On the 8th of March we sought clarification for an ambiguous-seeming sentence at the end of a warning notice that was being distributed by Chadrick Linden. That sentence was:"Any account asserting an age that does not meet Second Life's minimum age of eligibility will be closed."
What we wanted to know was whether that referred to the claimed age of the avatar (particularly where it came to role-playing purposes). After all, it was pretty clear that the claimed age of the user was covered by this - but what about role-players, you know, role-playing?
We contacted Linden Lab's marketing and PR department and Catherine Linden got us a statement from Daniel Linden (Direct of Community Affairs). Daniel said in response (8 March):
"If you say you're under 18, you're not eligible to participate in Second Life's Main Grid. In the end, our responsibility to safely separate minors from the adult content found within Second Life is more pressing than the needs of an individual Resident to roleplay."
The phrasing still seems a little ambiguous, but seems to strongly imply that residents may not claim ages under 18 for role-playing purposes either. We thought that was more or less an end to that, however the recent coverage of Kindly High School, in multiple outlets, and Nobody Fugazi's recent interview with Sarah Nerd prompted us to ask again. That ambiguity was just nagging at us.
We submitted another press query, and after a couple of exchanges, we received a definitive answer from Robin Linden today (17 May):
"'If you say you're under 18' applies to the real life person. Child avatars are not a problem in themselves. You can say your avatar is under 18, just as long as your under-18 avatar is not engaged in lewd behavior."
We think that is clear and definitive. Quite a number of role-players (and I'm sure the folks at Kindly High School) will breathe a sigh of relief at that.
1. ok. So we're back to reality.
Posted at 9:22PM on May 17th 2007 by Nobody Fugazi