Access To Adult Regions Removed In Mobile Viewer

 

 The Newser has yet to go through all of the video of the Community Roundtable meeting (we are very busy). But we have heard one detail that will affect those of us who either already use or plan to use the Mobile Viewer. Access to Adult sims has been blocked on it. The reason for this is because of the Apple Store and Google Play requirements concerning content. The Lab does say they hope this can be changed in the future. 

More on the issue later.

Hat tip: Daniel Voyager, Inara Pey

Flickr Limiting Adult Images To Paid Accounts, Limits on Private Images

A number of Second Life residents, notably content creators, have plenty of images on the Flickr photo service. So some may be affected by a couple changes last week, announced in the Flickr blog.

Today we’re announcing some upcoming changes to our Terms of Service that will help us continue to preserve the art, expression, history, stories, and memories of all Flickr members for the next hundred years. These changes fall into two distinct buckets, and will affect Flickr free members.

The first change is that adult images, or "restricted or moderate content," will be limited to paid accounts, or Flickr Pro members. And those with free accounts can no longer upload them without risk of deletion. "Moderate" is defined as partial nudity, such as bare breasts and bottoms. "Restricted" is defined as full-frontal nudity and sexual acts. It's up to users to label pictures as such. If a Flickr moderator finds a picture they see as incorrectly labeled, an account 's rating may be changed so it's not defined as safe.

The second change has to deal with pictures that can't be seen by just anyone, but are restricted in who can view them, or "non-public photos." Flickr is now limiting free accounts to fifty pictures with restrictions on who can see them. Those who have more without upgrading to a paid account risk having pictures deleted.

We love being entrusted with your photos—but we love seeing them get discovered, added to groups, and submitted to photo competitions even more. We’d never turn you away if you just want a safe place to store a lifetime’s worth of images, you’ll just need a Pro membership to do so.

Flickr Pro costs $8.25 USD per month, or $6 a month when billed annually ($72 a year), or $5.54 a month with a two year plan ($132.96 for two years).

Bixyl Shuftan
 

China To Restrict Children and Teens' Video Game Time to Three Hours A Week

 

On August 31, it was reported that by order of the national government, Chinese game players under 18 would be limited to playing video games to three hours a week. This time is limited to Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, at one hour each day. This law replaces an earlier one that limited game time for minors to 90 minutes a weekday.

The reasons given for this action by the Chinese Communist government depend on who one asks. State media has reported concerns about videogames being "spiritual opium" harmful to the young. But it's widely believed the law is not so much about protecting the young but controlling what they see and hear, as the Chinese government is increasingly concerned about Western influences on children.

In the recent past, some in the gaming industry have gone through great lengths to appease the Communist government, such as when Activision-Blizzard was quick to ban a Hong Kong gamer who made a brief statement in support of protestors.

Sources: BBC News, foreignpolicy.com, Washington Post, 

Image credit: Kotaku

Bixyl Shuftan
 

News and Commentary: More on Youtube And COPPA

Youtube has long been a staple on the Internet. It was a place that people could post videos, as long as they weren't porn or graphically violent, for friends and anyone else interested in watching. Over time, there were changes. There were the ads, there was monetization, there were the takedowns of videos that were seen as infringing of copyrights, and others. But one recent change has scared many video makers: the new rules concerning COPPA. Second Life music video maker Nydia Tungsten ended up removing most of her videos as a result, and many others are doing or considering doing the same. So why are they worried? The new rules in question are just too vague to trust.

Read the commentary in Extra.

"The Poultry Report" Second Life Blog Moving Due to New Blogspot Policy

Bay City residents are familiar with Uccello Poultry, or "Uccie" as she's commonly called. Besides being involved in local activities, such as her recent winning of the title "Miss Bay City," she also runs a blog about various things and doings, mostly about Second Life, "The Poultry Report." Adult content is part of her postings, such as the weekly "Topless Tuesday" posts. Unfortunately, such content is affected by a new policy of Blogspot, or Blogger, on which her blog runs. Starting March 23, all blogs that run under Blogspot that contain sexual content such as nude pictures or videos with bare breasts and sex organs or sexual activity will be listed as "private." This means they can been seen only by the blog's owner, or those with whom he or she has actively shared it with. This means that "The Poultry Report" would suddenly have a much smaller audience.

Rather than take down the "Topless Tuesday" and other nude pictures, Uccello made the decision to move her activity to a new location. Following her entry on Wednesday February 25, "The Poultry Report's" new posts will be at https://poultryreport.wordpress.com/.

Perhaps it is easier to objectify bare chests on women than it is on men and likely this will always be so. It is an erogenous zone, after all. And as much as I decry the inequality between men and women on this issue ... I can understand some of the reasoning behind Blogger's policy change. I can't help wonder, though, if Google/Blogger will crack down on violent images. Which is more harmful ... a picture of a woman's breast being caressed or one being carved at with a knife? Frequent exposure to anything will desensitize a person to the stimulus it provides. ...  Frankly, I'd rather see more breasts  ... Since my efforts with The Poultry Report have to been focus on Second Life I'll abstain from delving into the nanny state concept behind all of this. Perhaps I'll tackle it in the future if I can find an SL tie-in.

