Facebook/Meta's Horizons Planned to Shut Down VR Option, Then Changed

 

Some Second Life users may remember Horizons, the virtual world created by Meta, the company behind Facebook. Announced in 2021 as the effort of Mark Zuckerberg's company to "build the Metaverse." But there was skepticism from the start as it's avatars had nothing below the waist, which was fodder for a number of jokes, including a few from Linden Lab and others in Second Life. As time went on, it became clear it was not attracting many people, and Meta netted only a fraction of the money it put in. Among the signs things weren't right, unlike Second Life, the people who worked on it did not spend time in the virtual world when off the clock. 

 

Earlier this month on March 17, it was announced that the software to use Horizons on VR headsets would no longer be available at the end of the month, and in June it would be taken offline. “We are separating the two platforms so each can grow with greater focus, and the Horizon Worlds platform will become a mobile-only experience,” the company stated on a community blog. The move came just weeks after Meta laid of a thousand workers from Reality Labs in January, the part of the company that works on it's virtual world. Besides VR, the virtual world can be accessed through a mobile app, which was remaining up. 

But a few days later, Meta backtracked, it's CEO announcing, “We have decided, just today in fact, that we will keep Horizon Worlds working in VR for existing games to support the fans who’ve reached out.” But, VR won't be the main focus, "Most of our energy is going towards mobile and the Meta Horizon Engine there."

Commentary: In Second Life, and Discord channels with SL users, yours truly heard several residents bring up Meta's decision to close Horizon's VR option, and react with smugness. The feeling was a multi-billion dollar company had gone up against the much smaller Linden Lab and the people behind VR Chat, and it couldn't even begin to compete with them, the company Mark Zuckerberg created losing big. Second Life, for all of it's Linden blunders over time, remains the champion virtual world. And a startup like Resonite can do more with a few people, a few dollars, and a little elbow grease and imagination, than a billion dollar megacorp that is all dollars and no brains and bare-bones effort. 

 

Image from Techcrunch 

 

Sources: Wired, Meta, PC Gamer, CNBC 

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

 

Facebook Suspends Account of "Snow Crash" Author, Accusing Him of Impersonating Himself

 

 While not everyone knows the name Neal Stephenson, probably most who go about virtual worlds know about his novel "Snow Crash," a cyberpunk thriller describing them about a decade before the appearance of Second Life. 

 

Well, it seems Meta, the company behind Facebook which rebranded itself to match the name of his description of life online, the Metaverse, has been less than kind to him. He posted the news on his Twitter/X account. 

 

Today in “you can’t make this stuff up,” Meta has suspended my Facebook account because they suspect me of impersonating someone noteworthy

 

 New World Notes would report that his account was restored the following day, but that it happened to begin with was too ironic to ignore, "it's pretty fun to spend two-three years in research and interviews, writing about how Meta's leaders never really understood the Metaverse, couldn't even explain it to their staff, were never really passionate about virtual worlds and what made them meaningful, and how they sidelined people on their team who were. When all of that could be encapsulated by quoting this single tweet."

 

 Source: New World Notes

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

 

Short Outage On Facebook

 

On Tuesday March 5, Facebook experienced a widespread outage. The incident started at 10 AM EST, and lasted for over two hours. The number of users affected was over a half million at it's peak. 

 

A spokesman for Meta, the owners of Facebook, would say, "Earlier today, a technical issue caused people to have difficulty accessing some of our services. We resolved the issue ... for everyone who was impacted." The announcement was made over Twitter. 

Source: Reuters

Facebook/Meta Quietly Leaving Virtual Worlds Behind

 

Last year, Facebook/Meta was really harping itself as the future of virtual worlds. It was touting it's Horizons as the up and coming brand new virtual landscape that the masses would want to join and experience. This year, they've been quiet about it. CEO and owner Mark Zuckerburg has gone from repeatedly promoting Horizons as the must be-in place online, to having stopped.

 

So what happened? Well, Horizons turned out to be a big money loser. Zuckerburg invested billions in his company's virtual world, only to get very little return for it in comparison. 

 

The number of people signing up was far short than the half million expected, and most didn't stay after their first month. It seems the "lack of realism" on the avatars, notably having no legs, was one of the big reasons. Of it's virtual worlds, only a handful were visited by more than 50, most not visited by anyone but it's creator. And unlike Second Life, which continued to do very well, Facebook/Meta workers didn't enjoy using the place on their free time "because it's riddled with bugs and other quality issues."

