Second Life Newser: Furry Andy

Saturday, November 18, 2023

Music Video Maker Furrex Banned From Second Life

Over the years, the Newser has posted on Saturdays a number of music videos done in Second Life. Some of them were from a resident known on Youtube as Furrex, or Furry Alex in the past. But it looks like there will be no more. A few days ago, he released a video stating he had been banned from the virtual world. It included a picture of the email from Linden Lab stating they had "terminated" his access "due to severe or repeated violations of the Second Life Terms of Service or Community Standards."

Furrex stated in the comments (in Russian) that it was no secret he had been doing photoshoots or videos for payment, "... this has allowed me to improve the content of the channel. ... As far as I know, the platform rules do not prohibit doing this." He went on to state that he couldn't buy Linden dollars himself "due to restrictions in my country. Therefore, I used what seemed to me a legal method." Two days earlier, he had done a deal for a video for 30,000 Lindens "and within an hour I received an automatic ban."

(click here if the video does not play)

He would state at first he thought he broke something, and went to technical support. It was then he was informed of the ban, and asked what was his relationship with the resident who had given him the Linden dollars, "but it seems to me that the support didn’t even read what I wrote about, they simply ignored my words." He filed another appeal, and was told "that I also used some programs. I have no idea what programs can be used for SecondLife. I apologize for using Fraps and Sony Vegas 19." Fraps is a video program, and Vegas 19 is a video editor.

I will probably never be unblocked again. Also, I still have no idea why I got banned. I am not going to somehow bypass the blocking, register new accounts or use my second empty account, because I have always been an honest user and remain one to this day. ... Unfortunately, I can’t somehow influence this situation, I had a lot of new content prepared for you, ideas, avatars, animations, while I’m writing this, my soul is just crying ... It was something.

I just want to say thank you to all of you, you are the best and most positive thing that has happened in my life. It has been my absolute pleasure to create content for you. Each of my videos is a piece of my soul, this is what I felt at that moment, these were my thoughts, my mood, what I wanted to show. ... Thank you for the gift of emotions and the opportunity to express yourself. Over these 9 years, the content has grown very much in terms of quality and my individual experience, it would seem that now there would be something unreal, but, alas, it happens. Life doesn't always happen the way we want.

As Linden Lab doesn't go into why it bans people with others, we have only Furrex's explanation. Beyond that, we can only speculate. Over the years, the Newser has written about a number of people who were banned. Some such as zFire Xue the creator of Redzone clearly deserved it. There were others in which while a ban was understandable there could have been a warning instead such as when one young businesswoman used her mother's credit card to get Linden dollars. And then there were times such as when one hacked resident instead of having her account returned found it was banned and making another to rejoin her friends found that banned as well. A few years ago, the owner of Rainworx was banned for having a claw machine at her place. But after word got around, Linden Lab did a rare reversal and lifted the ban.

In any case, it looks like this is the end for Furrex's videos. He has some more we haven't shown, notably a few new ones, but he will be making no more, at least not in Second Life.

*Addition* I've heard some speculation that the reason for Furrex's ban was because of the sanctions on his country due to it's dictator's invasion of it's neighbor. It's also been speculated that the person who he did business with had gotten the money through less than legal means and somehow the music maker got caught up in it. What is known is that he crossed out "last video" in the Youtube's title and is continuing to make music videos. So it seems we'll continuing to hear more from Furrex.

Bixyl Shuftan