The Second Life Newser also uses blogspot as a platform, but as the publication has a "workplace safe" policy, Blogger's move will have no effect on who can view it. 

Hopefully, Uccie's blog will do well at it's new location.

Bixyl Shuftan

Commentary: Should SL 2.0 Allow Adult Content, or Not?

By Bixyl Shuftan

When Linden Lab created Second Life, when they imagined what people could build, they were thinking landscapes and buildings. When imagining what people would do, they were thinking clean fun and educational places like the Sci-lands. If it came as anything but a complete surprise that people were making animations to simulate sexual intercourse, skins with nipples, and genitalia, the Lab wasn't talking. The Lindens have made efforts concerning sexual content before, such as the creation of the "Adult" rating and the Adult continent Zindra. For a time, residents were required to provide an ID number of some kind, such as a drivers license, in order to travel to adult rated places. But many residents reacted in alarm to the later and suspicions of the former, accusing the Lab of plotting to enact censorship. Soon the requirements for "adult verified" were relaxed.

In a sense, Linden Lab's upcoming next-generation virtual world that has yet to be officially named, which we'll call SL 2.0 for simplicity, allows the company a fresh start. It allows the company to take it's experiences from running Second Life, and using them as a guide in building and setting the rules for it's sequel. Some issues however, not everyone agrees on. Adult-rated content is among these issues.

Hamlet Au did a recent commentary on the matter, expressing the opinion that despite that a number of graphically violent games are in the works to be compatible with Oculus Rift and other VR technologies, Linden Lab should take the opportunity for a new beginning with SL 2.0 and bar adult content of a sexual nature. In his opinion, allowing it would keep the new virtual world from acceptance and use by the mainstream American public. He brought up a recent article branding Second Life as a sexual deviants' playground. As it turned out, the locations and incidents the writer referenced were from years ago. But in Hamlet's opinion, that doesn't matter, "Once that kind of content is out there in the social media ecosystem, it's impossible to retract, and thus becomes indelibly associated with the brand, with no way to disentangle it."

Responding to people who say the problem is just with a few socially conservative fuddy-duddies. "While conservatives do tend to be uncomfortable or offended by depictions of virtual sex for moral reasons, liberals also tend to find virtual sex offensive (especially that which seems misogynist and/or violent), or failing that, ridiculous and worthy of mockery. (During the Second Life media backlash, much of the negative publicity over sex in SL came from left-leaning media outlets like Gawker.) So it's a perfect storm of no-win bad publicity."

Hamlet felt SL 2.0, and other new platforms, were better off staying clear of sexual content until the American public can "first understand the full range of what's possible in a VR-powered world." An effort he admitted would take "many years."

There are a number of counterpoints to this opinion. One is the Libertarian persoective: the fewer rules the better (with the possible exception on dealing with griefers). Others feel censoring sexual content from all of SL 2.0 would end up discouraging creativity even in other fields. It's also been brought up that juvelile personalities will find ways around such restrictions, such as creating nude "mods," and even animations, for characters on popular games and posting them on youtube. For instance, it didn't take long for the writer of this article to find youtubes of mods allowing nudity and sex on Skyrim games. Plus, companies were investing in Second Life despite the stories early on about sexual content.

Another counterpoint is how would such restrictions be enforced? The adage "nothing sells like sex" has some truth to it, as evidenced by the ammount of sexual-related goods out in the market. Restrictions against it could simply mean only the quality of such content takes a hit. Plus creators of such content could use alts to get around any ban from the Lab. Of course Linden Lab could solve the problem by restricting content creation to a select licensed few that they could carefully watch. But such limitations on content creation in the new virtual world would have a much more chilling effect on SL 2.0 than any ammount of giggles and mockery from the less mature of the public ever would.

Ultimately the decision is up to Linden Lab. But what do you the readers think? Please share your thoughts below.

Bixyl Shuftan

Flickr Posting Has Little-Known Restrictions

The Flickr photosharing service is very popular among Second Life residents. Many use it to record pictures of Second Life events, such as Daniel Voyager's screenshots of the "One Billion Rising" event last week. But how often do people think about it's rules. That one doesn't use it to post images showing graphic sexuality and violence is obvious, or copy others without giving credit. But as it turns out, there are others not that many are aware of.

Iris Ophellia found out about Cory Edo, a builder and the owner of a furniture store whom ran afoul of Flickr's management. They restricted her account and a number of images were blocked. Unable to "get a straight answer from support after two requests," she checked the Flickr forums, and found "it's not enough to not link a sales site - you can't have pricing, you can't link to your blog."