For all the money invested, Horizon's returns are small in comparison. It brought in 727 million USD in 2022, 17% less than in 2021. The result has been huge loses, losing nearly 24 BILLION dollars in 2021 and 2022, 13.7 billion in 2022 alone. Considering their overall income was 32.1 billion, the company had been continuing to spend and invest heavily after initial small returns, and was getting even less. So no wonder Facebook/Meta is cutting its losses.

Fortunately for Zuckerberg, technology tends have allowed him to quietly leave virtual reality behind: AI, which in recent months has gotten more attention thanks to programs like Chat GPT. An article on "The Street" stated in an announcement, he announced, "We're creating a new top-level product group at Meta focused on generative AI to turbocharge our work in this area. We're starting by pulling together a lot of the teams working on generative AI across the company into one group focused on building delightful experiences around this technology. ... In the short term, we'll focus on building creative and expressive tools. Over the longer term, we'll focus on developing AI personas that can help people in a variety of ways."

So it seems Horizon is being left behind, joining the ranks of the virtual worlds such as There and Blue Mars that had gotten plenty of talk but ended up falling short, while Second Life and to a smaller extent VRChat, continue to flourish.

 

Sources: The Street, Kotaku, PC Gamer

Bixyl Shuftan

Cartoon of The Day: Practicing For Horizons

 

Taken at VWEC Eduverse. Those weren't Elli Pinion's exact words, but when someone pointed out her lack of legs, she did joke about a certain virtual world in which players are half the person they were. 

By Bixyl Shuftan
 

News And Commentary: Questions Raised About Horizon Following Zuckerburg's Comments, Announcement of Creator Fees

 

It's no secret that many Second Life users roll their eyes at Linden Lab a lot. But can anyone else do a better job at developing a virtual world. The biggest company gicing it a try is Facebook/Meta, with it's Horizons. This virtual world has already been ridiculed for having avatars with nothing below the waist. But certain comments by the company founder plus how much of a cut it plans to take from content creators is making it look worse.

Read more in Other Grinds, MMOs, and Games.

More April Foolery, Including Themed Last Names

 
The reaction to the Newser's April Fools article a few days ago was mostly positive. "Well played," one put it in one Discord thread. Another responded "Joker!" In Cyrillic. Still, I did get one mild complaint about the time the hack started not being right, and one angry reader whom felt I was making light of the Ukraine invasion. The answer is no I wasn't, but poking fun at the dictator and his trolls. I did think the joke had some risk, though felt just as many would appreciate an oppressor being made the butt of a joke. Still, it wasn't the one parody over the years that had gotten the most flak. Those that describe Second Life as about to be shut down due to glitches tend to get the most chuckles and the most boos.

And I'm sure the Uighurs and the people of Hong Kong appreciate a good "Winne the Pooh" joke.

As for Linden Lab's April Fool, what they did this year was more clever than their "Rick Roll" a few years ago. It was a step above their "Pandemonium" avatar insurance joke, this time poking Facebook/Meta in the ribs with it's virtual world Horizons having a very obvious flaw - nothing below the waist. They did three Youtube shorts, and mentioned them in three forum threads. The reaction to them was very positive. In my opinion, they were Linden Lab's best April Fool joke ever: a poke at the obvious flaw of the other virtual world that was genuinely funny. 

Besides the April Fool joke in the form of a few videos and forum posts, Linden Lab had something else on April 1st, They had six new last names, with a humorous theme.

Happy April Fool’s Day! The following Limited Edition last names are available until April 15th:

Joker
OwO
UwU
Hoax
Quirky
Shenanigans

Some may remember OwO and UwU from last year as the April Fool themed limited edition surnames for 2021. It seems they proved to be popular enough for the Lab to bring them back. But they won't be available again for too long. As the announcement stated, after April 15th, they'll be gone.

There were more examples of funnery. The Juicybomb blog posted a joke article of Linden Lab being bought by Facebook/Meta. The news was delivered by a Half Linden, “This transition will take place over the next few months, and we will do everything we can to make it as smooth as possible. Don’t be alarmed if you notice your legs disappearing; this is a new user function.”

