Linden: “No firm evidence” of wrongdoing at Wonderland
By Eric Reuters
SECOND LIFE, Nov 1 (Reuters) - Linden Lab said there’s no evidence that Wonderland, a sim at the center of a recent investigation into depictions of adult-child sex, violated Second Life’s rules over content.
“We have no firm evidence of wrongdoing from our own investigations into Wonderland nor from our Abuse Report channel,” said Lewis PR, Linden Lab’s public relations firm, in a written statement to the Second Life Insider earlier this week.
Second Life residents from the child avatar community began filing abuse reports about Wonderland as far back as July, said Tateru Nino of the Insider.
Child avatars, adults who role play much younger characters in the virtual world, have been at the forefront of combating pedophilia in Second Life, Nino told Reuters on Thursday.
“They stand to suffer the most,” Nino said, “either from people who wish to proposition them, or people who harass them (mistaking them for sexual ageplayers).”
Following a previous media investigation into sexual ageplay in Second Life by German television, Linden Lab said in May that “broadly offensive” content, including “depiction of sexual or lewd acts involving or appearing to involve children or minors,” would be banned in the virtual world.
It is interesting, that the TOS refer only to UK/US-law:
“Make use of the services in any manner which violates the laws of the United States of America or the United Kingdom”
…whereas Linden-TOS demand to obey potentially all jurisdictions:
“Those who choose to access the Service from other locations are responsible for compliance with applicable local laws.”
In the abovementioned jurisdictions ageplay is legal, as far as I know. In Germany it is not.
Wed Mar 12, 2008 1:03am PDT