Linden Lab is pressured from all sides. They are being sued (along with ten Internet Service Providers) by French parent-teacher group Familles de France. Their Terms of Service have been found to be legally unenforceable by Judge Eduardo Robreno. German TV News Magazine Report Mainz has raised a scandal about Second Life and child pornography.
Linden Lab is on the back-foot, and struggling to find a place where it can meet these varied legal and media challenges. In positioning itself to meet these potential threats, fresh conflict has broken out on a new front, Second Life's own resident population.
The week before last, Robin Linden (aka Robin Harper - Vice President, Community Development and Support) instructed Daniel Linden (Daniel Huebner - Director of community affairs) to post Linden Lab's new policy on various matters of unseemly, excessively sexual/violent and 'broadly offensive' content. That posting has become famous throughout Second Life and the attached blogosphere.
Despite protestations by Daniel and Robin that the policy presented presents "no new policy", it directly contradicts the published Community Standards, as well as most of the statements and discussion of recent weeks regarding the (now forgotten) Adult Content flag. Whether it is new policy or not, however, Linden Lab obviously feels it is necessary policy. Certainly nobody I've spoken to seems to feel that Linden Lab would be doing this if they didn't think it was necessary.
And that's where it comes in to conflict with Second Life's Residents. Statistically, there must be some Resident support for the new policy, but it has not yet been made manifest. Reactions have been overwhelmingly against the announced policy, and over a thousand residents have formed and joined protest groups, and written scathing commentary.
Daniel Huebner: "The Community actively defines what is and is not acceptable in Second Life by providing feedback to Linden Lab via Abuse Reports, blog commentary, forum discussion, and other communication channels. Linden Lab sets standards and acts in-world according to the expressed wishes of the Residents."
The Community apparently is actively defining and expressing that now (and with increasing volume), and it seems pretty clear that they do not agree with the measures that Linden Lab feels are necessary. Can Linden Lab even back down on this, however?
Linden Lab would never have taken this step if they didn't feel they must do so. Is it possible for them at this point, to step away, and take their hands off the wheel, and claim common-carrier immunity? It may not be, at this stage.
That seems to leave them in the awkward position of risking further tort-liability by increasing the amount of editorial control in resident content activities and enterprises. Imposing increasing limitations on user-generated-content, against the wishes of those users, and making additional law-suits from third-parties look increasingly attractive.
Free-range, user-generated-content. Is that experiment over until the time that third-party, personal grid servers become available to the public?
Other virtual worlds and would-be competitors are looking to Linden Lab to see how they deal with this. If Linden Lab does not feel safe with user-generated-content, you can bet that no other competitor will either.
If Linden Lab doesn't support your freedoms (either because they won't, or they feel they can't), then essentially no other virtual world business will either. At least, not for very long - long enough to hook you in, perhaps, but likely no further.
Volenti non fit Injuria - "To the willing, no injury is done"
1. "United Nations Declaration of Human Rights" would be a good place for them to start in the context of a (*GASP*) global internet.
But yes, they do seem painted into a corner... Kind of noticed that they are the ones with brushes and paint. Hope they didn't buy them on eBay...
Posted at 2:51AM on Jun 9th 2007 by Nobody Fugazi