Some games also had some April Fools stunts. Among them, the WW2 shooter "Enlisted" had a "Battle For The Moon" campaign. 

That's all for now with the April Foolery. Hope yours was a good one.

Source: PC Gamer

Bixyl Shuftan
 

SL Videos: Linden Lab's April Fool

 

(Click here if the video does not play)

The Newser's April Fool yesterday wasn't the only one around. Linden Lab had one of it's own that was a poke at Facebook/Meta's Horizon. Or rather, three, in the form of a few Youtube videos. One also parodied the "Lifelock" videos (forum post).

"Brand new from the creators of Second Life comes our latest premium feature: LEGLOCK!

"Second Life is the ONLY metaverse that will actually guarantee your legs will be right here where you left them upon your return!  We consider it our sacred duty to give all our customers the whole metaverse experience. We care about our residents and what they care about, and we know one thing they care about are legs. In Second Life you can have all the legs you want, One leg, two legs, four legs, eight… a hundred… be a human centipede if you desire. Actually, I don’t think anyone really wants that last one, but you can!

"And the best part is, it is so easy! Here’s a helpful video explaining just how this handy tool works and how you can keep your avatar protected." 

(Click here if the video does not play)

"Finding one's other half" is an expression meaning to find one's soulmate. Though with avatars looking like Horizon ones, it takes on a new meaning (forum post).

"At Linden Lab, we’re all about bringing people together. We’ve heard countless stories from individuals that discovered their other halves in Second Life. Today we’re floating you a spotlight featuring a union that was love at first sight.

"If you feel like something is missing in your life, we hope we can help you find it in Second Life."

 (Click here if the video does not play)

Abnor Mole stared in this one as a used leg salesman. Guess his joke had a few legs to stand on, unlike Facebook/Horizon's virtual world (forum post).

Happy April Fools.

Addition: There were three threads in the forums about the videos, so they're now included.
 

WSJ Video: "Remember Second Life? It’s Now Taking On Big Tech’s Metaverse"

 

(Click here if the video does not play)

From the Wall Street Journal on Feb 3, "Second Life – yes, the virtual world from the ‘00s – is staging a comeback to challenge tech giants like Meta that are throwing billions into the metaverse. Its creator explains to WSJ how he plans to refresh the platform – no VR headsets required."
 

Real-Life News Referencing Second Life in Commenting About Facebook's Metaverse Plans

 
In the Golden Age of Second Life over ten years ago, the virtual world was frequently mentioned in mainstream real-life news. These days, not so much. So it was interesting when in the past few weeks it was mentioned not once but twice.

In BBC News, Joe Tindy wrote an article "Lessons From Second Life," in which he described himself as a user of the virtual world a decade ago, then forgot about it. He was surprised to find out not only was it still around, but had a dedicated userbase. So he checked it out once more. He ran across someone, who didn't like the idea of Facebook getting into virtual worlds, "The entry of a slightly oversized and outsized player into the space seems to signal to people that they are not the owners of it, that someone else is going to be setting the rules and kind of running the show and they will just be the consumers."

In a Time Magazine article by Andrew Chow, that appeared in Yahoo news, "6 Lessons on the Future of the Metaverse From the Creator of Second Life," he compared Facebook's move to the predictions around 2006-2007 that Second Life would be the future of the Internet, which didn't turn out that way. He also felt there were lessons to be learned. (1) "People will stay in virtual worlds, even without an explicit mission." Or as Philip Rosedale was quoted, "the reason why tens of millions of people tried it out was the promise of the ability to be creative and expressive in a realistic, lifelike domain."(2) "People will spend money on digital goods—but very few creators will actually make a living." Tom Boellstorff, an anthropologist whom wrote a book after spending two years in Second Life, compared it to Youtube in which most who used it just browsed, and many of those who do create content, "sort of informally make stuff that they don’t sell to make money."

