Is Loki a pervert ?

It's been a while since I posted here. That is mainly because I had little or nothing to tell you. Linden Labs changed that last night by sending me an e-mail that made me wonder whether to laugh or cry.

Dear loki Popinjay,

This email is notification of action regarding your Second Life account,
loki Popinjay, for violation of the Second Life Terms of Service or
Community Standards. The violation in question occurred on August 29, 2008 in the region of Cannery Rezzable.

Violation: Community Standards: Broadly Offensive Content or Conduct

Real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depiction of
sexual violence including rape, real-life images, avatar
portrayals, and other depictions of extreme or graphic
violence, and other broadly offensive content are never
allowed or tolerated within Second Life.

Nude photo of young girl holding a teddy bear needs to be removed
immediately. Alternatively, you may cover up the nudity with photo
alterations.

Action:
No additional action is being taken at this time.

Appeal Process: The decision to suspend your Second Life access was
reached after investigation of your use of the Second Life software and
service. If you would like to appeal your suspension, you may contact
Second Life Support, in writing, at the address below:

Second Life Support
Linden Lab
945 Battery Street
San Francisco, CA 94111

You may also appeal electronically by filing a support ticket via the
support portal at http://www.secondlife.com/support/

Please provide relevant information that you believe would explain the
above violation. Linden Lab reserves sole discretion in considering
whether to take any action on a written appeal.


This is the picture in question:

'Virgo'

Now, you have to know this picture is part of the Avatar Zodiac series I made for SL5B where it was on display until the very last day. Without complaints. It's been on display at the Cannery for weeks now. Without complaints ... till now.

Avatar Zodiac at SL5B

Frankly, how stupid and narrow minded do you have to be to find this picture offensive? It is in no way meant to be sensual let alone sexual in nature and all "bits" are covered. Since it was meant for SL5B where strickt guidelines were enforced as to what would be allowed and what not I actually added some hair to cover a nipple.

Is it me who has the distorted view here? Ah well, guess that's what you get when you live in some "Sodom and Gomorrah" called Belgium where the government only this week bought a painting by James Ensor for the Arts museum in Ghent depicting not one but TWO completely naked girls for 2.8 million €.

'Kinderen aan ochtendtoilet' by James Ensor

What bothers me the most is the procedure LL seems to follow. Probably some redneck complained and LL takes action by ordering me to remedy the situation. Last I looked the correct way to act would be to check the complaint and if found correct at least give me a chance to defend myself. In this case I would be very surprised if the complaint was indeed checked and the above mail is surely not a question for my view on the matter. Even more so it states I get a chance to "explain the above violation". It is not even questioned if it actually IS a violation.

That said I don't like to be nailed to the cross for being a pervert. In my opinion this picture is not in violation of TOS. So I'm not taking it down until my time at the Cannery is up and I will protest the supposed "violation of TOS". Surely there must be a few Lindens with some common sense...

Oh, and to answer the titel: of course Loki is a pervert, just not this kind ;-)

UPDATE:

I just received this notice from Harry Linden:

Hi there,

Linden Lab has reviewed, at your request, a discipline action recently taken against your account.

Our investigation shows that the discipline was correctly applied.

If any further information is required, Linden Lab will contact you regarding this incident. Otherwise, please consider the matter resolved as no further communications will be sent.

Guess I was wrong about the common sense

Who's afraid of Linden Wolf ?

An awful lot has already been said and written about Daniel Linden's by now almost mythical blog post "Keeping Second Life Safe, Together". It came in reaction to a German TV report about child porn and sexual age play on the grid that raised more than a few eyebrows. I don't intend to rehash all the points made and questions raised already, but I do wonder what Linden Labs hoped to achieve with this blog post. Clearly they must have anticipated a lot of residents would be outraged and opposition would be fierce. The announcement was also deliberately vague. Who is going to define "broadly offensive and potentially illegal" in a metaverse that spans continents, countries, cultures, age groups and so on?

So I wondered "why did they do it and why this way?" Legally the statement by Daniel has no meaning and even then, according to what law? US law because they are US based? What about the rest of the world? Of course, by posting this blog they can say they tried to do something but still it doesn't hold water. At first I thought they were just trying to buy time while an army of lawyers was examining their options, but to me it's more and more clear they just can't regulate everything. Out with the lawyers... Did they do it to escape a bad rap in the press? I don't think so, there are far better ways to do that. Then why?

I think a perverse and frankly broadly offensive game is being played. It's called "scare tactics". It goes like this: first you make a vague statement people can and will be punished for certain actions you don't define properly. Next, watch how people who don't want to lose land, money, friends, whatever start to steer clear from what they think might be interpreted as "broadly offensive". Now ain't that grand! You don't have to tell people what they shouldn't do anymore. They will do it for you. So what's next? Close a few sims, ban a few people and make sure you properly reinforce the whole idea? I call that scare tactics and an easy way out to say the least.

Apart from this being intellectually very unfair, it is also a very dangerous game as it will not affect those die hards that will continue to peddle truly illegal content. They will just be a little more careful but in the mean time Joe Blow's innocent kinky fun is ruined.

Thank you Linden Labs.

My advice? Don't give in ... enjoy SL as you always have.