It may be all a big pre-emptive show but it will fall apart the moment some journalist actually _tries_ to find filth. Instead of this nonsense they should be preparing a case that they are not Club Penguin, do not have a stated responsibility to censor content to “protect” anyone and, yes, sometimes adults will do things which may seem repulsive but are perfectly legal. Every announcement like this makes common carrier status harder for them to claim and it is only that which will save them in the end (unless they lock down content creation which basically means bye-bye grid).

Now more than ever it’s apparent to me that it’s the most likely path to a 3D internet {which reminds me that I need to go re-read a post I saw yesterday regarding it and Google Gears}.

btw, here’s a thought: Sound/voice censorship. There’s a case going on right now involving a blind man buying “pornographic” sound clips on the internet.

Second Life is, as everyone knows by now, getting voice.

I’d say there’s still more room for expressive suppression – real or implied.

It was easy for LL to talk about open sourcing the server code when they weren’t turning a monthly profit. Now that they are, I’m sure there is significant pressure from some investors to rethink that strategy.

As for censorship by LL, that’s a really badly written post on their blog. I have no idea how to interpret it, especially in light of their soon to be implemented policy to flag adult content. I’m beginning to suspect the vagary with respect to what constitutes acceptable content is a feature and not a bug. The policy may itself be vaporware designed to scare off the worst offenders and keep borderline SL users looking over their shoulder.

Does that extend to authoritarian regimes, I wondered. Second Life is an international service, with more than half of its users outside the United States. Would Linden Lab cooperate with an official directive from, for example, China, ordering the company to turn over information on residents who’d used Second Life for dissident action?

It’s a decision Linden Lab will inevitably face if it achieves the kind of global penetration that it hopes to get.

Faced with the same decision, Yahoo decided to cooperate with China. U.S. lawmakers took Google, Yahoo, Cisco Systems, and Microsoft to task last year for complicity in aiding Chinese repression.

I asked what Linden Lab would do in that situation, and Rosedale thought about the question for a long time.

“Honestly, I don’t have an answer to that,” he said.

Rosedale doesn’t have an answer for whether or not he’d hand someone over for, say, making fun of a country’s ruler (which is why YouTube keeps getting blocked in places like Thailand)?

Imagine making fun of the Thai king inside Second Life (a real life crime), having your identity revealed to the Thai authorities and winding up in prison for 7.5 – 75 years, which is what the punishment is. And Linden Lab decides; with their decision likely influenced not by some sense of morality but by their business expansion plans.

That’s hardly how I believe the 3D internet will evolve.