(3) "Ease of use and technological challenges remain a huge roadblock for mass adoption." Rosedale was quoted, "people don’t want to be a cartoon avatar while wearing a VR headset ... It’s really stressful for people to do that, and most of them won’t.” (4) "Virtual worlds might always struggle to appeal to certain demographics." Rosdale commented that those whom were young, healthy, and had active social lives in free urban environments were going to find virtual worlds less appealing than those with little social contact, disabled, and lived in places they felt they couldn't speak their minds. (5) "Identity is tricky, and so is rule-making." Second Life has had a largely hands-off approach to one's identity in the virtual world, compared to Facebook which encourages people to use their real-life identities. (6) "The metaverse doesn’t need to be ubiquitous. In fact, it shouldn’t be." Boellstorff commented that the hype going on in Second Life's golden age was part of Silicon Valley's business model of attracting big money by presenting oneself as so big, they would change the world as we know it. Still, that Second Life is not just existing but has a healthy community shows there's still a good demand for virtual worlds, “Allowing somebody to be really expressive and creative in an environment that’s lifelike is an incredibly powerful offering. I think that’s why we all tried Second Life,” Rosedale was quoted, “And I think that we will eventually get there—but it’s still a long road because the difficulty of it is considerable.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/6-lessons-future-metaverse-creator-102405073.html

Sources: BBC News, Yahoo

Bixyl Shuftan
 

More on Facebook And Meta And Virtual World Plans, Grumpity Linden's Interview

 

It's been a few weeks since Mark Zuckerburg announced the company behind Facebook would be changing it's name to Meta. Since then, there have been more developments, and more people commenting. Among those with something to say was Grumpity Linden, or Anya Kanevsky in real life. She was interviewed by a magazine, and had a few things to say about Facebook's plans and how they related to Second Life, the existing virtual world.
 
Read the story in Other Grids, MMOs, and Games.
 

News In Brief

 
There's a lot going on, and only a little time to write about it. So here's some news in brief that we will try to describe in more detail later.

The Veterans Tribute is back in Second Life. To check it out, head to Rainbow Dream (128/128/21).

The Film Threat Theater has a new movie, made by a small independent studio, being reviewed: "Corona Zombies," and they plan to review a new one every month.

In the official blog, Linden Lab has the "Spotlight" on noted artist Bryn Oh.

There's a couple new places for gaming in Second Life. One is in Bellisseria at Zwischen (79/228/33). The other is at Montecito Bay, their new Arcade at Montecito Bay (118/223/22).

In the Web User Group on November 3, Inara Pey wrote that the Lab says they haven't given up on making a mobile app, and is aware that many residents were disappointed at the news of development being halted. But the pause will likely last for "a number of weeks." There was also some talk about the Zenescope NFT Sweepstakes, there should be a new batch of last names around Christmas, and some Marketplace store owners are reporting drops in income of 30 to 50 percent.

There's more going on about Facebook changing its name to Meta, such as a computer company already having the name, and the owner asking for $20 million for it (IGN article). Neal Stephenson, the author of the the novel Snow Crash that coined the term "Metaverse," had a few things to say about Facebook's move (Axios article), as did Grumpy Linden in an interview with a French magazine (Modem World article).

More on these subjects, and more, when we have time. 

Bixyl Shuftan
 

Of Facebook The Corporation Changing It's Name

 
On October 28, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook the corporation, announced it was changing it's name to "Meta."

"We're now looking at and reporting on our business as two different segments, one for our family of apps, and one for our work on future platforms. And as part of this, it is time for us to adopt a new company brand to encompass everything that we do, to reflect who we are and what we hope to build."

Besides having several social medias under it, including What'sApp, Instagram, and Facebook, Zuckerberg has plans to build the "Metaverse." This would be a huge virtual world, “We believe the metaverse will be the successor of the mobile internet. We’ll be able to feel present – like we’re right there with people no matter how far apart we actually are.”

The move comes after the company has faced a string of bad publicity from it's platforms going down for hours twice in one week to accusations it ignored findings that it's products were not good for the mental health of teenagers and that it wasn't doing enough to stop the spread of disinformation. So naturally there are criticisms that the move is to distract people from the incidents. There were also charges that the company planed to expand to the point of hiring tens of thousands of workers while ignoring it's problems "just goes to show how out of touch Facebook is with real people.” And of course came concerns that Facebook had it's sights on new territory to monopolize and become even more powerful.

Besides criticism, the move was also mocked on social media. "I meta girl in high school," joked one man. In Israel there were snickers as the term "meta" means "dead" in Hebrew.  One Reuters writer reminded that a few years ago Google's corporation changed it's name to Alphabet, but people still call both the search engine and it's company Google.

