Indecency standard, it was a violation to use an expletive in a PG sim.  Why wouldn't Adult Content chat now be disallowed in a Mature Sim if expletives weren't allowed in Chat before?

As for enforcement, a very broad communication ban makes sense for the Lab if their goal is to protect underage residents or easily offended residents from adult content.  Why limit the restriction to just Search and Classifieds?  Why not make it so that anyone who shouldn't or doesn't want to see Adult Content can never be able to see Adult Content?

One of the examples given by the Lab to distinguish Adult and Mature is a house of Burlesque.  If the club is only dancers, than it can be mature, but if you use Adult search tags, then the club has to be on Adult land.  But if you have a "back room", then how is it not adult content?  The participants would still in theory need to be age verified.  The only way this policy makes sense is that non-age verified people cannot take part in adult content.  If communications are covered, then it follows that chat, IM's, and voice that is of a sexual nature must be between age verified accounts. 

If the Lab fears scenarios such as the Italian Google executives case, why wouldn't adult content, activity and communication be filtered from non-verified accounts? The temptation for the Lab to monitor the Mainland for use of filter search words in people's everyday chat and even IM's may be impossible to resist. This is not much of a stretch, given the wording of the new Community Standards and the reality of ambitious politicians ready to make a name for themselves in the real world – at the expense of a virtual world.