Adult content changes for Second Life part of a larger phased deployment
by Tateru Nino 
May 13th 2009 at 4:00PM
Filed under: Culture, Opinion, Second Life, Virtual worlds
Linden Lab held a "PG definition reach-out" session on Monday morning, as a part of its ongoing refit of content ratings in Second Life, the addition of an adult rating and an adult continent and so forth.
One of the more curious things about the session is that no discussion of the definition of PG actually took place. Maybe the title of the session was just misleading, or we were just a bit optimistic. A large chunk of the discussion involved basics that have been rehashed over and over. Skins don't count as photorealistic nudity, for example, but there are a few interesting takeaways, nonetheless.
Of particular interest is that the changes currently in progress only constitute the first phase of the changes. Linden Lab refers to future phases of the process. How much more there is to come is only alluded to.
The ratings PG and Mature will not retain those names going forward. When they are changing is uncertain, however. It is slated for the as-yet-unspecified "phase 2".
This is hardly surprising. Linden Lab's use of "PG" doesn't conform to the definitions commonly in use for the term anywhere in the world, and additionally clashes with the MPAA motion picture ratings trademark of the same name.
General Counsel, Marty Roberts: "In phase two, we will probably change what we call PG and M to something that's more descriptive. We're happy to take any suggestions that you have. AO is pretty obvious [Most Second Life users would immediately think of AO as Animation Overrider, rather than the intended Adults Only -- Tat], but M and PG, what we mean by it are unique to Second Life. And so we want to come up with new phrases to describe. So that will be part of phase two and that, believe it or not, involves a technical change that's not as easy as it might be."
Linden Lab also acknowledges that it's fairly easy to verify your account with information that is not your own, but it's mostly acknowledged as a fact of life. It isn't something that can be fixed online any more than in the physical world, where such things appear to be fairly rampant.
So, while age-verification will put a speed-bump in the process, it mostly keeps honest people honest. Minors intending to deceive the system can likely do so as readily as any other age-verification system that exists, in Second Life or anywhere else.
As for Linden Lab's secret list of words that will prevent results from appearing in non-adult searches, the Lab is unwilling to indicate what benefit keeping the list secret will have for either users or for the Lab. As it is, any suitably motivated user can obtain the current list by launching a simple dictionary probe against the search-servers, and can likely obtain a current copy of the amorphous and evolving list far faster than Linden Lab could provide one, even if they were willing to do so.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Crap Mariner said on 4:12PM 5-13-2009
Maybe they pulled the banned words list when they realized it matched most user and staff passwords?
-ls/cm
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TigroSpottystripes Katsu said on 10:07PM 5-14-2009
is your password too small? Xp
Madeleen said on 5:17PM 5-13-2009
This change is just a hornet's nest waiting to be awakened.
No matter what they change the rating system into, it will look just as it does to me...a mass devaluation of Mature land. It is catastrophic in a land market that is already in violent flux.
It also looks as if LL is intending to create a run and inflated bubble over the new adult land.
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Ssieth said on 5:35PM 5-13-2009
These content filters rather miss the point, as always, trying to us a very broad-base to ban various content mixes. What they fail to realise is that what is culturally acceptable for a teen or minor in culture is vastly different to another. So - relatively heavy violence is tolerated in the US whereas Euro audiences might balk at that but consider a great deal more nudity or sexually explicit material to be acceptable. Surely a sliding scale on aspects such as sexual content, violence etc would be better and let everyone get exposed to as little or as much as they were comfortable with...?
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Magmarius said on 5:52PM 5-13-2009
wow have fun with that.
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TigroSpottystripes Katsu said on 8:30AM 5-14-2009
so they really intend on keeping the name "AO" ?
Though, Adult Restricted would be bad too, Acount Verified would also not be good...
Hard Core might not conflict with a common abbreviation, but some people might be offended to be considered or have their stuff called Hard Core just because it isn't for minors...
hm...yeah...it's not that easy...how about...X ? they don't use it anymore on any of the official ratings, do they? I remember reading they stoped using it because it became associated with the porn indust...oh, crap, this one might cause complains too...
Perhaps they will call Adult Only "Mature" in fase two, and call PG "Immature" or "Kiddie" or somthing...talking about "kiddie" I wonder if that word will be censored...
