May 12, 2008 -
Recently GamePolitics reported that Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) had called upon the Federal Trade Commission to issue a parental alert regarding online game Second Life.A local political blog has more, written from a decidely pro-Kirk perspective:
As usual, Congressman Kirk was extremely impressive... He began the interview by talking about his concern over the Internet alternate universe of "Second Life," which Kirk views as an uncontrolled and fertile ground for Internet predators due to insufficient age controls and restrictions.
A lot of people are paying attention to this important issue, and this week I have read numerous pieces, mostly on the blogs, that seem to be either strongly supportive of Kirk's efforts, or strongly against Kirk's stand. Among those who support Kirk are parents...
The ones who are critical of Kirk fall mainly into two camps: first, people who are either big fans of Second Life or similar games, or are somehow involved in the Internet gaming industry (and thus seem to be very defensive against what they perceive as government over-regulation); and, second, the usual anti-Kirk crowd who dismiss this as a political stunt.
Kirk spoke about Second Life on a local TV news program:
Parents should be worried about one of the fastest growing websites on the planet called Second Life. It's the next level up from MySpace, a fully interactive 3-D experience... I'm worried that they don't properly screen for children...
I contacted Second Life to say maybe we should have some minimum standards here but they responded by sending their $60,000 a year K Street lobbyist to tell me everything was okay...
GP: Who can argue with with protecting children from predators? On the other hand, we have to wonder how much of a problem this really is on Second Life. It's certainly not the most action-oriented game going and would seemingly have little attraction for younger players. Perhaps some of our SL-savvy readers will weigh with their thoughts on this issue.
Comments
IM'ing young interns
Playing Footsie in the men's room under the stalls.
Interns under the desk
Buying High Priced Hookers.
on and on...
Seems the Real Life political world is much worse than Second Life could ever be. That is - unless a bunch of politicians are playing Second Life.
All anyone needs to tell them is avoid females named Steve who ask for your address in the game, and to avoid blacked out vans with the sign "free candy" on the side in real life.
Calling this pandering impressive is ridiculous.
It's true that Alexa is not totally accurate at tracking stats (nothing is), but for a popular enough website it is still a reliable generic estimate to get from the people that use Alexa. You are correct that the SL website is not really used to experience SL. But you must still visit the site if you're a first time user in order to download the program. I guess the only reasonable conclusion we can draw from the stats is that the number of new SL users is decreasing steadily (and the SL community is still growing, but at a slower rate)
Second: Ha HA I make more than lobbyists do...
Third: Since when do kids use Second Life? I thought it was just politicians trying to catch a trend that ended years ago...
I know they get banned from both versions of SL but were to belive that theres more investigation involved and the possibility of having that information turned over to authorities if thers reason to suspect the adult was getting sexual with a teen.
LL has tried making Age verification mandatory for the adult grid but its met with heavy resistance from the userbase who is weary of continued verifications tacked on and wary of giving over their SSN or other important information to a 3rd party. Some of the stuff they want from the European nations is actualy illegal for them to give out online O.O
so yeah its a bit of a mess. But the only child preditation that I've ever seen go on in SL was between two adults, one or both pretending to be underaged.
Wait, the SL people can afford $60,000 lobbyists?? Seems like a waste if they are really spending that much on the moron.
Funny how a congress critter is complaining about lobbyists, but I bet we could find some interesting lobbyists he does support(I'm not going to bother looking them up).
Guess all the good "games" to raise a fuss over already got taken or the hyped over died off(GTA), and this was only one leftover for them to pick up.
And just like the internet and gaming in general, parents need to actively watch their kids and what they are doing. Reminds me of how the old "don't talk to strangers, or give them any of your personal information" bit still applies to todays online world.
The bottom line is a child predator in real life goes to where the kids are - he or she circles schools and parks. He or she does not hang out in the nursing homes or local bars where adults are. Why would a child predator do anything else just because it is a virtual world.
Kids are not supposed to be on Second Life, nor are they encouraged to go there by any sort of advertising. I am sure a few may find their way to Second Life, but because only adults are supposed to be there, I cannot imagine that Second Life would be a child predator's first location for finding kids to go after. The would be predator would have to spend a lot of time developing relationships with avatars just to be able to find out their age and even then how would they know for sure it was a kid. It could be an adult lying about their age.
However, if a child predator goes to the types of sites my kids go to that I mentioned above, the probability that the person behind those avatars is a kids is pretty high. I am surprised that no one has brought this up. Kirk in particular. I can't understand why he isn't more concerned about protecting kids from using those sites. Perhaps Linden Labs is an easier target than Disney. Good think Kirk wasn't in charge of deciding which public areas convicted child molesters could not live by. He would have them living next to the school, but miles from the local sports bar.
Many of the other commentators are right - the most important thing a parent can do is monitor their child's activity online, stay involved, and educate them about what is acceptable and what is not and how to handle someone acting inappropriately. Imagine that - teaching our children how to handle themselves in real life against the evils in our society.
Excellent observation.
Is any action by the FTC really constitutional in this case, seeing as no commerce is taking place?
I know essentially nothing of the law, but I think he may be trying to do this under the fact that lindens (second life currency) can be exchanged for actual currency and commonly is. How that would fit into the non-commercial parts of second life I don't know, but it might be a way to argue that second life is covered by the commerce clause.
I know we have a fair number of lawyers here in the comments, anybody want to explain this far better than me?
Not because it poses any risks, mind, just because it's so darn fugly.
You win the Internet for that comment.