Kirk says children at risk in Second Life

by Tateru Nino May 6th 2008 at 7:00AM

Filed under: News items, Opinion, Second Life, Legal

The Chicago Tribune is carrying a story about Congressional Representative Mark Kirk of the district of Illinois. Kirk alleges that Second Life "is a risk for children, who could be sexually exploited" and has written a letter to the US Federal Trade Commission, urging them to issue a consumer alert to warn of this danger.

We're pretty sure that Kirk isn't going to get that consumer alert.

Firstly, Second Life's age-verification process at registration for the adult grid (where minors are not permitted) meets the US Federal Trade Commission's standards for same. The verification process for Teen Second Life, where users of ages 13-17 are permitted (and adults are not) exceeds the FTC's standards for compliance.

It doesn't seem like Kirk will have a lot of luck getting his consumer alert issued, on that basis. Either he didn't do his research, or he did do his research and getting a consumer alert issued is not actually his goal in this case.

As for Second Life being "a risk for children, who could be sexually exploited", that seems like it could be a rather difficult chore. There is certainly some small percentage of minors on the adult Second Life grid, but they would be difficult to find.

Admitting that you are a minor is a quick trip to account-cancellation (indeed Linden Lab is traditionally trigger-happy on this issue), and statistically, the average Second Life user that you would encounter in the virtual world would be a female over 25 years of age, and quite likely in their forties.

If you can't actually find the minors, can you sexually predate them? We don't think so. Kirk admitted that he knew of no cases in which children had been targeted by sexual predators in Second Life.

Mark Kirk has had a notable career in politics including H.R. 810 (the Stem Cell bill), a number of environmental initiatives, strong support of various children and family issues and support for various forms of National ID Card.

Our initial impression is that this is some sort of stunt like unconstitutional gaming bans -- few people are willing to stand up and say that something touted to protect children is wrong, however harmful, expensive, misguided or unconstitutional it might turn out to be.

If you are a responsible parent, you should of course be supervising your child's online activities. That's just good parenting, but poor politics.

Tags: age-verification, chicago-tribune, legal, linden-lab, mark-kirk, opinion, second-life, teen-second-life

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Ghen said on 7:39AM 5-06-2008

Should've gone with a picture from star trek =)

Tateru Nino said on 7:51AM 5-06-2008

I very nearly did. I have one handy for emergencies.

Jay said on 8:44AM 5-06-2008

I liked the ABC channel 7 Chicago quote best "Children can take part in fantasy behavior on the Web site, including prostitution and drug dealing. "

SecondLie said on 9:21AM 5-06-2008

Apparently, Mark Kirk doesn't think LL's age verification measures aren't good enough.

Never mind that they are stronger than most RL measures in place for age verification, since Mark can't quite get that Real ID measure passed through Congress.

SL > RL, and a Congressional hypocrite whines.

Tateru Nino said on 9:27AM 5-06-2008

It appears that Kirk is up for re-election. Golly. Should have guessed that.

NekoAli said on 9:38AM 5-06-2008

No real surprise there. Someone looking for popular support, going after some only vaguely understood by the general populace thing that's had it's share of bad press and raising a battle cry of 'For the Children!' Me, I blame that devil music Rock and Roll. I'm sure Elvis swaying his hips is going to be the downfall of modern society.

Marianne McCann said on 10:00AM 5-06-2008

/me sighs

I can't *wait* for people like him to show Sky News footage as "proof" of children being solicited. You jes know he will.

Won't someone think of the virtual children? ;-)

And yes, this is election year pandering to his base. Toss out the standard verbiage about "protecting children" and "preserving family" to get your right-wing votes. Never mind what this guy might do the rest of the year.

This sort of thing has been going on for decades, from fears that waltzes would corrupt the youth, though the "Seduction of the Innocent" and the Comics Code, and so on. With Kirk's call, you just have to add an additional level of stupid to the mix.

So he knows of know cases of this happening, yet he's decided that it's an issue big enough for a consumer advisory. Spare me.

Toneless Tomba said on 10:46AM 5-06-2008

I love that Second Life is singled out. It is one of the few communities that actually do something to verify age other than choose your date of birth. Places like There has basically no age verification that I see.

Erbo Evans said on 12:13PM 5-06-2008

Kirk needs to go back to bashing Grand Theft Auto IV like everyone else...

Jacek Antonelli said on 12:13PM 5-06-2008

Phew, I'm relieved to hear that someone is finally thinking of the children! [/sarcasm]

Dedric Mauriac said on 12:41PM 5-06-2008

If anything, the consumer alert should only go to virtual parents who have virtual children (even though everyone is an adult behind the avatars on the main grid)

Sien said on 2:13AM 5-07-2008

It's no wonder that this sort of concern arises from a company that holds/sponsors an event every year where they pass out dildos, molest blow up dolls, and distribute XXX dvd's.