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TC said on 10:35PM 5-13-2009
Whatever the new ratings are called, I hope they don't recycle any old names. There are things like naughty bits that depend on the old PG flag to know when to auto-hide, and so on. The adult region flag has been out there, dormant, for a few years now. It's kind of amusing that it's only now come up that maybe those aren't the best names.
Adric Antfarm said on 8:21PM 5-13-2009
This makes the ranting angry people seem 47% less wrong now.
My defense had been "it's just the adult stuff" which is kind of weak when we hear of phases and the mention of body parts? I can honestly see a dress code. where they go around measuring body parts.
The part I don't get is what do they see in place of all this naughty stuff that is (for better or for worse) a huge chunk of the grid.
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DanielRavenNest said on 7:50AM 5-14-2009
The complete transcript of the meeting is at
http://www.slapt.me/wiki/index.php/Second_Adult_Definitions_meeting
The list of words that we tested and are filtered, and ones we tested that are not filtered are at
http://www.slapt.me/wiki/index.php/Adult_Content_Keywords
Anyone running the 1.23 release candidate at below the adult settings, or who goes the SL website search page at can try words for themselves and verify which are filtered and which are not. So it's pretty silly to not release the list, we can find out for ourselves.
At the same time as they are not releasing the list, they are also saying this:
"If a resident chooses to use adult words in their advertising - they will need to be on adult land." which is pretty hard to do if they won't tell us which words to use or not. (Source: http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=318980&page=105&pp=15)
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Tateru Nino said on 3:39AM 5-14-2009
Thanks for that. I didn't have a link for the transcript.
Tweed said on 11:26PM 5-13-2009
@ Adric Antfarm: If I remember correctly,according to LL, the naughty bits only constitute approximately 2% of SL content ^.^. My suggestion to replace PG and M would be Twee and Nudibranch respectively. Perhaps it's a personal bias, whatever.
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Adric Antfarm said on 3:06AM 5-14-2009
I can't speak for everyone Tweeder, but 2% seems low.
54.3% of the stuff I do is naughty on the grid. 92.5% of the stuff my alt does is naughty (total whore).
I will concede that my budget overall is slanted towards the big ticket items like 2000L buildings, 2500L Tardises, & 1000L guns and such but if you add the 500L here and there I am pretty sure me (and a lot of others) drop on things we don't need but make us randy- we are more of the economy than Linden wants to admit.
The problem with the puritans is they buy crap all. Sure, a WWJD shirt here and there, but they don't' buy their alt pretty skins and clothes to wine and dine so they can bring them back home. It's us patriotic peeps doing that to keep the thing going.
We care. We care a lot. Gotta run. Alt is calling me.
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Tateru Nino said on 3:42AM 5-14-2009
2-4% is supposed to be how much *mainland* content and activities Linden Lab believes will have to be moved to Ursula, and does not include any private estates.
And of course there's plenty of individual variation. I know people who are heavily into strongly adult activities and people who are never involved in it. Hmm. Maybe I should set up a poll.
Jay said on 4:21AM 5-14-2009
You should!
Do you have SL Naughty Bits?
( ) Yes
( ) No
Do you wear a collar in SL?
( ) Yes
( ) No
skribe said on 11:42AM 5-14-2009
News just in:
PG will now be known as EO, Easily Offended, and the M rating will now be known as P, for Pervert.
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Moe Greene said on 2:19PM 5-14-2009
AR is what the acronym should be.
As for the 2-4% number, that is insanely low. 15% is more like it on the mainland.
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TigroSpottystripes Katsu said on 10:04PM 5-14-2009
you think it would be good to mix restricted content (no, this can't be used either as it would mix with Release Candidate, which actually means public beta) with Abuse Report?
Nadine Neddings said on 12:32AM 5-15-2009
I agree; "AR" means "Abuse Report" in most SL circles. Though even that confusion would be far more acceptable than AO, since anyone older than a week associates "AO" with Animation Override.
Moe Greene said on 10:59AM 5-15-2009
Thank you for reminding me what AR is known as. I've avoided acronyms since leaving the military. :-)
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zedessex said on 3:47PM 5-15-2009
Once again Linden Labs is dealing with things way to late to be at all effective. Take a look at the grid and see how much land is for sale! Now stop and think if that many people want to get out of owning land is knowing where you can and cannot wear a prim penis really Secondlife's biggest problem right now?
Financial viability for people who create content is the only thing that's going to save SL. Move in that direction and the other problems will sort themselves out.
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