Finally there was one detail pointed out by Daniel Voyager. The term "Second Life" was trending on Twitter searches "Probably for the first time." He reasoned that Zuckerberg's move was drawing comparisons to the virtual world that was already around, and expressed hope that the extra attention would result in a few more people becoming residents.

It's hard to say how successful Facebook's effort into virtual reality will be. Two years ago, they announced their upcoming virtual world "Horizons," and the platform has yet to fully open. It was also joked about as the avatars were legless, people going about as floating in the air with nothing showing below the waist.

Sources, BBC, CNN, Reuters, ZDnet, The Guardian, Daniel Voyager

Bixyl Shuftan
 

A Bad Week For Facebook and Twitch, Windows 11 Launched

It was not the best week for Facebook last week.  On Tuesday October 5, Frances Haugen, a former Facebook manager turned whistleblower, testified before Congress. She stated the company knew it's app Instagram could be hazardous to the mental health of teenage girls, and knew it was not doing enough to combat disinformation on it's social media website that contributed to the worsening political divide in the United States and led to the January 6 riot. While it could have taken measures to protect girls on Instagram and done more about misinformation on Facebook, it had not done so as the company didn't want to cut into it's profits, putting money over the safety of it's customers. Company CEO Mark Zuckerberg would respond with a statement denying her accusations.

But then came more bad news in the form of a six hour outage of both Facebook and Instagram. While for most it was an annoyance, some small businesses have come to rely on Facebook for communication with their customers. Also affected were sets of Oculus VR headgear. The company would eventually offer an apology.  It's estimated that the company lost billions from this outage. Then on Friday, the company suffered another outage and once again Facebook and Instagram were down once more, another blow to it's reputation.

Facebook wasn't the only social media platform to face big trouble. On Wed Oct 6, there was a massive data leak targeting Twitch. Over 100 gigabytes of data was posted online on Wednesday October 6. This includes operational details that the company "fiercely guards," such as how many millions the top streamers made in revenue from broadcasting. "Aside from the salary details, the documents seems to contain the site's source code and even technical details for yet to be released products and platforms," Joe Tidy in an article on BBC News would say, adding if everything was confirmed it would be, "the biggest leak I have ever seen - an entire company's most valuable data cleaned out in one fell swoop." ThreatModeler founder and CEO Archie Agarwal would say of the data breach,"This is as bad as it could possibly be."

While there didn't seem to be any passwords included in the leaked data, it was listed as "part one," hinting there was more to come. Still, it is reccomended that Twitch users change their passwords anyway.

Tuesday October 5 was the release date of Windows 11. Six years ago, Microsoft was saying there would be only new installments of Windows 10. That has changed, and the company has launched a new version that promises to be "clean and fresh and simpler." If you're reluctant to change over to the new system, you'll have plenty of company. The list of machines the company says this version of Windows needs has been described as "ridiculously strict." In a review on PC Gamer, the writers thought Windows 11 had a few nice improvements, but nothing worth upgrading to the new system, and a number of reasons to wait. Officially, PC users have until October 2025 to wait. After that, Microsoft plans no more technical or security updates.

Sources: BBC News, PC Gamer, The Verge   

Bixyl Shuftan
  

533 Million Facebook Users Personal Data Leaked Online

 

Personal data from 533 million Facebook accounts was discovered to have been leaked online. The data comes from users from over 100 countries, "including over 32 million records on users in the US, 11 million on users in the UK, and 6 million on users in India. It includes their phone numbers, Facebook IDs, full names, locations, birthdates, bios, and, in some cases, email addresses."

The leak was revealed a few days ago on April 3 by chief technology officer Alon Gal of Hudson Rock, a cybercrime intelligence group. It was posted online on a hacking forum by someone, and "available to anyone with rudimentary data skills." Gal would post his findings on Twitter, "I have yet to see Facebook acknowledging this absolute negligence of your data." 

Facebook responded that the reported data was the same as that of a 2019 data leak, "We found and fixed this issue in August 2019." But as many people continue to use the same phone numbers and email addresses, the data could still potentially be useful for scammers and other online schemes.