Stroker Serpentine is sponsoring the ball AGAIN this year. I can only imagine you will expect to see more of the same tasteless agenda with the same faces.

It looks like they are planning a big orgie:
http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/231881-post57.html

This event represents SL and this tells me that SL is all about porn, sex, and bad music.

Lina said on 12:33AM 5-08-2008

Kirk is a hack in many ways He brings up this kind of stuff to bring attention to him and its quite disturbing. Second Life is implementing age veriification for some of the more adult areas. Hey Kirky boy there is tons of free porn these kids can look at on their home computers In a school It's doubtful that they'd even have access to something like secondlife at all without circumventing the protection system on the networking of most schools the same goes for libraries as alot already have a security network to prevent certain things from happening Like installing application on the computer that dont belong there Yeah maybe they created an account but did they actually log into Second Life?........

If they lie about their age thats on them and you cant apply a consumer warning because some kid is a lying little twit. Also there is a teen version of Second Life designated for people 13-17 and if they lied thats their fault... I'm frankly sick of these politicians blaming game companies cuz these kids are all lying through their teeth.

How about instead of making a consumer warning you force parents to actually parent their children and teach them not to lie? There is no surefire mechanism for keeping children off of porn sites or anything as if they are inclined to lie on a simple birthdate question they are inclined to just ask their parents and sign up for whatever the heck service they want and their parents clearly arnt watching them so it ends up happening...

SecondLife has sex yes (the teen version doesnt so if the kids didnt lie there is 0 Sex) Also i think the whole notion that a teenager needs to be protected from all sexual exposure is absurd if you shelter them to much like this Kirk guy wants to they are going to end up having worse problems when they need to get out on their own. They will end up so socially inept that they wont know what is going on around them and this will lead to a bunch of people running around clueless.

If a teenager wants to be exposed to sexual things they are going to one way or another Kirky my boy.... They will either steal daddies playboys or girlie mags, their mom's lingerie catalog, or *gasp* actually go out and find a real girl and get her naked and have *gasp* real sexual experiences.

Sheltering them will only push them into doing it more and I think you'll find the parents that try and shelter their kids the most actually have more promiscuous kids then those parents that are open with their kids about sex and tell them how to behave responsibly. Its come to a point where our country is overly safeguarding everything for the "children" but this is only because parents are becoming lazy and the proof is right there in the fact that they think these safeguards are needed.

I worry more about people that agree with People like Kirk then parents that keep porn in reach of a teen really. I think our country needs to pull our collective head from our @$$ and start actually being parents to the kids again. Maybe that will solve things Hmmm? My point is that this does nothing the parents that have kids that are lying to get in a game like this probably already dont give a flying turd what their kids are doing, and this just pushes the kids to want to try it more because they know they arnt supposed to.

Removing it from schools and libraries like i said is Absurd. If these places ran like they were supposed to the computers would be policed and they would be asked to leave the premises (library wise) and as i said in most schools you cant download and install your own stuff let alone connect it properly without raising alarm or circumventing the system in place. So get off it Kirk this is a bunch of hogwash your using for reelection and its the same horse crap you try and feed to people constantly.

There is no real danger here short of distraction in school.

Silver said on 10:05AM 5-31-2008

Ah, the child molestation button - let's push that and watch everyone freak out - whee! and pass a bunch of tax breaks to oil companies while no one's looking.

The Republicans have an obsession with banning the possibility that something might happen, even if there is no evidence that it has actually occurred, even once. Take the voter fraud bill in Ohio, requiring photo ID to vote - there has never been a case of this fraud, and yet it MIGHT happen, so let's inconvenience everyone and keep those pesky liberals from voting.

And therefore, we'd better keep adults from doing consensual things online, because a child might possibly figure out how to install SL and get off of noob island (even though a large percentage of adults have difficulty with this) and find a virtual child molester among the hordes of residents, and while we're at it, we'd better lock our kids in small cages, because there's a possibility that something bad might happen to them, and it's SO much better if they never learn to defend themselves or watch out for creeps, like that Republican senator who was writing nasty letters to interns.

As a parent, I say we should ban all stories about children, too, because it means an adult was creating a child character, and the adult could have written something nasty and sexual into the story, even if they didn't.

Ganymedes1985 said on 8:37AM 6-01-2008

Living in Europe DOES have advantages! If anybody were to try to pass this over here, I'm sure he'ld be the scratchpost of the media and the public, and he'ld end up resigning out of shame... most of the time.