As Iris pointed out, rules "that almost every other designer, blogger, and photographer in SL" are breaking because they "aren't exactly shared openly by Flickr to begin with."

Cory wrote details on her Plurk account, "and if you get a notice from support about your account, don't bother asking them for details b/c they just give you a c/p response that doesn't clarify any of the above additional stipulations ... keep in mind this is what the forums people on Flickr are telling me, its not in the TOS, I was told to respect the 'ethos' and I guess figure all this out myself. ... I was told that linking to my wordpress blog (that I do not sell anything from directly) was still advertising. Bloggers usually link to the stores that they're featuring, sooo ... "

Cory got some feedback from other Flickr users, Damien Fate commenting, "Well I only use flickr FOR advertising, and I pay for a pro account. If that's not allowed then their loss, I'll remove my pro subscription." Luna Jubilee wrote, "This comes up and around through the sl community every year or so ... flickr reserves the right to remove that photo or set ... up to your entire account. with or without warning." Daphne Klossovsky wrote, "Yeah, we had this problem before too. Someone flagged something and the mods also flagged us for commercial. So I just deleted all text (we don't have prices on our posters). They seemed satisfied with that, But I don't see why you can't link to your blog."

Cory made the decision to go from a pay to free account, "I've just been contacted by another Flickr user (not support) who offered to tell me the secrets of what violates Flickr's TOS and I don't even care. I'm dropping the Pro account and deleting most of the pix ... if I'm paying a company I expect to talk to their support and not a bunch of self-righteous hall monitors in their forums. ... I've gotten the impression they barely tolerate SL users in general, again that whole 'we're a real photography site' attitude. ... "


So what to do? Ophelia wondered if Second Life residents should start looking for alternatives, mentioning "Tumblr" and "Pintrest." One of the people responding to Cory wrote, "I used photobucket before SL...but then switched since flickr was where everyone was hosting." As Ophelia put it, "But unless there is a major shift in where the SL community at large wants to be, most of us will probably cling to Flickr for as long as possible, even if the service is ill suited for our needs."

Sources: Iris Ophelia's NWN article, Cory Edo's Plurk

Bixyl Shuftan

Mesh Uploading Ability to Require Safeguards

With Mesh being much-anticipated by many, people talking about it’s potential to change Second Life, some have been wondering what the catch is. There have been some whispers that Mesh would mean the end of the usability of Viewer 1-based viewers. But only just now has Linden Lab explained. There are a couple conditions needed to enable Mesh on one’s computer on the Second Life Wiki.


“In order to prevent usage of intellectual property with the mesh upload tool, prior to uploading a mesh with a Mesh enabled viewer, 2 checks will occur before the user will be allowed to upload. The first check will be to verify payment information is on file and the second is a chance to educate the user with a short tutorial. After the user completes the tutorial, they will be enabled to upload content. “


So in order to use Mesh, residents essentially need to identify themselves to the Lab in case someone protests his intellectual property rights are being violated. And if Linden Lab feels there’s a problem, “user can be indefinitely flagged as not mesh enabled.”

Second Life has had problems over intellectual property before. Last November, the Lindens cracked down on Battlestar Galactica roleplay groups after Universal Studios, which owns the copyright to the TV show, complained. Although one can already reproduce copyrighted items in Second Life, Mesh with it’s promise to revolutionize content creation would presumably make it much easier. And there are some hints of such potential. One of Second Life’s readers sent us a screenshot of what was presumably the Mesh grid. The picture shows likenesses of World of Warcraft characters Deathwing, the Lich King, and others. Pictures like this would certainly make Linden Lab’s lawyers nervous.

Both Hamlet Au and Tateru Nino commented on the issue. Hamlet Au saw two problems, that most builders and scripters on the Grid don’t legally copyright their products, and that “3D files often have a dubious or ambiguous IP rights provenance. For example, when Linden Lab announced that mesh was coming back in 2009, the company's own demo included a sculpture of the Incredible Hulk.” Tateru felt that this would mean free account builders would "have to get payment information on file or be unable to upload arbitrary mesh objects, period."

Naturally, there were a number of comments by readers. One commented to Hamlet, “This is one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard,” feeling all it would do was hassle content creators. Another commented the more he read about Second Life, “the more I feel Linden Lab is spying on its customers.” But there were others whom could understand the Lindens’ viewpoint. One of Tateru’s readers wondered if this would put nonwestern builders at a disadvantage, “In many countries outside the western world the use of credit cards is not that common.” Another commented, “Someone opened Pandora´s Box with Mesh Imports and now this someone struggles to control it. Good Luck with it.”

Tateru put it appropriately when she commented Mesh’s potential was matched by it's potential for trouble, and “Balancing the two interests is going to be tricky.”

Sources, Second Life Wiki, New World Notes, Tateru Nino,

Bixyl Shuftan