The leak is being investigated by Ireland's Data Protection Commission, which stated they will work with Facebook to make sure it's claim is true. Joe Tidy of BBC News commented, "The database has likely changed criminal hands many times before now being offered for free."

Sources: Business Insider, BBC News, Twitter 

Image Source: AP News

Bixyl Shuftan
 

News And Commentary: No Plans For Covering US Election in SL This Spring

Over the past few days, there's been quite a bit of chatter on my social media in Facebook at Discord about certain political issues, notably the unsuccessful impeachment of US President Donald Trump. But there were also comments about President Trump's State of the Union Address and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's reaction to it. While results of the vote itself were more or less as expected, there was still no shortage of angry comments. There were both people expressing their fury at the President and those who voted for him, and the President's opposition and those who voted for them. 

Like Election Night 2016, I ended up reflecting for some time at the Texas State Capitol Building in Antiquity Texas (153/132/22), the closest Second Life has to Capitol Hill. While I had thought of covering the election some this spring, the frequency and depth of the anger I've been hearing has convinced me to wait a little longer. There's plenty else to write about in the meantime.

Perhaps a little time will help calm the angry voices ... hopefully. As a reader of American history, I am all too aware of what can happen when there is no longer an agreement to disagree. 

Bixyl Shuftan

Facebook Announces Upcoming Virtual World "Horizons"

 By Bixyl Shuftan

Today, Facebook announced it was in the process of making it's own virtual world: Horizons.

Today at OC6, we unveiled Facebook Horizon, a new social VR world coming to Oculus Quest and the Rift Platform in 2020. A culmination of what we’ve learned so far about virtual spaces and communities, Horizon is the first step into an ever-expanding world of connection and exploration where anything becomes possible.

... Starting with a bustling town square where people will meet and mingle, the Horizon experience then expands to an interconnected world where people can explore new places, play games, build communities, and even create their own new experiences.

With the announcement there was a youtube of a spokes-avatar showing off the place.



"Beyond our world, there's another world. And it's right here, on my face!"

"Horizon's filled with possibilities. We can play stuff, make stuff, fly stuff. ... Horizons isn't about rules or limits ... It's about getting out there and trying new things, making your mark, making friends ... And you can even build a world of your own. In Horizon, the world is your lobster. ... So come join us, a never-ending, ever-changing world beyond your world."

Horizons will be playable with Facebook's Oculus VR headset and controllers. It was not specifically stated that the virtual world would be playable without a VR rig.

Judging from the pictures, while there's things to do, including able to build things, and places to go, the Horizons is still very much in beta. The most obvious example of this is the legs for the avatars haven't been designed yet, so they just float over the ground instead of walking.

As part of their announcement, Facebook announced they would be closing Facebook Spaces and Oculus Rooms in one month, October 25.

The announcement stated Horizon would be open to play, in beta, "early next year" in 2020. There was a link for people to sign up for access to the currently closed beta.

Hat tip and image credit: Ryan Schultz

Bixyl Shuftan

FaceBook Hit With 14 Hour Outage

If you tried to get on Facebook yesterday but couldn't, you were far from alone. On Wednesday March 13, the social network was hit with an outage that made it not accessible to most of it's users. The disruption lasted for about fourteen hours, it's worst in over a decade.

Facebook announced the outage through another social network: Twitter, "We’re aware that some people are currently having trouble accessing the Facebook family of apps. We’re working to resolve the issue as soon as possible." The cause of the trouble has not been officially announced, though Facebook denied it was a Distributed Denial of Service attack. One NBC reporter stated the problem came from "overloaded" databases.

The problem was worldwide, and numbers in Europe and Asia are reportedly still having trouble.  Instagram and WhatsApp, which are owned by Facebook, were also down.

Reactions from people varied from people complaining they couldn't message to friends, to people poking fun at themselves that they had no idea what to do, to some wondering if this was a reminder about how many have become dependent on social networks. The last time Facebook was down for this long was in 2008 when it had 150 million users. Today, over two billion use it.

Sources: BBC, NBC, Twitter

Bixyl Shuftan

News in Brief

There has been quite a bit going on lately in Second Life and the Internet. Too much to go in-depth for all of them, and some have been around for a few days. So here's some of the stories, in brief.

