New World Newsfeed: FTC Virtual World Investigation Pushing SL Content Regulation? Seiler Says Seems Not So

Virtual World News: FTC Reporting To Congress On Virtual Worlds, Kids, And Explicit Content

Last week, Joey Seiler, editor of Virtual World News, reported an interesting recent meeting he had with two lawyers with the Federal Trade Commission, an independent agency of the US government tasked with consumer protection. The attorneys talked with Joey as part of an investigation spurred by this appropriations bill passed last March [.pdf link], which asked the FTC to "submit a report to the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations discussing the types of content on virtual reality sites and what steps, if any, these sites take to prevent minors from accessing content." Given the timing, I wondered if the Lindens' plans (announced last April) to regulate explicit sex and violent content in Second Life might have been influenced by these government moves. I checked this possibility with Joey; was Second Life a topic of the lawyers' conversation?

"The attorneys I spoke with pointed out that some of the issues within Second Life (or, as I pointed out, the media's take) had prompted the discussion in Congress, [and acknowledged] Linden is taking proactive steps to keep adult content away from minors," Joey told me by email. "They just mentioned Second Life as an example that had come up in all the [media] coverage." However, he added, "[M]y sense is that the Lindens are guiding the FTC more than the FTC is pushing the Lindens to act -- at least as far as the specifics go. People have been talking about impending government regulation ever since the hype started to build for virtual worlds, so this sort of move was relatively easy to see coming, and I think Linden is just planning accordingly." (My own sense, for what it's worth, is the Linden "Adult" regulatory moves are motivated more from commercial concerns, than governmental.)

In any case, Joey tells me he pointed the good lawyers away from Second Life as a central concern:

"For what it's worth, I also steered the conversation in other directions," as he puts it. "I personally think that a) there's no bigger issue with explicit content and minors in virtual worlds than elsewhere on the Web and b) that if there is, it's going to be more prominent in teen worlds where under-13 users are making their way in. I.E., there's a lot more explicit content on the Web than in virtual worlds, which are following all the rules that others play by, and I just don't think that many kids are trying to find porn in Second Life.

"That said, the issues [the FTC attorneys are] concerned with are more along the lines of age verification than straight out moderation. I.E., preventing access by minors rather than preventing the content, so Linden's moves are pretty in line with what they're looking at. And, just as background, that'll probably inform their investigation. They're starting from square one (we kicked around definitions for 'virtual worlds' for a while), so any existing attempt at self-regulation will probably be taken into account."

I'm interested to see what findings they arrive at, and whether the number of Obama Administration advisors and staffers already involved in virtual worlds have to contribute to that conversation.

Comments

[Nyoko Salome]

fascinating... yes, most of the top is something i sorta anticipated. the lab (and for that matter, slEx/xStreet) have for awhile kicked around their pg/mature regulations; i know 'cuz i've had to deal with it myself, long before the latest regulatory stances. (and although i have somewhat explicit product pictures, my products themselves, for the most part, are rather innocent in and of themselves.)

leaving all that behind, i could easily provide right now (lol! ;0) more than a handful and toes-full of websites that provide extremely, extremely explicit-to-gross images right off the bat, with little more than an index page with an 'over 18' button (most can be bookmarked of course past their confirmation index page).

contrast that with second life... well, if that's what you're looking for, then literally, -you're gonna have to look for it-... and even when you arrive, lol likely those explicit images are gonna be grey/underrezzed (heck, underrezzed images look like blurred 'censored' images anyways ;0).

but in contrast - a website (outside of a malicious phishing-style site) won't ask for your real first name, or where you live. (unless, say, using that 'plurk'y site you just wrote up hamlet?) second life, on the other hand, -does- provide that opportunity. hence, the 'stalker' angle on its access and population... :\

hmmm no easy solutions; just thoughts. as someone else said in forum, basically i can't really 'rebel' against an unfair practice that really hasn't gone into practice yet (and especially a practice the lab itself hasn't fully figured out). let the implementations roll first, and see how it falls out. there's plenty of aclu-ers and eff-ers around in here to watch the backs of everyone. it's not going to be a tree falling silently in the forest.

[Nyoko Salome]

p.s. "contrast that with second life... well, if that's what you're looking for, then literally, -you're gonna have to look for it-... and even when you arrive, lol likely those explicit images are gonna be grey/underrezzed (heck, underrezzed images look like blurred 'censored' images anyways ;0)."

and that being on a grid that affirms you are over 18 in the first place - by TOS doesn't it?? so yes, i find the rest of this shtuff going on this year (to further delineate pg/mature/adult) as very unnecessary. just to say that much so...

i would further wonder if there was an easier way where the lab could have more enforced age-verification upon mature plots that needed as such; perhaps that's a 'search' they can't easily do out of just pg/mature plotting, so they need to further separate it. perhaps also, by doing so, it incurs a 'psychological' effect in landowners to reassess their prims and mark themselves appropriately (the previous add-on of age-verification was a rather 'soft' change, as i remember it).

again, not any grand proclamations... just thoughts. :) i've friends out there who seem to be panicked by all this, and yet i just don't seem to think or see that it's all that much to get themselves bunched up over...

[Adric Antfarm]

Someone has been feeding the other blogs tainted corn while Hamy went out to eat and got his own.

kudos

[Ann Otoole]

Indeed when dealing with an agency empowered to both make and enforce regulations you want to lead by example and best practices instead of the subject of an enforcement activity.

[Amy Pritchard]

I spoke at length yesterday with the two lawyers from the FTC as well. Because I am an attorney myself, our conversation had a slightly different bent than that with Joey.

First, I agree that the Lindens are moving adult content to a separate area as a commercial move, rather than a reaction to potential governmental action. I said as much to the lawyers yesterday morning.

The focus of our conversation was if there were virtual worlds with explicit content that regularly allow access to children. It really felt like a fact gathering mission to me.

I asked them to define "explicit" and it included "descriptions of graphic sexuality and violence", which really is casting the net way out. The lawyers told me they had to include this broad definition because in all honesty they were not finding what Congress directed them to find.

There isn't a dirty secret VW that is known to entice little kiddies in to experience graphic sex and violence. It just doesn't exist and I think that was surprising to the government. Yes, there are incidents here and there and certainly some VWs are less vigilant in protecting their content from the under 18 set, but nothing on the magnitude that certain members of Congress were thinking (or hoping) they would find.

I asked and was told that the FTC recommendation would be NO new laws or regulations be passed at this time. It seems they believe those in place are currently sufficient. Obviously that will change someday, but I take that as an excellent sign that at least for the FTC, they think the VW Industry is doing a pretty darn good job of self regulating.

--Amy Pritchard
CEO, Metaverse Mod Squad

[Toxic Menges]

This is exactly what the UK moderation community did when we got wind of the UK Gov starting to look at moderation and child safety online. We started a task force with the gov, and came up with our own best practice that the gov then took on and accepted.

I think LL are doing this be proactive and ahead of the field, but agree that there is a commercial clean sweep exercise going on as well (not that I disapprove - it's their sandbox, and bill payer - they have to do what is right and good for them).