Facebook Hacked: Last weekend, Facebook announced fifty million accounts had been exposed and vulnerable by a "security issue" due to a "vulnerability" in the social media app's code. Although Facebook's owner Mark Zuckerberg insisted the problem was fixed, others such as Virginia Senator Mark Warner called for increased regulation to protect the public's privacy and security.

BBC, Mashable, Mark Warner Twitter

Net Neutrality Lawsuit: The US Federal Government filed suit against California earlier this week over the state's Net Neutrality law. Despite 200 businesses and trade groups asking them not to do so, last December, the FCC voted to scrap Net Neutrality protections. Several states responded by setting up their own net neutrality protections, California's being among the toughest. In the lawsuit, the Justice Department charges California's actions are a violation of the Constitution. In response, one of the people who wrote California's protections charged that the state's law was written in response to the Federal Government abandoning it's obligation to help protect public access to the Internet.

Petition at Change.org , ars.technica, Washington Post , The Verge, 

Internet Throttling Has Begun:  Adding fuel to the fire behind the efforts of California and others trying to bring back Net Neutrality protections was a report written about last month that confirmed major Internet Service Providers were already throttling Internet traffic through Youtube, Netflix, and other places. Verizon is already in trouble for throttling the communications equipment used by California firefighters while they were working to stop wildfires.

The Humanist Report , Bloomberg , The Guardian

Leaving Behind One's Avatars In Their Will:  Blogger Ryan Schultz, who writes about Sansar and other virtual worlds, recently announced that he might have cancer. In response, he says he will be putting avatars he made in his will so they can still be used after he dies. While people interested can contact him inworld, he doesn't plan on leaving avatars that took a lot of time, sometimes money, to make to just anyone. (first update) (second update) (third update)

Hat Tip: Hamlet Au

Star Trek RP Worries: A virtual recreation of the USS Enterprise from Star Trek: The Next Generation was ordered taken down by lawyers from CBS, prompting worries from New World Notes' Hamlet Au that they might go after Star Trek roleplays in Second Life soon as well, despite an agreement several years ago.

Eurogamer, New World Notes, 

Second Life Sims Still Growing: In late August, the Newser noted that five of the past seven weeks then had seen an increase in the number of private sims. According to Tyche Shepard in Sept 23, the increases have been continuing "an additional 45 regions since 31st Dec 2017 , a 0.3% growth and overall the Total Grid has regrown to the the size it was in April last year." But a week later, he stated five sims had closed, bringing the growth back down to 40 sims and 0.2% .

Source: Virtualverse  Hat Tip: Daniel Voyager

Gossip/Slam Blog Owners Banned: New World Notes reported a couple weeks ago about the owners of a blog called "SL Secrets." The blog allowed anonymous users to make all kinds of claims about those they didn't like from copybotting to fat-shamming to catfishing to ageplay. From the point of view of content creators, it was a potential cause of lost revenue through charges of ripping off others in which the accuser would be completely unknown. The two co-owners were reported to have been banned by Linden Lab from Second Life citing violations for several sections, including 5.3 which Hamlet Au called "the nuclear option," stating, "We may terminate your Account if we determine in our discretion that such action is necessary or advisable to ... protect the rights or interests of Linden Lab, the Service community or any third party." More recently, the owners have decided to remake their blog to cover territory beyond Second Life, called "Virtual Secrets." The co-owners insist they're doing so to expand their coverage and not because of a lawsuit by Linden Lab to remove the "SL" part of their name.

Source: New World Notes

New Avatar Review Website. Some fans of furry avatars may remember "Second Life Avatar Review Files," or SLARF. It used to have a large database of reviews of furry avatars, but stopped updating in 2015, and is now accessible in the Internet Archive after being taken down from the net. Blau Rascon is now doing a new blog of avatar reviews: The "Second Life Avatar Index." Already, there are several reviews of recent furry and feral avatars.

Second Life Newser Reaches 700 Likes on Facebook

Second Life and Facebook are sometimes at odds. such as when the latter insists those who use both can't use their avatar names (though if they include some real-life information, the moderators may let a pseudonym slide). But it's so widespread and otherwise convenient, a lot of SL residents use it. They post pictures, vent about drama, and of course see what the SL Newser has to say about goings-on in the Grid. A few days ago, we received our 700th like on our Facebook page.

So keep on reading, and if you haven't given us a like before, go ahead and do so.